Ancient Near East, Sumer, Third Dynasty of Ur, ca. 2080 to 2030 BCE. A small clay tablet of a rectangular form with planar peripheries, rounded top and bottom edges, and slightly convex faces. The tablet boasts sixteen lines of cuneiform text made by impressing a sharpened reed or stick into the still wet clay before placing in the kiln. The translation of the tablet concerns a delivery of sheep from the town of Drehem to an unnamed location. 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 1.55" H (3.2 cm x 3.9 cm).

This tablet and three others hammered for GBP 1,500 ($1,954) at Bonhams, London, Knightsbridge Antiquities Auction (May 8, 2013, lot 145 [bottom right]): https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20667/lot/145/?category=grid&length=560&page=1

Provenance: private Houston, Texas, USA collection; ex-Bonhams, London, Knightsbridge Antiquities Auction (May 8, 2013, part of lot 145); ex-Joseph Klein collection, formed in New York, New York, USA between 1941 and 1980, thence by descent

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#132905

Surface wear and abrasions commensurate with age, very minor nicks to peripheries, top, and bottom, with fading to some cuneiform letters, otherwise intact and very good. Light earthen deposits throughout.