CUSAS 03, 0868

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P323675

About this tablet

This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from the estate archive at Garšana, dated to the year Zabšali was destroyed (a year-name of King Šu-Sin, roughly 2040s BCE). It records four sheep hides — byproducts of animals slaughtered for food — handed over by an official named Iškur-illat to a man named Ana-ah-ili, who is confirmed by a seal impression identifying him as Ana-hili, son of Saba, a leatherworker. Texts like this document the routine flow of raw materials (hides) from the household's meat rations into its craft workshops for tanning and leatherworking, part of the vast bureaucratic apparatus that managed the Garšana estate under the Ur III state.

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

Written in modern English

This tablet records that four sheep hides — leftover from animals used for food rations — were issued by Iškur-illat and taken in by Ana-ah-ili. The transaction is dated to the month of the ki-siki festival of Ninazu, in the year that the land of Zabšali was destroyed. A seal stamped on the tablet identifies the recipient as Ana-hili, son of Saba, a leatherworker, confirming he was the craftsman who took the hides for processing.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

4 hides of sheep, from consumption (rations) — from Iškur-illat; Ana-ah-ili received (them). Month: "ki-siki-Ninazu"; Year: "the land of Zabšali was destroyed." (seal inscription:) Ana-hili, son of Saba, leatherworker.

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 — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.

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Transliteration

4(disz) kusz udu nig2-gu7-a
ki iszkur-illat-ta
a-na-ah-i3-li2
szu ba-ti
iti ki-siki nin-a-zu
[mu] ma-da za#-ab-[sza]-li# [mu]-hul
a-na-hi-li2
dumu sa2-ba
aszgab

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0868. 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 49-09-150 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323675). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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