CUSAS 03, 1390

~2037 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P323436

About this tablet

A small administrative receipt from Garšana, a private household estate in the province of Umma in southern Iraq, dating to the 8th year of King Šu-Suen of the Third Dynasty of Ur (around 2030 BCE). It records that a man named Iškur-illat took delivery of 34 items (the commodity itself is lost in a break) from Aya-kalla, a well-attested official in this archive. Thousands of such receipts survive from this period, together forming one of the most densely documented economies of the ancient world.

Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.

Written in modern English

Iškur-illat received a delivery from Aya-kalla: 34 units of some commodity, plus one more item whose name is broken away — the damage to the tablet's first line means we can't tell what was being handed over. The receipt closes with the standard date formula: the year King Šu-Suen of Ur built the magnificent ceremonial barge for the gods Enlil and Ninlil — his eighth year on the throne. A few lines in the middle are lost.

A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

34 [...] , 1(?) rab-[...], from Aya-kalla did Iškur-illat [receive]. [...] (break) Year: "Šu-Suen, king of Ur, fashioned the magnificent barge for [Enlil] (and) Ninlil."

Indicative reading — translated without a photograph. Generated from the transliteration alone, without examining the original. Read it as an accessible first taste, not as a verified catalogue entry.

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

3(u) 4(disz) [...] 1(disz)? ra-ab-[...]
ki a-a-kal-la-ta
[]iszkur-illat
[szu ba-ti]
[...]
mu szu-suen lugal uri5-[ma-ke4] ma2-gur8-mah [en-lil2] nin-lil2-ra mu-ne#-dim2

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 1390. 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 49-08-011 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323436). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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