Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 1398
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative tablet from Garšana, part of the vast archive documenting the estate of Princess Simat-Ištaran and her officials. It records an amount of field-land (1 bur3, roughly 6.5 hectares) whose harvested straw has been gathered into bundled sheaves but not yet threshed — a routine notation from the agricultural bookkeeping of a large estate. The document is sealed by an official named Šarrum-ili and names Ili-andul, son of Warad-ebum, as the scribe responsible for its delivery or recording — the everyday paperwork tracking crop-processing labor on a Sumerian institutional farm around 2000 BCE.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This tablet notes that on one bur3 of farmland, the straw has been gathered into doubled sheaves but has not yet been threshed. The record bears the seal of Šarrum-ili. Ili-andul is responsible for delivering it — the same Ili-andul, son of Warad-ebum, who served as the scribe who wrote this docket.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine1 bur3 of field: doubled sheaves of straw, not (yet) threshed. Sealed by Šarrum-ili. Ili-andul is to deliver (it) — Ili-andul, son of Warad-ebum, the scribe.
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(bur3) GAN2 zar3 tab-ba nu ri-ri-ga kiszib3 szar-ru-um-i3-li2 i3-li2-an-dul3 tum3-dam i3-li2-an-dul3 dumu ARAD-e!-bu-um dub-sar
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 1398. 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 48-06-012 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322601). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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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.