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 its 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 the decipherment and
translation
of cuneiform, to examine and process
the
information on these tablets. The
following is
a transcription of his analysis of
this tablet:
‘Some damage to the corners of the
obverse, and the bottom of the
reverse, but
most of the text is clear in a good,
large
scribal hand. This is an inventory of
precious
and semi-precious items, but some of
the
explanations of the nature of this
collection
are not yet clear, though they are
clearly
written.
Translation:
[……] of bronze. 1 copper socket
overlaid
with silver. 4 wooden sockets overlaid
with
gold. 7 wooden sockets overlaid with
silver.
1 wooden socket overlaid with bronze.
12
small bronze rings. 7 bronze toggle
pins. 6
copper sun disks. 2 copper mugs. 5
necklaces of lapis: their gold rings:
32, their
silver rings: 56, their chalcedony
stones: 2
(or:120), their lapis stones: 6 (or:
360),
their long carnelian beads: 2 […..].
their
carnelian rings: [….], their ……:
46.
Necklaces for offerings. Property
of……..
Month […..] Year: after Shu-Sin, King
of Ur,
built the west wall “that keeps the
Tidnum
at bay.”
The date given is the 5th year of Shu-
Sin,
fourth king of the Third Dynasty of
Ur, c.
2033 B.C.
The giving of necklaces to gods was
common
in this period. It meant giving them
to the
temples in which statues of the gods
and
goddesses were kept, in the hope that
the
necklaces would be put on the statues,
though often so much of this kind was
given
that it ended up in a store rather
than on
the statues.
To us there is some problem over ‘5
lapis
necklaces’ having 6 (or 360) lapis
beads, but
there may be some solution not clear
to us.
All the other items seem to exclude
the title
‘lapis necklaces.’
