Cuneiform Tablets

Date range: 25th-4th centuries BC

Medium: Manuscript

Number of items: 1,102 items.

Over 1,100 items in Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform scripts.

Most of the Rylands tablets come from the great temples of Drehem and Umma and date from the Ur III dynasty (22nd–21st centuries BC), but there are also First Babylonian Dynasty fragments (20th–17th centuries BC) and later Babylonian and Assyrian pieces.

Texts comprise royal inscriptions, letters, economic, administrative and agricultural documents and literary texts.

Notable items include:

• A rare plan of a Sumerian temple impressed onto a tablet (Cuneiform 930);
• A tablet concerning the conquest of Kish under Agga by Gilgamesh (Cuneiform 931);
• Two bricks of Nebuchadnezzar II, commemorating the rebuilding of Ebabbara, the temple of Shamash at Sippar (Cuneiform 1092 and 1093);
• A nail of Enlil-bani, celebrating the building of the stronghold of Isin (Cuneiform 1094);
• Two cylinders of Nebuchadnezzar II, recording the rebuilding of temples at Sippar and Marad (Cuneiform 1095 and 1096).

Further information:

• A full list of catalogues is provided on the page Catalogues and editions of Cuneiform Tablets.
• The entire collection has been digitised and is available to search via the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI).

Location:

• The John Rylands Library, Deansgate  [Map]
• Find out how to use the reading rooms in the John Rylands Research Institute and Library