Ancient Near East, Mesopotamia, Sumer, city of Lagash, Neo-Sumerian period, reign of Gudea of Lagash, ca. 2120 to 2090 BCE. A finely preserved pottery foundation cone with a discoid head, a tapered body, and a narrow tip, all enveloped in a hue of pale pink. Ten columns of cuneiform text are inscribed around the body by impressing a sharpened reed or stick into the still-wet clay just before being placed inside a kiln. Clay nails like this are also referred to as dedication pegs or funerary pegs; they were inscribed, baked, and stuck into walls made of mud-brick to mark ownership either by a god or a ruler. These dedications sometimes include stories or boasts about the rulers they describe, and are some of our earliest sources of written royal history. When translated this cone reads, "For Ningirsu, the mighty warrior of Enlil, Gudea, governor of Lagash, who built the Eninnu (temple) of Ningirsu, (also) built his Epa, the temple of seven sectors." Size: 2.125" W x 4.625" H (5.4 cm x 11.7 cm)
Cuneiform script is one of the oldest known writing systems in the world, made using a reed as a stylus and scratching wedge-shaped marks onto clay tablets. Early cuneiform was pictographic, but in the 3rd millennium BCE it shifted to the more abstract form you see here. These cuneiform objects are some of the roughly 2 million known from this culture; of these, between 30,000 and 100,000 have been translated. The earliest translations came in 1836 from the work of French scholar Eugene Burnouf and, by the 1850's, multiple scholars were able to produce similar translations, meaning the language had been deciphered.
Provenance: ex-Barakat Gallery, Beverly Hills, California, USA, acquired prior to 2000
All items legal to buy/sell under U.S. Statute covering cultural patrimony Code 2600, CHAPTER 14, and are guaranteed to be as described or your money back.
A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids.
We ship worldwide and handle all shipping in-house for your convenience.
#162044
Condition
Chips to rim of head and tip. Expected surface wear with abrasions, nicks, and some softening of details, all commensurate with age. Otherwise, very nice with light earthen deposits in recessed areas.