Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0545
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Garšana, a provincial estate center in southern Mesopotamia around 2000 BCE. It records three gur of barley disbursed as wages to hired laborers for earth-moving work — likely digging or leveling in connection with a named field, Šumpupu — handled through the household administrator Iškur-illat and delivered via the porter Ili-ašranni. The tablet ends with a seal caption naming Ili-ašranni as a servant (official) of a person named Me-ištaran, confirming his role as the responsible intermediary. Texts like this illustrate the highly documented labor economy of Ur III estates, where every wage payment for even routine construction labor was logged, dated by a royal year-name, and authenticated by seal.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Three gur of barley were paid out as wages to hired laborers for earthworks. The barley came from Zabula's account, and Iškur-illat, the estate's household manager, took receipt of it. The transaction was carried out through Ili-ašranni, a porter, in connection with the field called Šumpupu. It is dated to the month Šueša, in the year that Simurrum was destroyed. The tablet closes with a seal identifying Ili-ašranni as an official in service to Me-ištaran.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine3 gur barley [(measure)], wages of hired worker(s), for (the transport/work of) earth, from Zabula, Iškur-illat, the household administrator (šabra), received (it). Via Ili-ašranni, the porter, (concerning) the field Šumpupu. Month: "Šueša," year: "Simurrum [was destroyed]." (Seal:) Ili-ašranni, servant of Me-ištaran.
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
3(asz) sze# [gur] a2 lu2 hun-[ga2] mu sahar-sze3 ki za-bu-la-ta iszkur-illat szabra [szu] ba#-ti giri3# i3-li2-asz-ra-ni ug3-IL2 [a]-sza3# szum2-pu2-pu2 iti szu-esz-sza# mu si-mu#-[ru-um ba-hul] i3-li2-asz-ra-ni ARAD2 me-isztaran
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0545. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y23 — Simurrum destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: CUNES 48-06-014 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322603). 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.