Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0892
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Garšana, the estate-city that supplied the household of the general Šu-Kabta and his wife Simat-Ištaran. It records the withdrawal of leather goods — hides, bags, and a sandal — from the account of a man named Anah-ili, dated by month and by a royal year-name referring to the construction of a great ceremonial barge (Magur-mah), a formula best known from the reign of Šu-Suen. The seal impressed on the tablet belongs not to the famous general but to a different, otherwise obscure Šu-Kabta, described here as a physician, whose scribe Iškur-illat identifies himself as his servant.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a routine inventory receipt: one sheep hide of the qilpum type, one of the erina type, two dried leather pouches called tibala, and one sandal (the rest of that line is broken) were all taken out of storage — charged against the account of a man named Anah-ili. The transaction is dated to the month of Šešdagu, in the year that the great ceremonial barge was built. The tablet was sealed with the seal of Šu-Kabta the physician, son of Naram-ili; the seal legend names the scribe Iškur-illat, son of Abi'a, as his servant.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 sheep hide, qilpum-type, 1 sheep hide, erina-type, 2 dry leather bags (tibala), dried, 1 sandal [...], from Anah-ili, was withdrawn (disbursed). Month: Šešdagu. Year: 'The great barge (Magur-mah) was built.' (Seal legend:) Šu-Kabta, physician, son of Naram-ili; Iškur-illat, scribe, son of Abi'a, is your servant.
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
1(disz) kusz udu qi2-il-pu-um 1(disz) kusz udu e-ri2-na 2(disz) du10-gan ti-bala had2 1(disz) e-sir2 [...] ki a-na-ah-i3-li2-ta ba-zi iti ses-da-gu7 mu ma2-gur8-mah ba-du3 szu-kab2-ta a-zu dumu na-ra-am-i3-li2 iszkur-illat dub-sar dumu a-bi2-a ARAD2-zu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0892. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CUNES 48-02-010 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322412). 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.