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LOT 0264
Old Babylonian Terracotta Cuneiform Tablet
UR III, EARLY 2ND MILLENNIUM B.C.
1 1/2 in. (27.6 grams, 40 mm).
Pillow-shaped tablet with columns of pictograms to two broad faces and one edge.
ProvenanceEx De Groot collection, Belgium, acquired in the 1930s.
with Bonhams, London, 13 April 2011, no.137.
Accompanied by copies of the relevant Bonhams catalogue pages.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12118-218148.
Cf. similar from Babylon in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, under accession no.86.11.282.
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AUCTIONS:
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Bactrian Bronze Kohl Pot with Three Ibexes
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Miniature vessel with bulbous body and trumpet-shaped neck and mouth, three radiating ram-heads to the shoulder. 94.2 grams, 51 mm
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Mesopotamian Terracotta Cuneiform School Exercise Tablet
Circa 1950-1700 B.C.Sold for (Inc. bp): £338
Discoid in plan and lentoid in section, bearing cuneiform scribal work in large characters on both sides. 153 grams, 81 mm
From a specialised collection of cuneiform texts, the property of a London gentleman and housed in London before 1992. Thence by descent to family members and dispersed in 1988 in London and Geneva.
Such scribal 'practise tablets' are always of this round shape: Type IV tablets, also known as 'lentils', are circular tablets containing one or a few lines of a composition written out once by the teacher and then a second time by the student, either underneath (typical of Nippur tablets), or on the reverse. This would appear to be an example of the latter. -
Western Asiatic Glass Vessel Group
10th-12th century A.D. and laterSold for (Inc. bp): £221
Including tubular type with iridescent sheen, globular type with flattened body and others. 111 grams total, 61-79 mm
From a family collection mostly formed in the 1940s-1950s, thence by descent.
