kudurru
- Museum number
- 90840
- Description
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Limestone kudurru from the riegn of Marduk-nadin-ahhe: consisting of a block of black limestone, rising to a point. It has been rubbed down on four sides to take inscriptions, and the upper portion, from the point where it begins to taper, is carved with symbols: On top of the stone : (1) Solar disc, (2) Eight-pointed star, and (3) Lunar disc. Larger symbols resting on the serpent's body and on the ledge above the inscription:2 (4) Horned headdress upon shrine, (5) Horned headdress upon shrine, (6) Sitting dog, (7) Bird on perch, (8) Arrow, (9) Spear-head upon shrine, beside which appears a horned dragon, (10) Ram-headed crook upon shrine, beside which appears a goat-fish, and (11) Wedge upon shrine, beside which appears a horned dragon. Smaller symbols in the field: (12) Scorpion, (13) Running bird, (14) Lamp, (15) Mace, (16) Lightning-fork, (17) Yoke, and (18) Twin-lion-headed mace. Along the ledge above the inscription on Faces B, C, and D : (19) Serpent. Between the symbols, on blank spaces in the field, an additional inscription has been engraved. The inscription contains a deed recording a grant of land by Marduk-nadin-ahhe to Adad-zer-ikisha in return for services rendered during a campaign against Assyria. The land is described as situated on the bank of the Zirzirri Canal in Bit-Ada, and was in the district of the town of Al-nirea. By the king's orders it was presented to Adad-zer-ikisha by Marduk-il-napkhari, the minister, who was also Head of the House of Bit-Ada, in the presence of sixteen high officials who are enumerated by name. This deed is dated on the twenty-eighth day of Iyyar, in the tenth year of Marduk-nadin-akhe. An addition to the text records that the king subsequently confirmed the gift under his own seal at the request of Marduk-il-napkhari, who had been presented with thirty horses by Adad-zer-ikisha. It was probably at this time that the king conferred on Al-nirea freedom from administrative control 'by Bit-Ada, and from various specified dues and forced labour.
- Dimensions
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Height: 51.50 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Moulded and cast; cast priced at £ 1 and 4 shillings by D. Brucciani (1910) and catalogued as "boundary-stone recording the transfer of property. Dated in the tenth year of Marduk-Nadin-Akhi, in the presence of sixteen witnesses". The cast is listed as available in the British Museum Facsimile Service 'Catalogue of Replicas from British Museum collections' (n.d.), in the series "Boundary Stones and Memorial Tablets".
- Location
- On display (G55/dc2)
- Acquisition date
- 1863
- Acquisition notes
- Report to the Trustees, 25 August 1863, described thus: "two inscribed stones ornamented with reliefs, and inscriptions in the Babylonian cuneiform".
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 90840
- Registration number
- 1863,0826.2
