CUSAS 03, 1273

~2050 BCE·Ur III · Neo-Sumerian·P322558

About this tablet

This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from the estate archive at Garšana, a provincial center that supplied labor and materials to the Ur III state around the reign of Šu-Suen. It records the delivery of building materials — poplar beams, bundled reed, and a large wooden or reed weir/frame structure over five ninda (roughly 30 meters) long — installed in the estate's orchard. A man named Akbazum, son of Abba, acknowledges receipt of these goods from an official named Iškur-illat, with the transaction dated by month and by the year-name commemorating the erection of a great stele for the gods Enlil and Ninlil at Nippur.

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

Written in modern English

This is a delivery receipt: four poplar-wood beams, thirty bundles of reed, and one broad-tailed weir or reed structure — built in doubled fashion and five ninda long — were installed in the orchard at Garšana. The goods came from Iškur-illat, and Akbazum formally acknowledged receiving them. The transaction is dated to the month of the Mekigal festival, in the year that the great stele for the gods Enlil and Ninlil was set up. The record closes by identifying the recipient again: Akbazum, son of Abba.

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

Translation — our engine

Our engine

Medium confidence

4 poplar-wood beams (e2-da), 30 bundles of reed — NE(?), 1 broad-tailed weir(?) (kun-gu2-dagal), doubled (tab-ba), length: 5 ninda, [...]-gu, in the orchard of Garšana, was set up/installed, from Iškur-illat, Akbazum received (it). Month: 'Festival of Mekigal' (ezem-me-ki-gal2). Year: 'The great stele for Enlil and Ninlil was erected' (mu-na-ru2-a-mah en-lil2 nin-lil2-ra mu-ne-du3). Akbazum, son of Abba.

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.

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Transliteration

4(disz) e2-da asal2
3(u) sa gi NE#
1(disz) kun-gu2-dagal tab-ba gid2 5(disz) ninda
[x]-x-gu kiri6 gar-sza-[an]-na ba-a-gar
[ki iszkur]-illat-ta
[ak]-ba-zum
szu ba-an-ti
iti ezem-me-ki-gal2
mu na-ru2-a-mah en-lil2 nin-lil2-[ra] mu-ne-du3
ak-ba-zum
dumu ab-ba

Scholarly note

Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 1273. 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 48-04-045 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322558). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).

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