Two news stories on the ancient Near East: One is a report on recent excavations of a Babylonian settlement south of Baghdad [link]. The other announces that several Sumerian clay tablets are to be sold at Bonham’s in London [link].
They’re both stories about clay tablets. Or rather one is just about clay tablets: it describes how old they are, what the cuneiform text says, the price they might fetch at auction, and who owns them (don’t fret, they were collected in the ’50s, it’s ancient history). What the article doesn’t say is where they’re from.
The other article is all about where they’re from.
“We have dug up a sectional sounding covering more than 20 square meters and have come across fascinating finds,” said Muhammed Yayha, an archaeologist with the provincial Antiquities Department in the Province of Diwaniya. The fascinating finds include four graves: “two of them had half of their bodies buried in the wall of a house and the other half in an urn. The two others had iron nails in their hands, feet and necks indicating that they might have been executed…”. The digs have also unearthed a 30kg duck weight, cuneiform tablets and cylinder seals.
Tags: antiquities trade, Bonham's, cuneiform tablets, Iraq archaeology
