ClassificationsAncient Near Eastern Art

Cylinder with Cuneiform Text of King Nabopolasser to the God Marduk

AAT Object Form/FunctionCuneiform

AAT Object Form/FunctionCommemorative Plaque

AAT Object Form/FunctionWriting Tablets (Information Artifacts)

Place CreatedBabylon, Iraq, Asia

CultureBabylonian

PeriodNeo-Babylonian Period, Reign of Nabopolassar

Date625-605 BCE

MediumClay

Credit LineCollected by William A. Shelton, funded by John A. Manget

Dimensions3 7/8 x 2 1/16 in. (9.8 x 5.2 cm)

Object number1921.131

Label Text"I, Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, the appointee of Nebo and Merodakh as for Imgur-Enlel, the Great Wall of Babylon, which before weakened and settled on its original base, I firmly [set] its foundation wall...[missing]...like a mountain its summit I verily raised. Oh, Wall! Remind Marduk, my lord of the favor [I have done for him] . . . ."

Cuneiform ("wedge-shaped") writing is Mesopotamia's most important contribution to the rest of the ancient Near East. Its invention revolutionized the way business and trade were conducted and offered the first opportunity for mankind to record written history. Cuneiform and its principal writing medium, the clay tablet, remained in use for over 3,000 years. Scribes adapted cuneiform script for writing many Near Eastern languages and used it to record business transactions, legal codes, and literary, commemorative, and dedicatory texts.

This barrel-shaped cylinder of clay is inscribed with a commemorative text that records the repair of the city wall of Babylon by Nabopolassar. In the text, Nabopolassar invokes his own name as king of Babylon, described the weakening and settling of the Great Wall of Babylon on its original base, and touted his repair and rebuilding of the foundation wall which "like a mountain its summit I verily raised...Oh, Wall! Remind Marduk, my lord [patron god of Babylon] of the favor". Kings and officials commonly deposited inscribed tablets of this shape into recesses built below or within new or repaired constructions in Mesopotamia. Their deposit sanctified and protected the constructions as well as allowed the king or official to record his name and deeds for the gods and posterity.
Exhibition HistoryA Preview of the Collections, Schatten Gallery, February 15 - April 4, 1982
MCCM Permanent Collection Galleries, May 11, 1993 - Spring 2001
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 2001 - February 12, 2018
Michael C. Carlos Museum Morgens West Foundation Galleries of Ancient Near Eastern Art, November 10, 2018 - Present
Published ReferencesWilliam A. Shelton, Dust and Ashes of Empire (Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1924), 112-13.
Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology: A Preview of the Collections, Atlanta, Georgia, February 15 - April 4, 1982 (Atlanta: The Museum, 1982), 8.
Michael C. Carlos Museum Handbook (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 1996), 34.
Sara Jane Fudge, Lure of the Past: Ancient Man's Interest in His History with Translations of the Neo-Babylonian Texts from the Carlos Museum (Diss.) (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion), 194-196.
Peter Lacovara and Jasper Gaunt, "From Pharaohs to Emperors: Egyptian, Near Eastern & Classical Antiquities at Emory," Minerva 17 (January/February 2006), 9-16.
Joel M. LeMon, "Through the Museum with the Bible," SBL Forum, May 2006.
MCCM Newsletter, March - May 2006.
Clyde E. Fant and Mitchell G. Reddish, Lost Treasures of the Bible: Understanding the Bible through Archaeological Artifacts in World Musuems (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Companry, 2008), 192-94.

ProvenanceAcquired for Emory University Museum by William Shelton (1875-1959), Babylon, Iraq, 1920.

Status

On view

Collections