CUSAS 03, 0928

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P323364

About this tablet

This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Garšana, a provincial estate/depot that supplied the Ur III state economy around 2000 BCE. It records that a leatherworker named Anah-ili, son of Saba, received twenty sheep hides — his raw material — from an official or supplier named Iškur-illat. The dating formula at the end anchors the transaction to a specific month and to a royal year-name commemorating the caulking (waterproofing) of a great ceremonial barge, a formula used across the kingdom to date documents in place of a numbered calendar year.

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

Written in modern English

Twenty sheep hides were issued from Iškur-illat's stock and received by Anah-ili. The transaction is dated to the month of the festival of An, in the year when the great magur-boat was caulked. A note at the bottom identifies the recipient again: Anah-ili the leatherworker, son of Saba.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

20 sheep hides, from Iškur-illat, Anah-ili received. Month: "festival of An" (ezem-Ana), year: "the great magur-boat was caulked." Anah-ili, the leatherworker, son of Saba.

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.

Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.

Transliteration

2(u) kusz udu
ki iszkur-[illat-ta]
a-na-ah-i3-[li2]
[szu ba-ti]
iti ezem#-[an]-na#
mu ma2-gur8-mah ba-du8
an-na-ah-i3-li2 aszgab
dumu sa2-ba

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 0928. 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 49-04-024 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P323364). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

Related tablets

Related sources

~3200 BCE

Proto-Cuneiform Account Tablet (VAT 15211)

An early example of administrative writing from Uruk. Its fragmentary numerical entries and commodity signs document record-keeping during the formative period of writing.

~2050 BCE

Umma Livestock and Personnel Account (AnOr 1, 243)

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.

~3300 BCE

AoF 30, 238,1