A List of Copper Objects

Extract

The object here published, no. 1931.128 in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, is a seven-sided prism measuring 17 cm. in height and 53 mm. in diameter. It was excavated at Tell Ingharra, Kisn, and Dr. P. R. S. Moorey has kindly provided me with the following note on its provenance:“ Its field reference is C 10 5(5), which means that it was found in area ‘C’, trench number 10, at five metres from the surface of the mound at a place where the surface is five metres above the plain, i.e. at plain level (see Iraq 28 (1966), 19–20 with Fig. 1, and 32–3). If my interpretation of the site is correct, these levels were part of an Akkad–Isin/Larsa religious centre, perhaps the well-known Temple of Ishtar (Ninlil) at Ehursagkalamma.” The script is at least as early as the Ur III period, probably earlier.

The text consists of a list of copper objects, each line ending with the sign urudu. Its main divisions are as follows: I 1 ff. vessels (šen); II 10 ff. chisels (bulug); IV 10 ff. daggers (gír); VI 8 ff. knives(?) (šum). A strange peculiarity of the text is that the lines run in pairs, each object being followed by the same object preceded by the sign AN. This rule is broken only in side IV lines 2–9, and possibly also in the damaged passage I 16–II 9, and it has made it possible to restore a large number of damaged lines with a high degree of probability. At first sight one is inclined to read these lines beginning with AN as the object in question deified, but this seems so improbable that it is safer to transliterate the sign as AN.