Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0891
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Garšana, a provincial estate center that supplied the royal court and military during the reign of Šulgi. It records a craftsman — a leatherworker named Ana-ah-ili (also written An-na-ah-ili), son of Saba — taking delivery of a modest batch of raw materials: lard, a gold-colored clay or gilding paste, and a measured quantity of brick, issued from the stores of an official named Iškur-illat. Such texts are routine bookkeeping, but together they reconstruct the supply chains that fed the workshops of a major Mesopotamian administrative estate nearly 4,000 years ago.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
The record notes that a supply officer named Iškur-illat issued materials to the leatherworker Ana-ah-ili, son of Saba: 5 sila (about 5 liters) of lard, 2 sila of a gold-tinted clay or gilding paste, and 20 mana's weight of brick. Ana-ah-ili signed for and received the goods. The transaction is dated to the month called 'Gazelle-Feast,' in the year known as 'the great barge was built' — a formulaic year-name used at Garšana under the Ur III administration.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine5 sila3 lard (i3-šah2), 2 sila3 gold-clay (gilding paste) (im ku3-sig17), 20 mana, weight of brick(s)/mudbrick (sig4) — from Iškur-illat, Ana-ah-ili received. Month: 'Gazelle-Feast' (maš-da3-gu7), Year: 'The great barge was fashioned' (mu ma2-gur8-mah mu-ne-dim2). An-na-ah-ili, the leatherworker (ašgab), son of Saba.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
5(disz) sila3 i3-szah2 2(disz) sila3 im ku3-sig17 2(u) ma-na ki-la2 sig4 [ki ]iszkur-illat-ta a-na-ah-i3-li2 szu ba-ti iti# masz-da3-gu7 mu# ma2-gur8-mah# mu-ne-dim2 an-na-ah-i3-li2 aszgab dumu sa2-ba
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0891. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CUNES 48-02-030 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322432). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.