A BABYLONIAN CUNEIFORM TABLET

SELEUCID PERIOD, LATE 4TH CENTURY B.C.

细节

A BABYLONIAN CUNEIFORM TABLET
seleucid period, late 4th century b.c.
A scholarly commentary on Tablet VII of the collection of omens called Summa Izbu, with 34 complete lines of text, followed by a complete 5-line colophon which reads, "This is oral explanation and questions from a scholar (taken) from (the series) "If a malformed newborn has the head of a lion...", seventh tablet; remainder of (the series) "If a malformed newborn..." not finished; "If a malformed newborn has two heads," one section, collated. Tablet of Iqisha, eldest son of Amun-sum-eres, descendant of Ekur-sakir, the exorcist, the Urukean."
3 in. (7.6 cm.) long

来源

French Private Collection

拍品专文

Anomalous events in nature were considered portents of events to come. Such incidences were recorded and were collected as early as circa 1800 B.C. Over the centuries they were expanded and recopied for reference by generations of cuneiform scholars so that by the mid 1st millennium B.C. the omen collection filled at least 24 tablets. It was called by its incipit summa izbu, "if a malformed newborn..." The 1st millennium scholars studying this traditional corpus often came upon rare and difficult words from earlier times and produced learned lexical commentaries on them. The present scribe is a member of the well-known scribal family in Seleucid Uruk (southern Babylonia).

For the edition and translation of the series and its commentaries see Leichty, The Omen Series Summa Izbu, Text from Cuneiform Sources 4.