Cuneiform tablet: bilingual (?) unidentified literary fragment
Unknown Artist
ca. late 1st millennium BCE
Medium
Clay
Dimensions
1 1/4 x 1/2 x 1/2 in. (3.1 x 1.3 x 1.2 cm)
Classification
Clay-Tablets-Inscribed
Department
Ancient Near Eastern Art
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, 1886
Accession Number
86.11.506
Art Historical Context
This petite clay tablet, measuring just over an inch in length, hails from the Ancient Near East around the late 1st millennium BCE—likely the Neo-Babylonian or early Persian period. Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1886, it exemplifies the humble yet revolutionary medium of inscribed clay tablets, which served as the primary "books" of Mesopotamian civilization. Shaped by hand and dried or fired for durability, these tablets were everyday vessels for knowledge, from royal decrees to epic tales. What makes this fragment especially intriguing is its cuneiform script—wedge-shaped i...