Ashmolean Museum: 7 (2023-06-13)

Created by: Wagensonner, Klaus

Thematic lexical list with designations for vessels dating to the Neo-Babylonian period; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Ashm 1932-518.

The early second millennium saw the emergence of a new set of thematic lists. Most notable is a large multi-thematic series, whose first entry is ur5(HAR)-ra : hubullu (short Hh or Ura). The whole series in its canonical version from the late second millennium onwards contained 24 sections, lit. "tablets." This large fragment in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum contains the tenth "tablet" of this lexical series. The many other manuscripts known to be part of this section help to reconstruct its original content. The tablet had three columns on each side (this can also be determined from the curvature of the edges). Each column was subdivided into two sub-columns with the Sumerian version on the left and the Akkadian equivalent on the right. The list starts with the entry DUG : karpatu. Entries 1-336 of the list deal with various designations of vessels that are categorised as DUG. As a marginal note one might add the intriguing detail that in the first column of the tablet the sign DUG appears always on the left edge and not, as expected, on the obverse. This might give clues to the nature of DUG as (mute) classifier in this text. After a section of various different vessels the second larger part of this list in entries 388-510 contains various designations for clay (IM). CDLI entry: P451706

credit: Wagensonner, Klaus