Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0875
About this tablet
This is a small receipt tablet from the Ur III administrative archive at Garšana, a provincial estate center in southern Mesopotamia that supplied labor and goods to the royal economy. It records a leatherworker named Ana-ah-ili taking delivery of three animal hides — one from a grain-fed sheep and two from grain-fed billy-goats — from an official or supplier called Iškur-illat, dated by a month-festival name and a royal year-name commemorating the destruction of the land of Zabšali (a campaign associated with King Šulgi's reign). Such texts are the everyday bookkeeping of a large institutional household, tracking raw materials moving from herders or storehouses into the hands of craftsmen.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A leatherworker named Ana-ah-ili received three hides — one from a grain-fed sheep and two from grain-fed billy-goats — handed over by Iškur-illat. The transaction is dated to the month of the Šulgi festival, in the year the land of Zabšali was destroyed. A closing note identifies the recipient more fully: Ana-ah-ili the leatherworker, son of Saba.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 hide of a grain-fed sheep, 2 hides of grain-fed billy-goats, from Iškur-illat, Ana-ah-ili received. Month: "Festival of Šulgi." Year: "The land of Zabšali was destroyed." Ana-ah-ili, the leatherworker, son of Saba.
Our translation engine — Sonnet 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
1(disz) kusz udu niga 2(disz) kusz masz2#-gal niga ki iszkur-illat-ta a-na-ah-i3-li2 [szu]-ba-[an]-ti iti ezem-szul#-gi# mu ma-da za-[ab]-sza-li [mu]-hul an-na-ah-i3-li2 aszgab dumu sa2-ba
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0875. 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 48-02-028 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322430). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
Related tablets
Related sources
An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.
A surviving administrative record of named people and livestock in the Ur III period. Together with other archives, such accounts reveal the work of managing animals, deliveries and institutional responsibility.