CUSAS 03, 1510

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P323444

About this tablet

This is a small Ur III-period legal or loan document from Umma (modern Tell Jokha), recording a transaction involving 6 sar of brick clay handed over by one Nisaba-andul to a person named Pušk-in, with terms specified by day-rate and quantities of malt. The tablet ends with the standard witness list and closing formula 'they are its witnesses,' the hallmark of a Sumerian legal or contractual record meant to be enforceable in a dispute. Such texts are common administrative-legal ephemera from the late third millennium BCE, showing how even small material transactions (building clay, malt) were formally witnessed and recorded.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

This record notes that 6 sar of brick clay was transferred from Nisaba-andul to a man named Pušk-in, apparently under some daily rate or repayment schedule ('6 each per day'). The text then lists quantities of malt, though the amounts are lost. A closing date or oath formula ('year: ...') is broken away, followed by a list of witnesses — at least four men, including one named Iškur-bani — whose names confirm the transaction. The tablet ends with the standard legal closing line: 'they are its witnesses.'

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Low confidence

6 sar of brick clay (im sig4), from Nisaba-andul(-ta), Pušk-in [received/borrowed it]. Per day, 6 [units] each, malt [......] malt [......] year: [......] before [......], before ...-[......], before Šu-[......], before Iškur-bani. They are its witnesses.

Indicative reading — translated without a photograph. Generated from the transliteration alone, without examining the original. Read it as an accessible first taste, not as a verified catalogue entry.

Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.

Transliteration

6(disz) sar im sig4
ki nisaba-an-dul3-<ta?>
pu-usz-ki-in
u4 6(disz) [n?]-ta
munu4 [...]
munu4 [...]
mu [...]
igi [...]
igi x-[...]
igi szu-[...]
igi iszkur-ba-ni
lu2-inim-ma-bi-me

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 1510. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).

Attribution

Image: CUNES 49-08-019 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Umma (mod. Tell Jokha) ? — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323444). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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