Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 1010
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Garšana, recording two sheep withdrawn from the herding official Ili-bilani for the regular ('sa2-du11') offerings owed to the goddess Inanna of Zabala and the god Šara of Umma. It is dated to the month of the Great Festival in the year Šu-Sin destroyed the land of Zabšali (Šu-Sin's third regnal year, c. 2027 BCE). The bottom lines are a seal legend naming Šu-Kabta, a prominent Garšana official (here given the unusual title 'physician' rather than his better-attested title 'general'), and the scribe Iškur-illat who sealed the document as his servant — a routine but historically rich glimpse into the bureaucratic machinery of the Ur III state's regional estates.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records that one sheep was taken from the flock of Ili-bilani to cover the standing offering for the goddess Inanna of Zabala, and a second sheep was taken from him for the standing offering to the god Šara of Umma. Both animals were formally checked out of inventory in the month of the Great Festival, in the year King Šu-Sin destroyed the land of Zabšali. The tablet is sealed with the seal of Šu-Kabta, son of Naram-ili — identified here as a physician — and countersealed by the scribe Iškur-illat, son of Abiya, who declares himself Šu-Kabta's servant.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 sheep — [regular offering] of Inanna of Zabala. 1 sheep — regular offering of Šara of Umma. From Ili-bilani, booked out (disbursed). Month: "Great Festival" (ezem-maḫ). Year: "the land of Zabšali was destroyed." [Seal:] Šu-Kabta, physician(?), son of Naram-ili. Iškur-illat, scribe, son of Abiya, is your servant.
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)] udu [sa2]-du11 inanna zabala4 1(disz) udu sa2-du11 szara2 umma ki i3-li2-bi-la-ni-ta ba-zi iti ezem-mah mu ma-da za-ab-[sza]-li mu-hul 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, 1010. 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 48-04-008 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322522). 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.
A major witness to the Mesopotamian Flood tradition and its relationship to later biblical literature. The date of this particular copy must be distinguished from the older history of the story.