Studying cuneiform tablets
The department’s collection of cuneiform tablets is among the
most important in the world. It contains approximately
130,000 texts and fragments and is perhaps the largest
collection outside of Iraq.
It can be separated into the following main groups (all numbers
below are approximate):
- Early Dynastic (c.3200–2500 BC) - 500 items from Ur, Fara
- Old Akkadian (c. 2500–2200 BC) 150 items
- Ur III (c. 2200–2000 BC) - 30,000 items from Lagash, Umma, Ur,
Drehem
- Old Assyrian (c. nineteenth–eighteenth centuries BC) - 700
items from Anatolia
- Old Babylonian (c. 1900–1650 BC) - 20,000 items from Sippar,
Ur, Larsa, Uruk, Kutalla, Kisurra
- non-Mesopotamian - 400 items including Alalakh in Syria, Amarna
in Egypt, Elamite texts from Iran and Hittite texts from
Anatolia
- Neo-Assyrian (first millennium BC) - 25,000 items from
Kuyunjik, Nimrud
- Neo-Babylonian (first millennium BC) - 50,000 items from
Sippar, Babylon, Borsippa, Uruk, Larsa, Ur, Kutalla.
The centrepiece of the collection is the Library of
Ashurbanipal, comprising many thousands of the most important
tablets ever found. The significance of these tablets was
immediately realised by the Library’s excavator, Austin Henry
Layard, who wrote:
'They furnish us with materials for the complete decipherment of
the cuneiform character, for restoring the language and history of
Assyria, and for inquiring into the customs, sciences, and …
literature, of its people.'
The Library tablets remain among the most commonly requested
objects in the collection today.
The department has an open access policy, with all texts being
available to all researchers. As a result, many people from across
the world depend on the department’s study room (or ‘the tablet
room’, as it is affectionately known), making this one of the main
international centres for the study of the Middle East.
Guidelines
for handling cuneiform tablets in the study room