The Cotsen Collection at UCLA: 9 (2024-08-03)

Created by: Wolfe, Jared N.

An ancient encyclopedia from Mesopotamia, Ḫar-ra = ḫubullu is a series of twenty-four “books” that record many of the elements of Mesopotamian society—agricultural, anthropological, economic, legal, and religious—in both Sumerian and Akkadian.

Mesopotamian scribes kept detailed lists of what made up their world, both physical and spiritual. These so–called lexical lists, already attested in the proto-cuneiform record from the 34th century BC, were created and maintained by the scribal schools. Young scribes would copy sections of these lists to practice their signs, as well as to familiarize themselves with various areas of technical vocabulary. The lexical lists cover such areas as deities, anatomy, omens, flora, fauna, and others of more grammatical nature. Lexical lists such as this tablet from UCLA Library Special Collections provide invaluable lexical material to the modern researcher. They offer information not only on whole words, but also on sign readings and pronunciations. Their internal ordering by signs, spellings, categories, and hierarchies also reveal the many ways that Mesopotamians brought order to their world. The large series, called here Ḫar-ra = ḫubullu (Sumerian and Akkadian for “debt,” "interest loan”; Ḫar-ra is now commonly called Ura by specialists), is named after the first entry of this lexical series containing over 10,000 entries. CDLI entry: P388265

credit: Wolfe, Jared N.