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HOME :
Near Eastern Art :
Archive : Sumerian clay cuneiform tablet
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Sumerian clay cuneiform tablet - LSO.224
Origin: Eastern Mediterranean
Circa: 3000
BC
Dimensions:
3" (7.6cm) high
x 2.2" (5.6cm) wide
Collection: Ancient Writings
Medium: Terracotta
Additional Information: SOLD
£7,000.00
Location: Great Britain
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| Description |
SOLD - 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.
- (LSO.224)
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