Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0398
About this tablet
A small beer-ration receipt from Garšana, a private estate town in southern Mesopotamia, dated to the reign of King Šu-Suen of Ur (c. 2030 BCE). Nine liters of ordinary beer were issued to a work gang of builders and drunk on the job; the scribe records who released the beer from stores and which two officials supervised the handover. The final word notes that the tablet itself is a duplicate — an ancient file copy kept for the estate's accounts.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Nine sila of standard beer went to the construction crew, who drank it on site. The beer was drawn from Ili-uznani's stores, with Iškur-illat and the scribe Puzur-Ninkarak handling the transaction. Dated to the month of the Ninazu festival, in the year King Šu-Suen set up the Great Stele for Enlil. Marked at the end: copy.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine9 sila of ordinary beer — the builders drank it. From Ili-uznani it was expended. Under the authority of Iškur-illat and Puzur-Ninkarak, the scribe. Month: "Festival of Ninazu." Year: Šu-Suen, the king, erected the Great Stele for Enlil (and Ninlil). (caption/notation:) copy.
Our translation engine — Opus 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
9(disz) sila3 kasz du szitim-e-ne ib2-nag ki i3-li2-uz-ra-ni-ta ba-zi giri3 iszkur-illat u3 puzur4-nin-kar-ke3 dub-sar iti ezem-nin-a-zu mu szu-suen lugal-e na-ru2-a-mah en-lil2 mu-ne-du3 gaba-ri
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0398. This record has no stored scholarly English translation; the existence of published translations has not been checked; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šu-Suen y1 — Šu-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: CUNES 48-06-022 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322611). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-opus-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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