Writing of mesopotamia: Cuneiform — World History Encyclopedia

Posted on 30 декабря, 2022 by alexxlab

Cuneiform — World History Encyclopedia

Cuneiform is a system of writing first developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia c. 3500-3000 BCE. It is considered the most significant among the many cultural contributions of the Sumerians and the greatest among those of the Sumerian city of Uruk which advanced the writing of cuneiform c. 3200 BCE.

The name comes from the Latin word cuneus for ‘wedge’ owing to the wedge-shaped style of writing. In cuneiform, a carefully cut writing implement known as a stylus is pressed into soft clay to produce wedge-like impressions that represent word-signs (pictographs) and, later, phonograms or `word-concepts’ (closer to a modern-day understanding of a `word’). All of the great Mesopotamian civilizations used cuneiform until it was abandoned in favour of the alphabetic script at some point after 100 BCE, including:

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Sumerians
Akkadians
Babylonians
Elamites
Hatti
Hittites
Assyrians
Hurrians

When the ancient cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia were discovered and deciphered in the late 19th century CE, they would literally transform human understanding of history. Prior to their discovery, the Bible was considered the oldest and most authoritative book in the world. The brilliant scholar and translator George Smith (l.1840-1876 CE) changed the understanding of history with his translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh in 1872 CE. This translation allowed other cuneiform tablets to be interpreted which overturned the traditional understanding of the biblical version of history and made room for scholarly, objective explorations of history to move forward.

Cuneiform Writing

Jan van der Crabben (CC BY-NC-SA)

Early Cuneiform

The earliest cuneiform tablets, known as proto-cuneiform, were pictorial, as the subjects they addressed were more concrete and visible (a king, a battle, a flood) but developed in complexity as the subject matter became more intangible (the will of the gods, the quest for immortality). By 3000 BCE the representations were more simplified and the strokes of the stylus conveyed word-concepts (honour) rather than word-signs (an honourable man). The written language was further refined through the rebus which isolated the phonetic value of a certain sign so as to express grammatical relationships and syntax to determine meaning. In clarifying this, the scholar Ira Spar writes:

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This new way of interpreting signs is called the rebus principle. Only a few examples of its use exist in the earliest stages of cuneiform from between 3200 and 3000 B.C. The consistent use of this type of phonetic writing only becomes apparent after 2600 B.C. It constitutes the beginning of a true writing system characterized by a complex combination of word-signs and phonograms—signs for vowels and syllables—that allowed the scribe to express ideas. By the middle of the Third Millennium B.C., cuneiform primarily written on clay tablets was used for a vast array of economic, religious, political, literary, and scholarly documents. (1)

The great literary works of Mesopotamia such as the famous Epic of Gilgamesh were all written in cuneiform.

Development of Cuneiform

One no longer had to struggle with the meaning of a pictograph; one now read a word-concept which more clearly conveyed the meaning of the writer. The number of characters used in writing was also reduced from over 1,000 to 600 in order to simplify and clarify the written word. The best example of this is given by the historian Paul Kriwaczek who notes that, in the time of proto-cuneiform:

All that had been devised thus far was a technique for noting down things, items and objects, not a writing system. A record of `Two Sheep Temple God Inanna’ tells us nothing about whether the sheep are being delivered to, or received from, the temple, whether they are carcasses, beasts on the hoof, or anything else about them. (63)

Cuneiform developed to the point where it could be made clear, to use Kriwaczek’s example, whether the sheep were coming or going to the temple, for what purpose, and whether they were living or dead. By the time of the priestess-poet Enheduanna (l.2285-2250 BCE), who wrote her famous hymns to Inanna in the Sumerian city of Ur, cuneiform was sophisticated enough to convey emotional states such as love and adoration, betrayal and fear, longing and hope, as well as the precise reasons behind the writer experiencing such states.

Love History?

Inscribed Stand Head of Entemena

Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin (Copyright)

Cuneiform Literature

The great literary works of Mesopotamia such as the Atrahasis, The Descent of Inanna, The Myth of Etana, The Enuma Elish and the famous Epic of Gilgamesh were all written in cuneiform and were completely unknown until the mid 19th century CE, when men like George Smith, the Reverend Edward Hincks (l. 1792-1866 CE), Jules Oppert (l. 1825-1905 CE), and Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (l.1810-1895 CE) deciphered the language and translated it into English.

Rawlinson’s translations of Mesopotamian texts were first presented to the Royal Asiatic Society of London in 1837 CE and again in 1839 CE. In 1846 CE he worked with the archaeologist Austin Henry Layard in his excavation of Nineveh and was responsible for the earliest translations from the library of Ashurbanipal discovered at that site. Edward Hincks focused on Persian cuneiform, establishing its patterns and identifying vowels among his other contributions. Jules Oppert identified cuneiform’s origins and established the grammar of Assyrian cuneiform. George Smith was responsible for deciphering The Epic of Gilgamesh and in 1872 CE, famously, the Mesopotamian version of the Flood Story, which until then was thought to be original to the biblical Book of Genesis.

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Many biblical texts were thought to be original works until cuneiform was deciphered.

Many biblical texts were thought to be original until cuneiform was deciphered. The Fall of Man and the Great Flood were understood as literal events in human history dictated by God to the author (or authors) of Genesis but were now recognized as Mesopotamian myths which Hebrew scribes had embellished on in The Myth of Etana and the Atrahasis. The biblical story of the Garden of Eden could now be understood as a myth derived from The Enuma Elish and other Mesopotamian works. The Book of Job, far from being an actual historical account of an individual’s unjust suffering, could now be recognized as a literary piece belonging to a Mesopotamian tradition following the discovery of the earlier Ludlul-Bel-Nimeqi text which relates a similar story.

The concept of a dying and reviving god who goes down into the underworld and then returns, presented as a novel concept in the gospels of the New Testament, was now understood as an ancient paradigm first expressed in Mesopotamian literature in the poem The Descent of Inanna. The very model of many of the narratives of the Bible, including the gospels, could now be read in light of the discovery of Mesopotamian Naru Literature which took a figure from history and embellished upon his achievements in order to relay an important moral and cultural message.

Flood Tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh

Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin (Copyright)

Prior to this time, as noted, the Bible was considered the oldest book in the world, the Song of Solomon was thought to be the oldest love poem; but all of that changed with the discovery and decipherment of cuneiform. The oldest love poem in the world is now recognized as The Love Song of Shu-Sin dated to 2000 BCE, long before The Song of Solomon was written. These advances in understanding were all made by the 19th century CE archaeologists and scholars sent to Mesopotamia to substantiate biblical stories through physical evidence.

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Along with other Assyriologists (among them, T. G. Pinches and Edwin Norris), Rawlinson spearheaded the development of Mesopotamian language studies, and his Cuneiform Inscriptions of Ancient Babylon and Assyria, along with his other works, became the standard reference on the subject following their publication in the 1860’s CE and remain respected scholarly works into the modern day.

George Smith, regarded as an intellect of the first rank, died on a field expedition to Nineveh in 1876 CE at the age of 36. Smith, a self-taught translator of cuneiform, made his first contributions to deciphering the ancient writing in his early twenties, and his death at such a young age has long been regarded a significant loss to the advancement in translations of cuneiform in the 19th century CE.

The literature of Mesopotamia informed all the written works which came after. Mesopotamian motifs can be detected in the works of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman works and still resonate in the present day through the biblical narratives which they inform. When George Smith deciphered cuneiform he dramatically changed the way human beings would understand their history.

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The accepted version of the creation of the world, original sin, and many of the other precepts by which people had been living their lives were all challenged by the revelation of Mesopotamian — largely Sumerian — literature. Since the discovery and decipherment of cuneiform, the history of civilization has never been the same.

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This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication.

Where Did Writing Come From?

Editor’s Note

Mesopotamia: Civilization Begins was on view at the Getty Villa, April 21–August 16, 2021.

Body Content

In a world in which immediate access to words and information is taken for granted, it is hard to imagine a time when writing began.

Archaeological discoveries in ancient Mesopotamia (now mostly modern Iraq) show the initial power and purpose of writing, from administrative and legal functions to poetry and literature.

Mesopotamia was a region comprising many cultures over time speaking different languages. The earliest known writing was invented there around 3400 B.C. in an area called Sumer near the Persian Gulf. The development of a Sumerian script was influenced by local materials: clay for tablets and reeds for styluses (writing tools). At about the same time, or a little later, the Egyptians were inventing their own form of hieroglyphic writing.

Even after Sumerian died out as a spoken language around 2000 B.C., it survived as a scholarly language and script. Other peoples within and near Mesopotamia, from Turkey, Syria, and Egypt to Iran, adopted the later version of this script developed by the Akkadians (the first recognizable Semitic people), who succeeded the Sumerians as rulers of Mesopotamia. In Babylonia itself, the script survived for two more millennia until its demise around 70 C.E.

Tablet with Proto-cuneiform Inscription, about 3100 B.C., Proto-urban. Clay, 1 3/4 × 2 13/16 in. Musée du Louvre, Department of Near Eastern Antiquities. Image © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

Photo: Franck Raux

Early clay models depicting objects were the first Mesopotamian accounting records. These gave way to clay tablets like this one from Uruk with the earliest writing: simplified drawings and number signs.

Writing began with pictographs (picture words) drawn into clay with a pointed tool. This early administrative tablet was used to record food rations for people, shown by a person’s head and bowl visible on the lower left side. Pictographs and numbers show amounts of grain allotted to cities and types of workers, including pig herders and groups associated with a religious festival.

Tablets like these helped local leaders organize, manage, and archive information. This tablet reflects bureaucratic accounting, but similar lists were used in the following centuries by individuals to keep track of personal property and business agreements.

From Pictures to Writing in Everyday Life

Writing evolved when someone decided to replace the pointed drawing tool with a triangular reed stylus. The reed could be pressed easily and quickly into clay to make wedges. At first, the wedges were grouped to make pictures, but slowly the groups evolved into more abstract signs and became the sophisticated script we call cuneiform (“wedge-shaped” in Latin). About one thousand signs represented the names of objects and also stood for words, syllables, and sounds (or parts of them).

Cuneiform records provide information about bureaucracy and authority, but they also document many fascinating aspects of daily life. Written texts reveal how individuals and families expressed their wishes, married and had children, did business, and worshipped. People wrote mainly on clay, but also on more expensive materials such as the golden plaque shown above.

Tablet in Envelope with a Marriage Contract (fragment), 1830–1813 B.C., Amorite. Unfired clay, 5 × 2 5/8 in. Musée du Louvre, Department of Near Eastern Antiquities. Image © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

Photo: Mathieu Rabeau

This marriage contract is enclosed in a clay envelope, a piece of which has broken off.

Tablet in Envelope with a Marriage Contract, 1830–1813 B.C., Amorite. Unfired clay, 5 × 2 5/8 in. Musée du Louvre, Department of Near Eastern Antiquities. Image © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

Photo: Mathieu Rabeau

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In this clay marriage contract, which includes an oath to the chief god of Kish where the marriage would have taken place, a father gives his daughter to her new husband. In turn the husband pays a bride-price of silver to three men, perhaps her brothers. The document is enclosed in a clay envelope. Witnesses each rolled personal seals, inscribed cylinders like small rolling pins, across the left side of the envelope to impress a form of signature in relief.

Cylinder Seals as Signatures on Clay

To sign a clay document and sometimes to guarantee that it was officially closed, Mesopotamians used seals, mostly of durable and sometimes expensive materials. Many could be worn or pinned on like jewelry.

Cylinder Seal of a Royal Baker, about 2150–2000 B.C., Neo-Sumerian. Chlorite, 1 3/8 × 5/8 in. Musée du Louvre, Department of Near Eastern Antiquities. Image © Musée du Louvre, dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Raphaël Chipault / Benjamin Soligny / Art Resource, NY

This personal stone (chlorite) seal has ends carved to mimic caps in metal. The impression shows the image rolled onto clay.

The cylinder seal above is inscribed with the name of a palace baker. He shows himself standing before an important seated divinity, being introduced by a lesser goddess. In the impression made by rolling the seal, you can see the text and first standing figure start to repeat on the right side.

Seals required special care. Image and text were reversed when pressed into clay, so on the seal a scribe and artist had to create mirror images and inscriptions. In addition, writing on hard materials required totally different techniques from writing directly on clay.

Who Wrote Cuneiform?

Professional writers of cuneiform were called “tablet writers”—scribes. In slow stages of schooling, they learned hundreds of cuneiform signs and memorized texts and templates in different languages. Most were men, but some women could become scribes.

Students’ interests and skills varied, and a proverb noted: “A disgraced scribe becomes a man of magical spells.” This was a pointed reminder that less-committed students might end up making an uncertain living writing common incantations. Working harder could lead to a prosperous life composing legal documents—or even writing correspondence for a royal court. Those who persevered could become scholars with knowledge of mathematics, medicine, religious ritual, divination, laws, and mythology, or even authors of literature.

Tablet with an Essay on the Education of a Young Scribe, about 2000–1600 B.C., Amorite. Unfired clay, 3 7/8 × 2 1/2 in. Musée du Louvre, Department of Near Eastern Antiquities. Image © Musée du Louvre, dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Raphaël Chipault / Benjamin Soligny / Art Resource, NY

This clay document is one of a series recording scribal training.

This tablet is one of more than 20 similar tablets (nicknamed “Schooldays”) that present the life of a young student in a scribal school. The days were long, filled with copying and memorizing. Older scribes oversaw these efforts, while the school was led by a headmaster. The document records a usual day:

I read my tablet, ate my lunch,
prepared my [new] tablet, wrote it, finished it; then
my model tablets were brought to me;
and in the afternoon, my exercise tablets were brought to me.The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, 1963, translation by N. Kramer

On this day the boy feels successful, but on the next, his teachers repeatedly beat him for infractions such as tardiness, talking, and poor handwriting. In the end, the boy’s father invites the headmaster to dinner and gives him gifts and money. Appeased (and bought off, although such payments may have been expected), the headmaster declares to the boy: “You have carried out well the school’s activities. You are a man of learning!”

Many people may have learned the basics of reading and writing, including royals. The first known author was Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon, king of Akkad, the first king to conquer all of Mesopotamia. She was a priestess who composed religious poetry. Later, the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal praised his own literacy and scholarship. He is sometimes shown in royal art with a writing stylus stuck in his belt.

Although cuneiform endured for over three thousand years, as simpler alphabets became common the script was eventually used only for scholarly documents, and it faded away completely in the late-first century A.D. Within a few centuries, all understanding of the once-dominant writing was lost for about 1,800 years.

How Cuneiform Was Deciphered

Land Grant Stele (“Caillou Michaux”), 1100–1083 B. C., Mesopotamian. Serpentine, 15 3/4 × 8 11/16 in. Bibliothéque nationale de France. Image © BnF

This Babylonian stone record found near Baghdad was the first notable cuneiform document seen in Europe.

In the 1700s, scholars began to take note of cuneiform on surviving clay fragments and stone monuments, but they did not understand what was written. In 1786, when a French traveler brought this dramatic black kudurru, a small stone monument, to Paris, inventive translations of the text were proposed, such as “The army of heaven gives us vinegar to drink solely to provide us remedies able to bring us healing.”

When its true meaning was eventually deciphered, the stone was found to record a gift of land from a father to his daughter upon her marriage. The careful father stipulates that her new father-in-law will not claim the land as his. The horned, scaly being at the top of the stone is Nabu, a divine patron of scribes who oversees the proper execution of the contract.

The text was written in Akkadian cuneiform, the written language of the conquerors of the Sumerians, which was undeciphered until the mid-1800s.

Relief Decoration from Tiglath-Pilesar III’s Central Palace at Nimrud, about 728 B.C. British Museum ME118882

Photo: Greta Van Buylaere

An Assyrian scribe holding a stylus and clay tablet records objects taken from a defeated city.

By then, some scholars were convinced that they could read Akkadian texts. Others thought they were just guessing. Finally, in 1857 the Royal Asiatic Society issued a challenge to four experts: Provide independent translations of a newly found, unpublished Akkadian inscription for judgment by a jury. Each academic received a copy of the inscription and returned a translation within a set time.

The text was an account of a king’s military successes. One dramatic excerpt declared: “Their carcasses covered the valleys and the tops of the mountains. I cut off their heads. The battlements of their cities I made heaps of, like mounds of earth!” The scholars were vindicated when a jury found their translations similar and declared Akkadian cuneiform deciphered! Read the account here.

In the 1800s and 1900s, archaeological excavations revealed thousands of cuneiform documents, and the variations of the script across languages and time were slowly deciphered.

While we can read cuneiform documents today, the majority—many hundreds of thousands—still survive unread, and the few hundred cuneiform experts worldwide face an impossible task. Fortunately, machine learning offers potential assistance. Scholars at many institutions are compiling databases and training machines to read and fill in gaps in these ancient texts.

Find out more about Mesopotamia, and the exhibition Mesopotamia: Civilization Begins.

Ancient Mesopotamian writing

10 Mesopotamian business cards • Arzamas

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June 21, 2019 History, Art e. until the first centuries A.D. e.? Ekaterina Markina, an employee of the Institute of Classical Oriental and Antiquity at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, has chosen ten monuments that make it possible to appreciate the originality of the Mesopotamian culture

Do you know how and when writing was invented, why the minute and hour are divided into 60 parts, and what was the name of the world’s first poet? The science of Assyriology provides answers to these and many other questions. She studies the history, culture and writing of Ancient Mesopotamia — a region that was located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (modern Iraq, Syria and Turkey).

At different times on the territory of Mesopotamia there were different states — Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia, Assyria and others. The daily life of the peoples living there is known from cuneiform texts — written monuments created from the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. and up to the first centuries A. D. e. Today, archaeologists have found about half a million such documents.

This year, the Institute of the Classical Orient and Antiquity will host the first intake of Assyriology students — after reading this material, as well as studying the blog with Mesopotamian rarities, you will surely want to become one of them.

1. Cuneiform tablets

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Clay tablet with cuneiform writing. About 2600 B.C. e. Musée du Louvre

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Cuneiform tablets. Around 2340-2200 BC. e. Musee du Louvre

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Cuneiform tablet. 2000-1600 BC e. Royal Ontario Museum

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Cuneiform tablet. Around 173 B.C. e. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The first written documents in the history of mankind — they date back to the end of the 3rd millennium BC. e. — were found in the south of modern Iraq, on the site of the city, which in ancient times was called Uruk (now the settlement is called Varka).

The inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia wrote on clay tablets using a stylus, a reed stick with a pointed end. At first, the signs were picturesque: they were scratched on clay and depicted the object in question. Later, the signs became more schematic, turning into real writing. They were no longer scratched, but squeezed out with a stylus — which is why the strokes that make up the sign acquired a characteristic wedge-shaped shape, and the writing itself began to be called cuneiform.

The earliest texts are analogues of modern accounting documents: scribes kept records of income and expenses of the city economy. A little later, literary texts and lists of words appeared, according to which future scribes studied writing and terminology. The last cuneiform document dates back to the 1st century AD. e. Over its three thousand year history, cuneiform has been used to write texts in 15 languages belonging to different language families. Among them are Sumerian, Akkadian, Elamite, Hittite, Urartian and Old Persian.

2. Cylindrical seals

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Middle Assyrian seal with an ostrich hunting scene and its impression. 12th century BC e. The Morgan Library & Museum

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Neo-Assyrian seal with a scene of worship of the goddess Ishtar and her impression. Around the 8th-7th centuries BC. e. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

When private property appeared, it became necessary to somehow confirm their right to it. For this, seals were used in Mesopotamia. In the III-II millennium BC. e. the stamps familiar to us were rarely used. Especially popular were small cylinders made of semi-precious stones — lapis lazuli, carnelian, jasper, etc. — on which scenes of a religious, mythological or everyday nature were carved. Over time, a brief inscription was added to the image with the name, profession or position of the owner of the seal. Each era has its own pictorial style and range of popular subjects. Most Mesopotamian seals are known only from impressions on a clay surface — the seals themselves have been found much less.

3. Ziggurats

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Ziggurat in Ur. Built around 2047 BC. e. Wikimedia Commons

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Ziggurat in Akar Kuf. Built in the 14th century BC. e. © David Robbins / CC0 1.0

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Ziggurat at Chogha Zanbil. Built around 1250 BC. e. Wikimedia Commons

A ziggurat is a step pyramid, which, unlike the Egyptian ones, has no internal passages and chambers. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote that this monolithic mud brick building served as a platform for the sanctuary located on the upper tier. Archaeologically, this cannot be confirmed: the ziggurats that have come down to us have suffered greatly from erosion, nothing remains of the upper tiers. Three ziggurats are best preserved: Ur, located near the Iraqi city of An-Nasiriya, another one in Akar-Kufa near Baghdad, and, finally, on the site of Chogha-Zanbil in Iranian Khuzistan.

Here you can see how the reconstruction of the ziggurat in Uruk took place.

4. Board game of Ur

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Royal game of Ur. Playing field and chips. 2600-2400 BC e. © The British Museum

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Cuneiform tablet with the rules of the royal game of Ur. 177-176 BC e. © The British Museum

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The Necropolis of Ur is as important as the tomb of Tutankhamun. It dates back to the XXVI-XXV centuries BC. e. and includes about 1800 burials, 16 of which belong to members of the royal family. Among the richest grave goods in the tomb of Queen Pu-Abi, a game board with a set of chips and dice was found, dating from the same time as the necropolis itself. The royal game of Ur, or the game of twenty fields, like its ancient Egyptian counterpart senet, belongs to the so-called racing games. The player must move all his pieces along the board along a certain trajectory, overtaking the opponent. The British Museum has developed an online version of this game.

5. Bronze mask from Nineveh

Mask from Nineveh. About 2300 B.C. e. المتحف العراقي (National Museum of Iraq)

Cast bronze mask dating from the 24th-23rd centuries BC. e., was found during the excavations of Nineveh, one of the ancient capitals of the Assyrian kingdom. Presumably, it was attached to an unpreserved wooden base, possibly to a statue. An outstanding British archaeologist — and part-time husband of Agatha Christie — Max Mallowan suggested that the mask depicts Sargon of Akkad — the king who first managed to unite the lands of northern and southern Mesopotamia under his rule. However, there is no direct evidence for this hypothesis, so it is more correct to call this item the royal mask from Nineveh, and not the mask of Sargon.

The mask was severely damaged already in antiquity: its left eye socket was pierced, its ears were cut off, and the tip of the nose was flattened. And this is no coincidence: in ancient Mesopotamia, it was believed that any image (especially signed) bears the imprint of the person depicted and if, for example, the royal statue is harmed, it passes to the king himself.

6. Stele with laws of Hammurabi

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Stele with laws of Hammurabi. 1755-1752 B.C. e. Musee du Louvre

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A fragment of a stele with the laws of Hammurabi. 1755-1752 B.C. e. Musée du Louvre

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Fragment of a stele with the laws of Hammurabi. 1755-1752 B.C. e. Musée du Louvre

This 2.25 meter high black stone stele is engraved with one of the first legislative codes in human history. The text was compiled during the reign of the Babylonian king Hammurabi (approximately 1792-1750 BC). There are about three hundred thematically grouped paragraphs in the laws. Misdemeanors are punished according to the principle of talion, or lex talionis. According to him, the punishment should literally correspond to the harm done: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Thus, the section on the negligent builder reads:

«§229–232. If a builder builds a house for a man and makes his work unstable, so that the house he built collapses and causes death to the owner of the house, then this builder must be killed. If he causes death to the son of the owner of the house, then he must kill the son of this builder. If he causes death to the slave of the owner of the house, then he must give the owner of the house a slave for a slave. If he destroys property, then he must compensate — everything that he destroyed; because he built the house unsoundly — so that it collapsed — he must rebuild the collapsed house at his own expense.

7. Kudurru stone

Kudurru Meli-Shipak II. 1186-1172 BC e. Musée du Louvre

Kudurru literally means «border» in Akkadian. This was the name of the document, fixing the rights to land, issued by the tsar to the new owner. Basically, these documents were created in Babylonia in the 16th-12th centuries BC. e. The text, as well as the symbols of the deities acting as guarantors of the transfer of rights, were carved on stone.

In the photo we see a kudurra with a text that the Babylonian king Meli-Shipak II gave the land to a man named Marduk-apla-iddina. The symbols of 24 deities are depicted in three registers, including the moon god Sin (crescent), the sun god Shamash (solar disk), the goddess of war and love Ishtar (star), the god of underground waters Ea (a goat with a fish tail), the goddess of healing Gula ( dog), the patron god of Babylon Marduk (a mushkhushshu dragon in front of the sanctuary with a spear) and the thunder god Adad (bull).

8. Winged bulls and lions with human heads

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Paired statues of a winged bull and a lion. Around 883-859 BC. e. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Winged bull with a human head. Around 883-859 BC. e. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Winged lion with human head. Around 883-859 BC. e. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Paired statues of winged bulls and lions with human heads framed the entrance to the throne room and front rooms of the palaces of the Assyrian kings in their ancient capitals — Kalha, Nineveh and Dur-Sharrukin — in the 9th-6th centuries BC. e. So the Assyrians imagined the deities who protected the palace from demons and evil spirits. But how they were called in Akkadian, scientists still argue. If you look closely, you can see that the bull and the lion do not have four legs, but five. This is because they are both standing (when viewed from the front) and walking (when viewed from the side). Such a pictorial canon was used until the reign of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (705-681 BC).

9. Palace reliefs with scenes of war and peace

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Relief from the palace of Ashurbanipal depicting a lion hunt. 645-640 BC e. British Museum

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Fragment of a relief from the palace of Ashurbanipal depicting a lion hunt. 645-640 BC e. British Museum

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Fragment of a relief from the palace of Ashurbanipal depicting a lion hunt. 645-640 BC e. British Museum

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Relief from the palace of Ashurnatsirapal II with a cuneiform inscription and the image of the king and his guardian god. 883-859 BC e. State Hermitage Museum

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Reliefs from the palace of Tiglath-Pileser III. 745-727 BC e. State Hermitage Museum

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Relief fragment from the palace of Sargon II. 721-705 BC e. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

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Fragment of a relief from the palace of Sennacherib. 705-681 BC e. British Museum

In the 1st millennium BC e. Assyrian kings often decorated the walls of their palaces with reliefs depicting military and religious scenes. Images were often accompanied by inscriptions telling about the deeds of the king.

The earliest reliefs that have come down to us were made for the palace of the Assyrian king Ashurnatsirapal II in his new capital Kalhu. In the second half of the 19th century, such reliefs were acquired for the Hermitage collection — today they can be seen in the permanent exhibition of the Mesopotamian Art Hall.

Reliefs from the palaces of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC), Sargon II (721–705 BC), Sennacherib (705–681 BC) and Ashurbanipal (668–630) are also known. or 627 BC), during which this art form especially flourished. The main pearl of the genre is a series of reliefs dedicated to lion hunting, which adorned the walls of the Ashurbanipal palace in Nineveh.

10. Gate of the goddess Ishtar

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Gate of Ishtar. 575 BC e. Pergamonmuseum

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Bull. Figure from the bas-relief of the Ishtar Gate. 575 BC e. Pergamonmuseum

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Dragon. Figure from the bas-relief of the Ishtar Gate. 575 BC e. Pergamonmuseum

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Left Figure from the bas-relief of the Ishtar Gate. 575 BC e. Pergamonmuseum

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The Ishtar Gate, with emphasis on I., is the name given to the double gates of Babylon created under King Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BC). Together with the wide street leading to them, along which a fence with the image of lions, the sacred animals of Ishtar, stretched on both sides, they form a complex of structures for the celebration of Akitu. This holiday lasted 12 days and was timed to coincide with the onset of a new agricultural cycle. One of the ceremonies included a procession to the Ishtar Gate. The fence and gates were finished as luxuriously as possible: they were decorated with deep blue glazed brick, imitating lapis lazuli, which was valued in Mesopotamia above other stones.

Writing of mesopotamia: Cuneiform — World History Encyclopedia

Cuneiform — World History Encyclopedia

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Early Cuneiform

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Development of Cuneiform

Cuneiform Literature

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Where Did Writing Come From?

Editor’s Note

Body Content

From Pictures to Writing in Everyday Life

Cylinder Seals as Signatures on Clay

Who Wrote Cuneiform?

How Cuneiform Was Deciphered

Ancient Mesopotamian writing

10 Mesopotamian business cards • Arzamas

1. Cuneiform tablets

2. Cylindrical seals

3. Ziggurats

4. Board game of Ur

5. Bronze mask from Nineveh

6. Stele with laws of Hammurabi

7. Kudurru stone

8. Winged bulls and lions with human heads

9. Palace reliefs with scenes of war and peace

10. Gate of the goddess Ishtar

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