‡ Omens from the behaviour of birds of prey, in cuneiform, clay tablet [Babylonia, 7th century BC.]

‡ Omens drawn from the behaviour of birds of prey, in particular falcons, especially in the presence of the king and his army, in Neo-Babylonian, in cuneiform script, inscribed clay tablet[Babylonia, seventh century BC.] Lower half of a large clay tablet, with two columns of text on each side in a fine cuneiform script (30+34+33+28 lines), partly broken away at top of tablet, some cracking and chipping and some signs rubbed, overall in good and solid condition, 105 by 126 by 33mm.; in red morocco folding case A large and fine tablet, as well as the best preserved surviving witness to this text. Provenance: 1. From the formidable antiquities collection of Hans Erlenmeyer (1900-1967), and his wife Marie-Louise Erlenmeyer (1912-1997), housed in Basel; this piece acquired in the 1950s. In 1981 Marie-Louise Erlenmeyer founded the Erlenmeyer Foundation to promote animal and species protection.2. Sold on behalf of the foundation at Christie's 13 December 1988, lot 125, to Björn Löwendahl, Stockholm; thence to Sheila Markham, London, cat. 3 (1993), no. 15c.3. Schøyen Collection, London and Oslo, their MS 1687, acquired June 1993. Text:Cuneiform was "the earliest true script in man's history" (Nissen et al., Archaic Bookkeeping: early writing and techniques of economic administration in the Ancient Near East, 1993, p. ix), made with impressions of a wedge-shaped reed on wet clay. It emerged in Sumer in the Uruk IV period (fourth millennium BC.) as a simplified form of pictograms used in accounting records, and was adapted for the writing down of numerous languages in the region across the next few millennia, probably influencing the development of Egyptian hieroglyphs in its final form. The last traces of its use are in the second century AD., after which it died out until deciphered in the nineteenth century. Omen texts make up the largest genre within the 'literary' parts of surviving Neo-Babylonian libraries. These were observations and predications concerning the stars, movement of birds, appearance of the liver of a sacrificial sheep and abnormal births, carefully organised across tens of numbered tablets. This is tablet no. 79 from the series named Shumma Alu ('If a town is situated on high ground'), and of the 91 omens that made up this tablet, the present witness is the best preserved surviving example, containing 63 omens (see George, 2013). Such omens here include: 15: "If a falcon sits on the ground, takes off and flies about in front of the king, and does not land again: the enemy will block your supply routes and defeat your army and camp through thirst"; and 56: "If a falcon enters the king's palace, lowers its beak in front of the king, flaps its wings and leaves: there will be a revolt in the palace and the king will put all his ministers to the sword". Published:E. Leichty and B. Kienast, 'Summa Abu LXXIX', in Festschrift für Burckhart Kienast zu seinem 70. Geburtstage dargebracht von Freunden, Schulern, und Kollegen Alter Orient und Altes Testament, ed. G. Selz, Ugarit Verlag, München 2003, pp. 259-284. A.R. George, Babylonian Divinatory Texts Chiefly in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, vol. 18, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Cuneiform texts VII, CDL Press, Bethesda, MD, 2013, no. 36, pp 262-272.