Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0938
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Garšana, an estate connected to the royal household under King Šu-Suen (r. c. 2037–2029 BCE). The main entry records a quantity of goods or provisions issued as travel wages to a man named Anah-ili, dated by month and by a year-name commemorating the construction of the temple of the god Šara. Below the transaction is the legend of the cylinder seal that authenticated the document: it belongs to a scribe, Iškur-illat son of Abiya, who served Me-Ištaran — identified here as the beloved sister of King Šu-Suen. Tablets like this illuminate the everyday bureaucracy of a royal-affiliated agricultural estate, where even minor disbursements were sealed by officials in the service of the royal family.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A receipt records that one unit of 'ummu3' was issued as travel wages to a man named Anah-ili, in the month called Ubigu, during the year the temple of the god Šara was built — a year-name from the reign of King Šu-Suen. The document was authenticated with the seal of Iškur-illat, son of Abiya, a scribe in the service of Me-Ištaran, described as the king's beloved sister.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1(?) ummu3 (units) — labor-wages of the delivery — for Anah-ili. Month: 'u5-bi2-gu7' (Ubigu). Year: 'The temple of Šara was built' (Šu-Suen year name). [Seal legend:] Šu-Suen, mighty king, king of Ur, king of the four quarters: Me-Ištaran, his beloved sister. Iškur-illat, son of Abiya, is your servant, the scribe.
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)?] ummu3 a2 mu-kux(DU) a-na-ah-i3-li2 [iti] u5#-bi2-gu7 mu e2 szara2 mu-du3 szu-suen lugal kal-ga lugal uri5-ma lugal an-ub-da limmu2-ba me-isztaran nin9 ki-ag2-ga2-ni iszkur-illat dumu a-bi2-a ARAD2-zu dub-sar
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0938. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CUNES 48-04-017 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322531). 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.