Erlenmeyer archaic: 9 (2024-07-12)

Created by: Englund, Robert K.

Proto-cuneiform grain management account (Uruk III period, ca. 3200-3000 BC; owner: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York)

The Uruk III period (ca. 3200-3000 BC) sealed tablet from the former Swiss Erlenmeyer collection, auctioned at Christie’s London in December 1988 for £9,500, contains two entries concerning the distribution of barley; the tablet is one of only two archaic texts from the Erlenmeyer archive with a seal impression. Note the seal’s depiction of the ruler, often called the “priest-king” of Uruk, on the hunt for wild boar with his mastiffs in the reed marshland of southern Mesopotamia, a very dangerous sport in ancient, as in modern times. Bibliography: Hans J. Nissen, Peter Damerow & Robert K. Englund, Archaic Bookkeeping (Chicago 1993) p. 17 + fig. 17; Joan Aruz, Art of the First Cities (2003) 40. The text also appeared in the 4th and final volume of the series Cuneiform Texts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art edited by Ira Spar (2014; pp. 338-339, no. 179). Photo courtesy of the MMA; seal impression rendering: J. Aruz, Curator in Charge, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. CDLI entry: P005393

credit: Englund, Robert K.