|
HOME :
Near Eastern Art :
Cuneiform Tablets : Sumerian Cuneiform Terracotta Tablet
|
 |
|
|
|
Sumerian Cuneiform Terracotta Tablet - LSO.109
Origin: Eastern Mediterranean
Circa: 2036
BC
Dimensions:
1.81" (4.6cm) high
x 1.57" (4.0cm) wide
Collection: Ancient Writings
Medium: Terracotta
Additional Information: SOLD
£3,000.00
Location: Great Britain
|
|
|
| Photo Gallery |
|
|
| Description |
Sumerian cuneiform is one of the
earliest known
forms of written expression. First
appearing in
the 4th millennium BC in what is now
Iraq, it was
dubbed cuneiform (‘wedge-shaped’)
because of
the distinctive wedge form of the
letters, created
by pressing a reed stylus into wet clay.
Early
Sumerian writings were essentially
pictograms,
which became simplified in the early and
mid
3rd
millennium BC to a series of strokes,
along with
a commensurate reduction in the number
of
discrete signs used (from c.1500 to
600). The
script system had a very long life, and
was used
by the Sumerians as well as numerous
later
groups – notably the Assyrians,
Elamites,
Akkadians and Hittites – for around
three
thousand years. Certain signs and
phonetic
standards live on in modern languages of
the
Middle and Far East, but the writing
system is
essentially extinct. It was therefore
cause for
great excitement when the ‘code’ of
ancient
cuneiform was cracked by a group of
English,
French and German Assyriologists and
philologists in the mid 19th century AD.
This
opened up a vital source of information
about
these ancient groups that could not have
been
obtained in any other way. Cuneiform was
used
on monuments dedicated to heroic – and
usually
royal – individuals, but perhaps it’s
most
important function was that of record
keeping.
The palace-based society at Ur and other
large
urban centres was accompanied by a
remarkably
complex and multifaceted bureaucracy,
which
was run by professional administrators
and a
priestly class, all of whom were
answerable to
central court control. Most of what we
know
about the way the culture was run and
administered comes from cuneiform
tablets,
which record the everyday running of the
temple
and palace complexes in minute detail,
as in the
present case. The Barakat Gallery has
secured
the services of Professor Lambert
(University of
Birmingham), a renowned expert in
decipherment and translation of
cuneiform, to
examine and process the information on
these
tablets. His analysis is presented
below: Clay
tablet, 46 x 40 mm, with 13 lines of
Sumerian
cuneiform on obverse and reverse. All
surfaces
rolled with the scribe’s cylinder seal.
Condition
good. An administrative document from
the
period of the third dynasty of Ur, dated
to a
month so far not identified within a 12-
month
calendar, and to the 7th year of Amar-
Sin, third
king of the dynasty, c. 2036 BC.
Translation:
11 male dogs
1 female dog: 2 sila of bread each
Their bread: 24 sila
Their bread for 30 days
Total: 2 gur 120 sila of bread.
Food for the temple dogs
Ikum-Meshar, keeper of the dogs,
received.
His foreman: Ur-……
Disbursement: month Nige…ga
Year: Huhnuri was destroyed
A very unusual content, showing that
temples
employed and fed dogs with bread.
Presumably
any other food they found for themselves
by
scavenging. The proportion of dogs and
bitches
shows a desire not to have too many
puppies! A
sila is about .85 of a litre, so quite a
large
amount of bread was used in this way. A
gur
was
300 sila, so the arithmetic is correct.
It is just
possible to see much of the seal design
on the
sides of the tablet: a seated deity on
the right,
raising one hand, facing is a standing
introducing goddess holding up one hand,
and
on the left a standing figure: the
ancient seal
owner. There is an astral disc in the
sky.
- (LSO.109)
|
| |
|
