Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 1313
About this tablet
A fuel requisition from the construction accounts of Garšana, a private estate in southern Iraq, dated to the seventh year of King Šu-Suen of Ur (around 2030 BCE). Reeds and bundled poplar wood are being issued from an official's stores to fire the kilns that baked bricks — Garšana's archive documents a major building project in unusual day-to-day detail. The final word marks this tablet as an archival duplicate, showing how carefully the estate's bookkeepers tracked even fuel for brickmaking.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
One hundred twenty bundles of reeds and two hundred forty bales of poplar wood were issued for firing baked bricks. The materials were drawn from the stores managed by Iškur-illat, with the scribe Puzur-Ninkarak handling the transfer. Dated to a festival month (its name is broken away) in the year King Šu-Suen of Ur destroyed the land of Zabšali. The tablet notes at the end that it is a duplicate copy of the original record.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine120 bundles of reeds [for fuel (?)], 240 bales of [poplar wood (?)] — in order to fire baked bricks. From (the account of) Iškur-illat it was withdrawn. Conveyor: Puzur-Ninkarak, [the scribe]. Month: "Festival of [...]". Year: "Šu-Suen, king of Ur, destroyed the land of Za[b]šali." Copy.
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
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Transliteration
2(gesz2) sa gi [NE] 4(gesz2) gu-nigin2 [asal2?] sig4 al-urx(BAHAR2)?-ra sze2-ge6-de3 ki iszkur-illat ba-zi giri3 puzur4-nin-kar-ke3 [dub-sar] iti ezem-[...] mu szu-[suen] lugal uri5[-ma]-ke4 ma-da za-[ab]-sza-li [mu-hul] gaba-ri
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 1313. 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 48-08-002 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322813). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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