Ancient Near East, Sumer, Third Dynasty of Ur, ca. 2080 to 2030 BCE. A petite clay tablet with rounded sides and faces. The tablet bears thirteen lines of cuneiform text made by pressing a sharpened reed or stick into the still-wet clay just before undergoing the kilning process. The subject of this tablet is from the town of Drehem and is meant as a receipt for the transportation of an amount of animals either to or from the city. Cuneiform was generally a pictographic style of writing in its infancy, though it became a more abstract style of letter-based script around the 3rd millennium BCE. Size: 1.25" W x 1.425" H (3.2 cm x 3.6 cm).

This tablet and five other tablets of a similar size hammered for GBP 1,500 ($1,979) at Bonhams, London, Knightsbridge Antiquities Auction (May 8, 2013, lot 147 [middle-right tablet]): https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20667/lot/147/?category=grid&length=560&page=1

Provenance: private Houston, Texas, USA collection; ex-Bonhams, London, Knightsbridge Antiquities Auction (May 8, 2013, part of lot 147); ex-Joseph Klein collection, formed in New York, New York, USA between 1941 and 1980, thence by descent

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#132901

Surface wear and abrasions commensurate with age as expected, very minor nicks to corners and sides, with some fading to impressed cuneiform text, otherwise intact and very good. Nice earthen deposits throughout.