Western Asiatic Gold with Agate Gemstone Pendant

A watercolour painting showing scene composed of a figure being transported by four winged mythical creatures, two groups of onlookers seated in the landscape below; two columns of text below; mounted in a reveal and a glazed wooden frame. 1 kg, 48 x 30.2 cm

Fine condition.

Acquired on the UK art market, 1980s-1990s. The Woodbridge collection of Indo-Persian art.

A pillow-shaped administrative clay tablet bearing cuneiform text to both principal faces, relating to a barley debt; Aramaic graffiti to one edge. 114 grams, 67 mm wide



Specialised collection of cuneiform texts, the property of a London gentleman and housed in London before 1992. Thence by descent to family members. Examined by Professor Wilfrid George Lambert FBA (1926-2011), historian, archaeologist, and specialist in Assyriology and Near Eastern archaeology, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The collection is exceptional for the variety of types, including some very rare and well preserved examples.

The tablet records a promissory note of a typical kind to pay for barley. It concludes with the names of witnesses, town and date. The Aramaic script transcribes the cuneiform name of the debtor into Aramaic script, making it easier for scribes to identify who each tablet refers to. It dates to the Achaemenid period, to the reign of Artaxerxes I (465-424 B.C.). Such late administrative tablets are typically carelessly written, as is apparent on our example as some script has been rendered slanting sharply downwards.

A pillow-shaped clay tablet bearing dense rows of cuneiform text to both principal faces; an inventory of workers, drivers of plough oxen, under the responsibility of a team leader; among the workers, several are mentioned as 'sick', the lower part of the tablet has been restored, the cuneiform signs on two lines are false. 82 grams, 63 mm



Acquired early 1990s. Ex private American collection; thence by descent. Private Swiss collection since 1998.