Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 1085
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Garšana, a provincial estate in southern Mesopotamia tied to the royal family and the general Šu-Kabta. It records a single disbursement of coarse barley flour, issued to feed 'booty' — likely captured people or livestock brought back from a military campaign — and formally received by an official named Adallal from another official, Malik-bani. Such texts, produced by the hundreds at Garšana, tracked the daily flow of rations and goods through a large estate household during the reign of King Šulgi of Ur.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet records that Adallal received one barig of flour, meant as provisions for war captives or seized livestock, handed over by Malik-bani. The transaction is dated to the month of the 'gazelle feast,' in the year that the land of Zabšali was destroyed (a Šulgi-era military campaign). Adallal is identified as a subordinate of Šu-Kabta, the estate's military overseer at Garšana — a routine bookkeeping entry for rationing supplies tied to that campaign's aftermath.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 barig dabin (flour) — for the provisions (ša₃-gal) of the booty/captives (nam-ra-ak) — from Malik-bani, Adallal received. Month: "maš-da₃-gu₇" (gazelle-feast), Year: "the land of Zabšali was destroyed." Adallal, servant of Šu-Kabta.
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
1(barig) dabin sza3-gal# nam-ra-ak ki ma-lik-ba-ni-ta a-da-lal3 szu ba-an#-ti# iti masz-da3-gu7 mu ma-da za-ab-sza-li mu-hul a-da-lal3 ARAD2 szu-kab-ta2
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 1085. 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 48-06-016 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322605). 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.