Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 0906
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from the estate archive at Garšana, a provincial center in southern Iraq around 2000 BCE. It records the disbursement of leather bags and animal hides — sheep and lamb skins, evidently meant for wrapping or covering something — issued from the account of a man named Anah-ili in a particular month and year. Such texts are everyday bookkeeping from a large agricultural and craft-production estate, and the closing lines identify the scribe who recorded the transaction and the seal owner he served, giving us a glimpse of the mid-level officials who kept Garšana's economy running.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
Four leather bags, three sheep hides, and three lamb skins were issued for wrapping purposes, along with one further leather bag associated with Šakkan. These goods were withdrawn from Anah-ili's account. The transaction is dated to the month of the Ninazu festival, in the year "the great barge was caulked." The document was sealed on behalf of Šu-Kabta the physician, son of Naram-ili, by the scribe Iškur-illat, son of Abia, who identifies himself as Šu-Kabta's servant.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine4 leather bags (du10-gan); 3 sheep hides; 3 lamb skins; for covering/wrapping; 1 leather bag of Šakkan; from Anah-ili it was disbursed. Month: festival of Ninazu. Year: "the great barge was caulked." Šu-Kabta, physician, son of Naram-ili; Iškur-illat, scribe, son of Abia, is your servant.
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) du10-gan 3(disz) kusz udu 3(disz) kusz sila4 ka-tab-sze3 1(disz) du10-gan szakkan# ki a-na-ah-i3-li2-ta ba-zi iti ezem-nin-a-zu mu ma2-gur8-mah ba-ab-du8 szu-kab2-ta a-zu dumu na-ra-am-i3-li2 iszkur-illat dub-sar dumu a-bi2-a ARAD2-zu
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0906. 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 48-04-013 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322527). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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Related sources
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