Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 1032
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III-period livestock disbursement record from the estate at Garšana, an administrative center that supplied and managed labor, animals, and goods for the crown in southern Mesopotamia around 2000 BCE. One sheep is booked out of the herd of a man named Ili-bilani, on a particular day and under the authority of Šu-Kabta — a well-known figure at Garšana who oversaw the estate's operations. The tablet ends with the personal seal caption of the scribe Iškur-illat, identifying himself as the servant of the sealing authority. It is a routine bookkeeping entry, but one of thousands that let historians reconstruct daily life on a Sumerian royal estate.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One sheep was taken out of the flock — recorded for [...]-Nergal — on the day associated with Elunum. It came from the holdings of Ili-bilani and was formally withdrawn from the account. This happened in the month of ki-siki-Ninazu, in the year Simurrum was destroyed (a Šulgi-era year name). The entry is tied to Šu-Kabta, possibly acting as physician or overseeing authority, and to a man named (A)zu, son of Naram-ili. The clay was sealed by the scribe Iškur-illat, son of Abi'a, who identifies himself as the servant of the sealing official.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[1] sheep, for [...]-Nergal, on the day of Elunum, from Ili-bilani, was disbursed (ba-zi). Month: '[ki]-siki of Ninazu.' Year: 'Sim[urr]um was destroyed.' Šu-Kabta, the physician (?), son of Naram-ili. (Seal legend:) Iškur-illat, the 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.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
[1(disz)] udu []ne3#-eri11-gal u4 e-lu-num2-ma ki i3-li2-bi-la-ni-ta ba-zi [iti ki]-siki# nin-a-zu [mu si-mu-ru]-um [ba-hul] 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, 1032. 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 48-06-008 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322597). 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.