Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 1371
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Garšana, an estate in southern Iraq that supplied labor and goods to the crown around 2000 BCE. It records three lots of reed baskets — differing types identified by name and each with its own capacity in sila (a standard liquid/dry measure) — that were made or processed by named workers and then received by an official. The document is dated by a royal year-name commemorating the destruction of Simurrum, tying it to the reign of King Šu-Sin of the Ur III dynasty, and closes with the name of the scribe, son of Nur-Suen, who wrote it up.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet is a receipt logging deliveries of reed baskets. One batch of an unknown larger quantity plus 5 baskets of the 'gi-ku-ab' type held about half a sila each; 2 baskets of the 'gi-ku-du3-na' type held 5 sila each; and 11 baskets of a third type held some amount (now lost) each. Workers named Aš-aš and NE-manu made or processed these baskets, which came from a man named Iškur-illat. An official — his name is partly broken but seems to end in '-šara' — received them. The transaction is dated to the month of Akiti, in the year Simurrum was destroyed (a year-name from King Šu-Sin's reign), and the tablet was written up by a scribe, son of Nur-Suen, whose own name is likewise partly lost.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[...]+5(disz) gi-ku-ab baskets, at 1/2 sila3 [each], 2(disz) gi-ku-du3-na baskets, at 5 sila3 each, 11(disz) gi-ku-kas4-ab(?) baskets, at [n] sila3 each — (these) Aš-aš(?), NE-manu(?), processed/made. From Iškur-illat, [PN-]šara(-kam) — he received (them). Month: Akiti, year: 'Simurrum was destroyed.' [PN-]šara, scribe, son of Nur-Suen.
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
[n] 5(disz) gi-ku#-ab 1/2(disz) [sila3?-ta?] 2(disz) gi-ku-[du3-na] 5(disz) sila3-ta 1(u) 1(disz) gi-ku-kas4?-ab? [n sila3?]-ta# asz-asz NE-ma?-nu? szu ak ki iszkur-illat-ta []szara2-kam [szu] ba-ti [iti a2]-ki-ti [mu] si-mu-ru-um ba-hul szara2-kam dub-sar dumu nu-ur2-suen
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 1371. 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 49-02-005 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323228). 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.