One clay tablet with Sumerian cuneiform writing from the Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BCE) period. This is one of the so-called "messenger texts," that generally list six types of goods (beer, bread, oil, naga, fish, onion) in quite regular quantities. The commodity designated as naga is generally held to be a product derived from an alkali-bearing plant; based on its common attestation together with what were presumably dried fish, this product may in turn have been used in the preparation of fish or other foodstuffs.
Citations: Obv. 4: An Inim-Inanna is also found in the messenger texts: BIN 5, 297, MVN 14, 259, Nisaba 1, 170, Nisaba 6, 14, and Nisaba 16, 84. Rev. 5: The personal name "Dada" recorded in the messenger texts from Umma is also found in Nebraska 47; Nisaba 1, 12; Nisaba 1, 123; Nisaba 16, 22; and UMTBM 3, 18.
Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative catalog data: Museum number: MULC 1 ; Catalogue source: 20061202 englund ; Primary publication: CDLB 2012/2 ʹ2.1 ; Dates referenced: 00.00.10.29 ; UCLA Library ARK: 21198/zz0020nft9 ; CDLI number: P345961.
Special Collections holds eight cuneiform tablets whose exact provenance is unknown. Seven of the tablets were donated to MU Libraries by the now-defunct Ernest McClary Todd Museum, formerly a part of the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. They probably came to the University in the early twentieth century. Tablet MULC 8 (Z113 .P3 1#1 item 1a) was acquired as part of the Pages from the Past collection, which was a portfolio of leaves and artifacts sold by Foliophiles in the 1960s. Six of the tablets date from the Ur III period (2100-2000 BCE), are written in Sumerian, and most likely come from the Umma and Drehem archives. Identifications, translations, and dates for these six tablets were determined in 2012 by Changyu Liu of the University of Heidelberg. The remaining two tablets are thought to be from the Old Babylonian period (1900-1600 BCE) and are currently unedited. Images and complete information about the tablets can be accessed at the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative at the University of California Los Angeles.
Title supplied by cataloger.
