Sumerian-Akkadian Dictionary Tablet with Colophon
Unknown · Neo-Babylonian period, 604-539 BC
A clay tablet fourteen centimetres high is ruled into narrow columns of tiny cuneiform. It is a page from a dictionary. In the centre column stand Sumerian words, grouped by meaning; to the left, their pronunciation spelled out in syllables; to the right, their translation into Akkadian. By the time it was written Sumerian had been a dead language for over a thousand years, kept alive only in temples and schools, so scribes needed reference works like this to read the old texts. The tablet belongs to a great lexical series known by its opening entry, á equals A equals naqu.
At the end is a colophon, a note by the scribe about the tablet itself, which concerns its storage and preservation in a library. It is a rare glimpse of how a Babylonian collection was organised and cared for. The tablet is attributed on stylistic grounds to Uruk, the ancient city of Warka in southern Iraq, whose temple libraries produced many such scholarly texts in the sixth century before our era. The Louvre purchased it in 1920.
Did You Know? The scribe's closing note is essentially a library label, telling future readers where the tablet belonged and asking them to look after it.
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