Lot Essay
A full translation of the tablet's text accompanies this lot. This tablet would have been part of a foundation deposit left in the temple of Dumuzi, so that when the building needed repairs the ruler making the repairs would find the deposit and know who had "built" (or rebuilt) the temple. The above tablet would have had a bronze or copper peg fitted into the hole, perhaps with the upper end modelled in the form of a human, while the inscription on the stone tablet would have been repeated around the peg. Cf. Das Vorderasiatische Museum, Staaliche Museen zu Berlin, 1992, pp. 82-83, no. 32 for a similar tablet with its copper peg.
Dumuzi was the god of plant life who died when plants withered in the autumn and who went down to the underworld to rise again in the spring.
Dumuzi was the god of plant life who died when plants withered in the autumn and who went down to the underworld to rise again in the spring.