Sumerian Proto-Cuneiform Tablet with Symbols

JEMDET NASR PERIOD, URUK III, 3200-3000 B.C.

2 1/2 in. (45.6 grams, 63 mm).

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

Provenance

Percy Barnevik, Sweden.
Private collection, UK, acquired June 2000.
with Sam Fogg, London.
Acquired by the current owner from the above, 2015.

Accompanied by a copy of Professor Lambert’s notes and two-page cataloguing report.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.13429-259930.

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 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 0231