Large Proto-Sumerian Terracotta Cuneiform Tablet

4TH-3RD MILLENNIUM B.C.

3 1/2 in. (236 grams, 89 mm).

Pillow-shaped with incised grid to the broad faces, dense cuneiform text in the columns with impressed pellet numerals.

Provenance

Private collection, acquired in the late 1980s-early 1990s; thence by descent.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.13179-249318.

Literature

Cf. Monaco, S., Archaic Cuneiform Tablets from Private Collections, CUSAS 31, Cornell, 2016, for other comparable tablets.

Footnotes

Various collections of cuneiform tablets form a corpus of texts mainly of an administrative nature, from the Uruk III and Ur III periods. The proto-cuneiform, as a system of proto-writing, emerged in Mesopotamia ca.3500-3200 BC, during the Uruk period.

CONDITION

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LOT 0247