Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 1273
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from the estate archive at Garšana, a provincial center that supplied labor and materials to the Ur III state around the reign of Šu-Suen. It records the delivery of building materials — poplar beams, bundled reed, and a large wooden or reed weir/frame structure over five ninda (roughly 30 meters) long — installed in the estate's orchard. A man named Akbazum, son of Abba, acknowledges receipt of these goods from an official named Iškur-illat, with the transaction dated by month and by the year-name commemorating the erection of a great stele for the gods Enlil and Ninlil at Nippur.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a delivery receipt: four poplar-wood beams, thirty bundles of reed, and one broad-tailed weir or reed structure — built in doubled fashion and five ninda long — were installed in the orchard at Garšana. The goods came from Iškur-illat, and Akbazum formally acknowledged receiving them. The transaction is dated to the month of the Mekigal festival, in the year that the great stele for the gods Enlil and Ninlil was set up. The record closes by identifying the recipient again: Akbazum, son of Abba.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine4 poplar-wood beams (e2-da), 30 bundles of reed — NE(?), 1 broad-tailed weir(?) (kun-gu2-dagal), doubled (tab-ba), length: 5 ninda, [...]-gu, in the orchard of Garšana, was set up/installed, from Iškur-illat, Akbazum received (it). Month: 'Festival of Mekigal' (ezem-me-ki-gal2). Year: 'The great stele for Enlil and Ninlil was erected' (mu-na-ru2-a-mah en-lil2 nin-lil2-ra mu-ne-du3). Akbazum, son of Abba.
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
4(disz) e2-da asal2 3(u) sa gi NE# 1(disz) kun-gu2-dagal tab-ba gid2 5(disz) ninda [x]-x-gu kiri6 gar-sza-[an]-na ba-a-gar [ki iszkur]-illat-ta [ak]-ba-zum szu ba-an-ti iti ezem-me-ki-gal2 mu na-ru2-a-mah en-lil2 nin-lil2-[ra] mu-ne-du3 ak-ba-zum dumu ab-ba
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 1273. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: CUNES 48-04-045 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322558). 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.