Temporality on Clay Tablets: When the Component Parts of a Cuneiform Document Were Committed to Clay
Name
10.1515_9783111682983-004.pdf
Description
visibility:open
Size
39.97 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (CRC64NVME)
mIsSz8NkHSg=
Resource type
Book chapter
Creator (person)
Taylor, Jon
Date published
2025
Abstract
Clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions are more complex records than they may appear at first glance. A range of non-verbal marks and physical features is preserved in the clay, alongside the inscription. They reveal aspects of the tablet’s ‘biography’ – the stages in which parts of it were created or modified. A non-sequential order of inscription is evident. These features in turn imply ad-ministrative systems in which tablets play one of several roles in a sequence of documents. Rather than being spontaneous verbatim quasi-‘photographic’ records of short, specific moments in time, tablets can be pre-prepared, contain abstracted versions of other texts, or be composed post-factum. Their conte
Editor
Cammarosano, Michele
Pagination
115-159
Publisher
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Official URL
Keywords