Large Old Babylonian Administrative Clay Tablet, c. 1900-1700 B.C.

(Cuneiform Tablet)

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Item No.
35.37540
Culture
Old Babylonian, c. 1900-1700 B.C. 
Item Details.
This has a total of 29 lines on the obverse, and two on the reverse. It is not dated, but can be assigned to the period c. 1900-1700 B.C., the Old Babylonian times, from script spellings. It is a list of land holdings of named men, giving the area for each man first, next a description of the thing measured, and finally the man’s name. The various areas were converted entirely into the iku measure for simplicity, which was about 3530 square meters. The second item in each line begins with the simple “field”, meaning land for arable farming. But after five lines it is replaced by the word nīlu, of unknown meaning, which continues to be used to the end save for two lines with first another unknown word bakru and secondly with “village”. But in the summary at the end all the lines are summed up as “field”.

Comes with unsigned description and dating by Professor W.G. Lambert of the Birmingham University U.K.

Provenance: Private French collection, Bourgogne, France, acquired in the 1970s.

Size
11.6 cm L - 4 9/16 inches
Material
Terracotta 
Condition
Repaired 
Categories
Cuneiform & Tablets
Price.
US$ 5000
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