tablet

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Object Type
Museum number: 86378
Description: Clay tablet with two columns of inscription. Astronomical treatise, tablet 1 of the series MUL.APIN ("the plough star") which includes a list of the three divisions of the heavens, the dates (in the ideal 360-day year) of the rising of principal stars and of those which rise and set together, and the constellations in the path of the moon; nearly complete.
Cultures/periods
Production date: 1000BC-500BC
Findspot: Excavated/Findspot: Iraq, South
Materials
Dimensions: Length: 3.25 inches; Width: 2.375 inches
$Inscriptions
Bibliographic references: Hunger H & Pingree D 1989a / MUL.APIN, an astronomical compendium in cuneiform (pp 17-69); King, CT 33 / Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum (pls 1-8) (copy); Bezold 1913a / Zenit- und Aequatorialgestirne am babylonsichen Fixsternhimmel (pp 18-37); King 1913a / A Neo-Babylonian astronomical treatise in the British Museum, and its bearing on the age of Babylonian astronomy (41-46) (photograph); van der Waerden B L 1949a / Babylonian astronomy. II. The thiry-six stars (pp.20-21); Papke W 1980a / Korrespondierende Kulminationen und heliakische Aufgange in MUL.APIN (193-204); Weidner E F 1924a / Ein babylonisches Kompendium der Himmelskunde; Weidner E F 1915a / Handbuch der babylonischen Astronomie (pp 35-51 and 141-153); Kugler F X 1913a / Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel. Erganzungen zum ersten und zweiten Buch. (pp 1-72 and 141ff); Oelsner J 1986a / Materialien zur babylonischen Gesellschaft und Kultur in hellenistischer Zeit (p 219)
Location: Not on display
Exhibition history: Exhibited: 2009 March 12-August 30, Italy, Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, 'Galileo: Images of the Universe from Antiquity to the Telescope' 1995 7 Jul-22 Oct, London, The British Library, The Earth and the Heavens: the Art of the Mapmaker 1990 6 May-9 Dec, Austria, Linz, Oberösterreichische Landesmuseen, Mensch und Kosmos Previously exhibited successively in the Babylonian Room and in the Room of Wriitng.
Condition: Fair / poor; nearly complete; rather abraded on the reverse.
Acquisition name
Acquisition date: 1899
Acquisition notes: The register includes a note in pencil suggesting that this tablet may not properly belong in the 1899,0610 collection. The contemporary Deposit book had recorded the arrival of 102 tablets and one prism, not the 100 tablets subsequently registered.
Department: Middle East
BM/Big number: 86378
Registration number: 1899,0610.108
Conservation

Free entry

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