The State Library of New South Wales in Sydney has a tablet in its Rare Books collection. According to the records of the then Principal Librarian, William Herbert Ifould, OBE, the tablet was donated to the State Library on 21 February 1940 by Mr J Yared who had migrated from Syria and was then a resident of Maryborough in Queensland. At the time it was thought to be a replica, but inspections by Dr Noel Weeks in March 1975 and Dr Larry Stillman in August 1983 identified the tablet as genuine.

The inscription is in Sumerian and dates to the reign of Sîn-kašid (c1860 BCE) who ruled the city of Uruk, located in the south of modern-day Iraq. The tablet was baked, which is a significant factor in its excellent state of preservation. The inscription records the king’s name, titles and epithets and states that he built a royal palace. There are many other known examples of this inscription recorded on a variety of objects, including bricks and clay cones.

It is certain that this artefact was once among the many similar tablets and clay cones bearing this inscription that were recovered from the foundations of Sîn-kašid’s palace at Uruk. These objects functioned as foundation deposits and were placed on every fourth course of bricks during construction. The purpose of doing so was to ensure that when the mud-brick palace needed renovation over the future centuries, Sîn-kašid’s name and deeds would be read by his successors and his legacy would survive.

Bibliography

D Charpin, DO Edzard, and M Stol, Mesopotamien: Die altbabylonische Zeit (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 160/4), Academic Press Fribourg, 2004               

RS Ellis, Foundation Deposits in Ancient Mesopotamia (Yale Near Eastern Researches 2), New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968

D Frayne, Old Babylonian Period (2003 – 1595 BC) (Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Early Periods 4), Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990

AR George, House Most High: The Temples of Ancient Mesopotamia (Mesopotamian Civilizations 5), Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1993

AR George, Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection (Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology 17 / Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collections Cuneiform Texts 6), Bethesda: CDL Press, 2011