LOT 0234

Old Babylonian Cuneiform Tablet with The Dialogue Between Two Women

CIRCA 1900-1700 BC.

5 in. (372 grams, 12.5 cm).

Pillow-shaped ceramic tablet inscribed with 41 lines of a Sumerian cuneiform literary text, comprising a dialogue between two women who insult and abuse each other, and (may) also talk to men about the matter; this tablet is longer than any one of the published pieces of this text and in comparatively good condition; although it does not include a Babylonian translation, part of it overlaps a published copy as an aid to understanding; a provisional partial translation is offered here: 1. "Is my [ ....?] 2. Is my house like her house? 3. Is my spouse like her spouse? 4. Is my mother like her mother? 5. Am I like her? 6. She spread [slander], she called me a prostitute, and made my husband divorce me. 7. ". ... runs around. May my city quarter... you. 8. My lord, what is one man? 9. Is my house like her house? 10. Is my spouse like her spouse? 11. Is my mother like her mother? 12. Am I like her? 13. She spread slander, she called me a prostitute, and made my husband divorce me. 14. Bring on a just lawsuit. 15-16. Who is she? Ninkuzu, daughter of the king. 17. No! Herald, go! 18. Bring me one who can point her out to you while the time is fresh. 19. My lord, bring me….. 20. One who knows her case, one like her. 21. Where are those women? Let them come in! 22. You (sing.), whose name is Ninkuzu, 23. Why (did you slander) the daughter of a man, your equal, (and call her) a prostitute? (Four untranslated lines) 28. She has bought a witness against me. [….] 29. Bring a just law-suit. 30. "If I should bring on a just law-suit for you. 31. I shall write down a divorce fee of 1/3 of a mina of silver as it is. 32. Then I shall increase the divorce fee of 1/3 of a mina of silver."; in a custom-made presentation case replicating an old quarter-bound book with cloth-covered boards.

The Library of Simon Keynes (1927–2017), great-grandson of Charles Darwin and fourth son of Sir Geoffrey Keynes, with the bulk assembled in the 1970s and 1980s.
Ex Sam Fogg, London, 2019.
Private collection, Europe.
Acquired by the present owner from the above.

Accompanied by a five-page cataloguing report.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.13426-259927.

Cf. similar tablets in Goetze, A., Old Babylonian omen texts, Yale, 1966, pls.1ff.

The existence of the (source) text has been known for some decades, and ten pieces have been published, all from the Old Babylonian period (c. 1900 - 1600 BC), the period from which this tablet also originates. A few of the ten known tablets are bilingual - that is, the Sumerian is also given in Babylonian translation - which has assisted in the translation of the text by modern scholars.
While a text reconstructed from the ten published pieces and other unpublished tablets has existed for some decades now, no one has so far published it in its entirety or offered a fully convincing translation, because of the difficulties of the text. Sumerian had a woman's dialect, called 'Emesal, 1', and this text often uses Emesal forms, which are more problematic than the ordinary Sumerian dialect. There are also no indications of speaker given in the text - the reader has to deduce when another speaker takes over. Thus there is considerable uncertainty about the punctuation. It is clear that when the whole text is edited properly for all duplicates and a reliable translation can be made, this will be an enlivening commentary on human nature in Babylonia of the early second millennium BC. A beautiful and important piece of Sumerian literature. The sum of 1/3 of a mina of silver - 20 shekels - was a large sum of money at the time.