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BABYLON, CUNEIFORM, Cartography. Clay Tablet with

BABYLON, CUNEIFORM, Cartography. Clay Tablet with Cuneiform Script.

[Babylon: c.1900-1700 bc]. A baked clay tablet (81 x 52 x 24 mm), with 15 partial and complete lines of Old Babylonian cuneiform script on the obverse, and 2 plan diagrams with accompanying rubric on the reverse. Contained within a fitted modern black cloth box, two leather lettering-pieces to spine. a very rare survival from one of the great civilizations of antiquity. The tablet, which was probably used for teaching in a Babylonian school or "edubba," contains a land map and information on plot sizes and crop yields. All the numerals are in Babylonian sexagesimal notation. The obverse consists of four columns, the first two classified as "measurement," presumably meaning length and width, measured in nidan (about 6 feet). The next column has the heading "crop yield," which would relate to barley or some other serial staple measure in Gur. The final column has the heading "names": this list of East Semitic Akkadian names represents the owners of the fields delineated. This table could represent some true account of productivity; however, in view of the contents on the reverse side it seems more likely that this is a school trip projection exercise, showing how planning by the state had become an important administrative issue by this time. On the reverse are two diagrams. The first delineates a plot of land, which, if the measurements are accurate, is trapezoidal in shape. The attendant problem may have been to calculate its area - a comparatively sophisticated procedure at the time. This plot of land is described as being "on the edge of Mr Apil -(x)'s orchards". The narrower diagram gives the measurement for a strip of land which clearly is meant to run alongside an irrigation canal, for along one edge is the legend "Canal: Da Gu-en-na." It is not certain if the depicted plots represented some actual topographical location, or if they were a purely theoretical exercise in mapmaking. However, the canal called 'Gur-en-na' did exist and is mentioned in T. Jacobson's book The Waters of Ur. Although it is of course always a possibility that this tablet represents the actual working notes of an ancient surveyor, it is much more likely that it is a product of the Edubba, or Babylonian school, for it is known that topics such as this were on the curriculum. It looks as if two lessons differing slightly in content were taught on that day, one recorded on the obverse, and one on the reverse. This rare tablet thus provides concrete evidence of Babylonian education practices, making it worthy of detailed study and publication with other examples of the genre.