[Cuneiform tablets collection].
Contributors: Library of Congress. African and Middle Eastern Division.; Kirkor Minassian Collection (Library of Congress)
Language: sux
Number of pages: 36
Subjects: Gudea, of Lagash.; Cuneiform tablets.; Sumerian language -- Texts.; Akkadian language -- Texts.; Sumerians -- Commerce.; Sumerians -- Economic conditions.; Sumerians -- Education.; Sumerians -- Religion.; Sumerians -- Rites and ceremonies.; Gods, Assyro-Babylonian.; Gods, Sumerian.; Drehem (Extinct city); Calah (Extinct city); Iraq -- Antiquities -- Specimens.
Genres: Specimens.
Other titles: Cuneiform tablet collection; Cuneiform tablets
Notes: A finding aid prepared by Library of Congress employee David Moore is available in the African and Middle Eastern Reading Room and provides numbered descriptions of the items in the collection.
Most items in Sumerian. A few in Old Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian. Characteristics of the inscriptions suggest the tablets may have come from the town of Drehem in Babylonia (modern Iraq). The inscriptions on the brick fragments identify them as coming from the city of Kalhu (or Calah, the modern city of Nimrud, Iraq).
Cuneiform tablets with inscriptions pertaining primarily to receipt of and payment for goods and services. Twelve tablets are identified as school exercise tablets. These were orginally unfired, as they were meant to be erased and reused. Other tablets, and the brick fragments, contain votive or commemorative inscriptions or are records of religious offerings. This last group includes also two votive cone inscriptions, inscribed cone-shaped clay "nails" made to be placed in the walls of a temple.
The oldest tablets date from the reign of Gudea of Lagash (2144-2124 B.C.). Many others appear to belong to the Ur III period, including some inscribed with dates ranging from 2063 to 2031 B.C.  The brick fragments belong to the period of Shalmanassar III (858-824 B.C.) during the New Assyrian Empire.
Most of the clay tablets are square or rectangular in shape and range in size from 2 x 2 cm. to 18 x 19 cm.  A number of the tablets are round, including all of the school exercise tablets in this collection. These are from 7 cm. to 8 1/2 cm. in diameter. The two brick fragments, which may or may not be parts of the same brick, together measure 15 1/2 cm. high x 29 cm. wide. Coloration varies from light to dark.
Many tablets are inscribed on both front and back, and two are inscribed also on the side. The styles of inscription vary with the content or function. A few bear impressions of figures of deities and royal persons made in relief in the clay by cylinder seals. Some retain clay envelopes or fragments of same.
Moore, David K. "The Brick of Shalmaneser." The Library of Congress Information Bulletin (Nov. 1999).
Acquired by the Library of Congress in 1929 from art dealer Kirkor Minassian as part of a collection of Islamic bookbindings, manuscripts, textiles, and ceramic and metal objects illustrating the history of the development of writing and book arts in the Middle East.
Images, drawings, and transcriptions of the tablets are also available in digital form via the Global Gateway Library of Congress Web site, under the title: Cuneiform tablets : from the reign of Gudea of Lagash to Shalmanassar III.