A Stray Sumerian Tablet: Unravelling the story behind Cambridge University Library’s oldest written object
The story surrounding the oldest written document at one of the world’s great research libraries has been unravelled in a new film.
This little piece of clay is packed full of information from 4,200 years ago
Nicholas Postgate
A Stray Sumerian Tablet has been published today by Cambridge University Library and focuses on a diminutive clay tablet, written by a scribe in ancient Iraq, some 4,200 years ago. A description of the tablet along with high-resolution images and a 3D model can also be seen on Cambridge Digital Library.
Containing six lines of cuneiform script, and roughly the size of an adult thumb, it was donated to the University Library in 1921 but then lost to sight for many years before its rediscovery in 2016, during research for the Curious Objects exhibition, held as part of the University Library’s 600th anniversary.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/a-stray-sumerian-tablet-unravelling-the-story-behind-cambridge-university-librarys-oldest-written
