Position in chronology
CUSAS 03, 1231
About this tablet
This is a small Ur III administrative receipt from Garšana, a provincial estate/depot active under the Ur III state (c. 21st century BCE). It records a quantity of dates (the exact amount is lost in a break) handed over from an official named Iškur-illat and received by Adallal, who is identified at the end as a cook in the household or institution, described as a servant of Me-Ištaran. Thousands of such receipts survive from Garšana's archive, documenting the routine movement of foodstuffs, labor, and goods through a well-run estate.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
A record states that [some quantity, now lost] of dates, measured out in gur-units, were issued from Iškur-illat and received by a man named Adallal. The transaction is dated to the month called "u5-bi2-gu7" in the year when Simurrum was destroyed. Adallal is identified as a cook, working under (or as servant of) an individual or institution called Me-Ištaran.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine[... n gur] dates, heaped measure (in gur) — from Iškur-illat, Adallal received. Month: "u5-bi2-gu7," year: "Simurrum was destroyed." Adallal, the cook, servant of Me-Ištaran.
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
[...] zu2-lum gur-ra ki iszkur-illat-ta a-da-lal3 szu ba-ti iti u5-bi2-gu7 mu si-mu-ru-um ba-hul a-da-lal3 muhaldim ARAD2 me-isztaran
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — CUSAS 03, 1231. 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). [year-name] Dated to Šulgi y23 — Simurrum destroyed based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: CUNES 48-02-021 (Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA) — from Garšana (mod. uncertain) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (cdli.earth/artifacts, P322423). source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-sonnet-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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