Rare Old Babylonian Lexical Tablet, c. 20th - 19th

Rare Old Babylonian Lexical Tablet, c. 20th - 19th Century B.C.
A cuneiform terracotta tablet with text to both broad faces and one edge.

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

The text is of ten sections of three lines each, 6 on the observe, four on the reverse, with four extra lines of different character as a kind of colophon. The ten sections are set out like a lexical text: a Sumerian sign is written as the first sign of the line, then after a gap the line is completed with a group of signs: in some sense rendering the initial sign. The first list on each section has such Sumerian signs, the second and third only one. They are: SITA, DIS and U. The Babylonian complement is always an Old Babylonian personal name, and never the same name twice. This is so far unique in Old Babylonian lexical texts, and it is not clear how the names came to be mated to the signs in the first column, nor what was being achieved thereby. This is thus a rare document so far without parallel.

Size:9.5 cm L - 3 3/4 inches
Material:Terracotta
Culture:Old Babylonian, c. 20th - 19th Century B.C.
Provenance: From a North London collection, acquired in the 1970s.

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Comes with a Certificate of Authenticity Dimensions: Condition Report: Rare, some abrasion, otherwise intact