Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0446
About this tablet
This is a routine Ur III period administrative account from Garšana, a provincial estate center in southern Mesopotamia around 2036 BCE. It records disbursements of barley, flour, sesame oil, and sheep carcasses — likely rations or supplies — issued from the account of an official named Iškur-illat, processed through the scribe Puzur-Ninkar. The final line, 'gaba-ri' ('copy'), tells us this particular tablet is a duplicate of an original record, a common practice in the meticulous Ur III bureaucracy for cross-checking accounts.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a supply record: 2 gur and 4 ban2 of barley, 1 gur 2 barig 3 ban2 of coarse flour, about 3 2/3 sila of sesame oil, and 7 sheep carcasses were issued, along with some further quantity tied to '35 days' whose meaning is unclear, plus three more small measured amounts of unnamed goods that are now lost to damage. The entry also mentions barley rations and oil, though the text breaks off there. The goods were withdrawn from the account of Iškur-illat, with the scribe Puzur-Ninkar overseeing the transaction. It is dated to the month of the Šu-Suen festival, in the year that the land of Zabšali was destroyed — and the tablet notes it is a copy of another record.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine2 gur 4 ban2 barley, 1 gur 2 barig 3 ban2 dabin (coarse flour), 3 2/3 sila sesame oil, 7 sheep carcasses, 35 days [...] (al-dar-ra), 1/2 sila 5 gin [...], 2 2/3 sila [...], 1 sila 10 gin [...], barley rations, oil-[...], from Iškur-illat it was disbursed. Via Puzur-Ninkar, the scribe. Month: 'Festival of Šu-Suen.' Year: 'The land of Zabšali was destroyed.' Copy.
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
2(asz) 4(ban2) sze gur 1(asz) 2(barig) 3(ban2) dabin gur 3(disz) 2/3(disz) sila3 i3-gesz 7(disz) ad3 udu 3(u) 5(disz) u4 al-dar?-ra 1/2(disz) sila3 5(disz) gin2 [...] 2(disz) 2/3(disz) sila3 [...] 1(disz) sila3 1(u) gin2 [...] sze-ba i3-[...] ki iszkur-illat-ta ba#-[zi] giri3 puzur4-nin-kar-ke3 dub-sar iti ezem-szu-suen mu ma-da za-ab-sza-li mu-hul gaba-ri
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0446. 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).
Attribution
Image: CUNES 49-12-038 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323793). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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Related sources
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