Cuneiform Tablet, Messenger text listing provisions for various messengers, of beer, bread, onions, oil and soda ash.

Unidentified Babylonian maker
Umma
Mesopotamia

Share

550 BCE

Terracotta

Overall: 1 1/16 × 13/16 in. (2.7 × 2.1 cm)

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of The Dartmouth Scientific Association

23.1.7208

Geography

Place Made: Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, West Asia, Asia

Period

1000 BCE-1 CE

Object Name

Written Communication

Research Area

Near East

Not on view

Inscriptions

Incised, obverse, in cuneiform [translation]: "5 sila3 beer, 5 sila3 bread (= 5 + 5 liter), 2 bundles onion, / 3 shekel oil, 2 shekel alkaline (naga) plant (= 25 + 16.7 gram), / (provision for): Šeš-mu. / 5 sila3 beer, 5 sila3 bread (= 5 + 5 liter), 2 bundles onion, / 3 shekel oil, 2 shekel alkaline (naga) plant (= 25 + 16.7 gram), / (provision for): X-DINGIR-X. / 5 sila3 beer, 5 sila3 bread (= 5 + 5 liter), 2 bundles onion, / 3 shekel oil, 2 shekel alkaline (naga) plant (= 25 + 16.7 gram), / (provision for): Šeš-a-ni. / 2 ban2 beer, 2 ban2 bread (= 20 + 20 liter), 2 bundles onion, / 10 shekel oil, 2 shekel alkaline (naga) plant (= 83.3 + 16.7 gram), / (provision for): Ad-da"; Incised, reverse, in cuneiform [translation]: "5 sila3 beer, 5 sila3 bread (= 5 + 5 liter), 2 bundles onion, / 3 shekel oil, 2 shekel alkaline (naga) p (= 25 + 16.7 gram), / (provision for): A-bi2-a-ti. / 3 sila3 beer, 2 sila3 bread (= 3 + 2 liter), 2 bundles onion, / 3 shekel oil, 2 shekel alkaline (naga) plant (= 25 + 16.7 gram), / (provision for): Nu-ur2-eš4-tar2. / 3 sila3 beer, 2 sila3 bread (= 3 + 2 liter), 2 bundles onion, / 3 shekel oil, 2 shekel alkaline (naga) plant (= 25 + 16.7 gram), / (provision for): dSuen-ba-ni. / 4 ban2 (and) 6 sila3 beer, 4 ban2 and 4 sila3 bread (= 46 + 44 liter), 14 / bundles onion, 28 shekel oil (= 150.0 gram), / 14 shekel alkaline (naga) plant (116.7 gram)." Incised, left edge, in cuneiform [translation]: "The 28th day (in) the month: še kar-ra gal2- la. (iii)"

Course History

ANTH 12.2, The Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Jason Herrmann, Spring 2013

ANTH 39, Archaeology of the Middle East, Jesse Casana, Fall 2019

ANTH 39.01/MES 3.02, Archaeology of the Middle East, Jesse Casana, Spring 2021

Anthropology 39.01, Middle Eastern Studies 3.02, Archaeology of the Middle East, Jesse Casana, Fall 2023

Exhibition History

From Discovery to Dartmouth: The Assyrian Reliefs at the Hood Museum of Art, 1856-2006, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 19, 2006-June 17, 2007.

Publication History

Magnus Widell, From Discovery to Dartmouth: The Assyrian Reliefs at the Hood Museum of Art, 1856-2006, A Selection of Cuneiform Tablets from the Hood Museum of Art's Collection, Hanover, New Hampshire: Dartmouth College, 2006, no. 2.

Widell, Magnus, Ur III Economy and Bureaucracy: The Neo-Sumerian Cuneiform Tablets in the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College (I). Orient: Reports of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan, 55 (1), 2019, illustration pg. 42.

Provenance

Dartmouth Scientific Association; given to present collection, 1923.

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Subject

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