Ancient Near Eastern Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v ...
Ancient Near Eastern Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v ...
Ancient Near Eastern Art: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v ...
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hundred texts and inscriptions dating<br />
from early Sumerian times (ca. 2800 B.C.)<br />
until the first century A.D.<br />
Most Mesopotamian tablets are records<br />
<strong>of</strong> commercial, legal, or administrative<br />
activities. One <strong>of</strong> the earliest<br />
Mesopotamian legal documents in the<br />
<strong>Museum</strong>'s collection is a small Sumerian<br />
stone stele (fig. 71), probably from the<br />
E-nun Temple <strong>of</strong> the god Shara at Umma.<br />
<strong>The</strong> stele has been interpreted as either<br />
a record <strong>of</strong> the purchase <strong>of</strong> properties<br />
and commodities by the priest Ushumgal<br />
or as a record <strong>of</strong> his bequest <strong>of</strong> these<br />
properties and commodities to various<br />
people, including his daughter.<br />
<strong>The</strong> clay envelope <strong>of</strong> a tablet (fig. 73)<br />
dates to the Old Assyrian Colony period<br />
in Anatolia (1920-1750 B.C.). <strong>The</strong> actual<br />
tablet contained in the envelope is a legal<br />
deposition regarding theft, sworn in a<br />
court <strong>of</strong> law. <strong>The</strong> clay envelope is impressed<br />
on each side (here the obverse)<br />
five times with two different cylinder seals.<br />
Records and inscriptions also commemorated<br />
royal achievements, such as<br />
the building <strong>of</strong> a palace, or extolled military<br />
victories. <strong>The</strong> rim <strong>of</strong> the Achaemenid<br />
gold bowl (fig. 72) is inscribed "Darius,<br />
the great king" in Old Persian, Elamite,<br />
and Neo-Babylonian.<br />
<strong>The</strong> written record from the ancient<br />
<strong>Near</strong> East is extensive. <strong>The</strong> documents<br />
provide informationeeded to understand<br />
the political, economic, social, legal,<br />
intellectual, and religious traditions <strong>of</strong><br />
mankind's first civilizations. i.s.<br />
73 74<br />
53