Sumerian Cuneiform is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. First appearing in the 4th millennium BC in what is now Iraq, it was dubbed cuneiform (“wedge-shaped”) because of the distinctive wedge form of the letters, created by pressing a reed stylus into wet clay. Early Sumerian writings were essentially pictograms, which became simplified in the early and mid 3rd millennium BC to a series of strokes, along with a commensurate reduction in the number of discrete signs used (from c.1500 to 600). The script system had a very long life and was used by the Sumerians as well as numerous later groups – notably the Assyrians, Elamites, Akkadians and Hittites – for around three thousand years. Certain signs and phonetic standards live on in modern languages of the Middle and Far East, but the writing system is essentially extinct. It was therefore cause for great excitement when the ‘code’ of ancient cuneiform was cracked by a group of English, French and German Assyriologists and philologists in the mid 19th century AD. This opened up a vital source of information about these ancient groups that could not have been obtained in any other way.

Cuneiform was used on monuments dedicated to heroic – and usually royal – individuals, but perhaps its most important function was that of record keeping. The palace-based society at Ur and other large urban centres was accompanied by a remarkably complex and multifaceted bureaucracy, which was run by professional administrators and a priestly class, all of whom were answerable to central court control. Most of what we know about the way the culture was run and administered comes from cuneiform tablets, which record the everyday running of the temple and palace complexes in minute detail, as in the present case. The Barakat Gallery has secured the services of Professor Lambert (University of Birmingham), a renowned expert in the decipherment and translation of cuneiform, to examine and process the information on these tablets. The following is a transcription of his analysis of this tablet: Clay Tablet with 15 Line Cuneiform Inscription.

This is a tablet written in a large fine hand, in the Babylonian (“Akkadian”) language. It is not dated, but features of script and orthography allow its assignment to about the period of the Third Dynasty of Ur, c. 2100-2000 B.C. The document is a letter written by an unnamed person to his “lord”. The lord might be a district governor or even the king: there is no way of deciding. The content of the letter is plainly and simply stated.

Translation:

Speak to my lord, “One wife of Erishum, one son of his, two daughters of his---her children, four oxherders and 20 donkeys:_I have taken from Isur to Diniktum and put in the care of Girini-isha. Let my lord take note”.

Diniktum is known as a place somewhere in central Mesopotamia from other documents, but the place Isur (or:Nisur) seems to be unkown hitherto, The situation is reasonably clear. A certain lady, her children and some family servants and animals were taken from one place to another and put in the care of a man who is obviously not the husband. This is obviously a piece of ancient social welfare, and the man who took the family (minus the husband) and its donkeys felt obliged to report the fact to his “lord”. The king or a district governor is surely implied. We are not informed why this move took place, but no doubt the husband Erishum was no longer performing his family responsibility. He might have died or have disappeared.

The letter introduction was an instruction to a professional scribe to read aloud the letter to the recipient. Most people were illiterate in this society.

This is a very unusual letter, not of course meant to be read to any one but the “lord” in question.