**First Time At Auction**

Ancient Near East, Sumer, Third Dynasty of Ur, ca. 2080 to 2030 BCE. A petite clay tablet of a rectangular form with rounded top, bottom, and peripheral edges and slightly convex faces. The tablet bears eleven lines of inscribed cuneiform text formed by impressing a sharpened reed or stick into the still-wet clay before undergoing the kilning process. The translation of this tablet shows this tablet as a receipt for the transportation of animals to or from the town of Drehem. Cuneiform was generally a pictographic style of writing in its infancy, though it became a more abstract style of letter-based script around the 3rd millennium BCE. Size: 1.375" W x 1.3" H (3.5 cm x 3.3 cm).

This tablet and five others hammered for GBP 1,500 ($1,954) at Bonhams, London, Knightsbridge Antiquities Auction (May 8, 2013, lot 147 [bottom left]): https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20667/lot/147/?category=grid&length=560&page=1

Provenance: private Houston, Texas, USA collection; ex-Bonhams, London, Knightsbridge Antiquities Auction (May 8, 2013, part of lot 147); ex-Joseph Klein collection, formed in New York, New York, USA between 1941 and 1980, thence by descent

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#132904

Surface wear and abrasions commensurate with age, some smoothing along peripheries and faces, and light fading to some cuneiform letters, otherwise intact and very good. Light earthen and mineral deposits throughout.