Kish tablet

Kish tablet

Limestone tablet from Kish (Sumer) with pictographic writing, Late Uruk period – Ashmolean Museum
Geographical range	Iraq
Period	Late Uruk period (c. 3500–2900 BC)
Dates	After 3500 BC
Followed by	Narmer Palette

The Kish tablet is a limestone tablet found at the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Kish in modern Tell al-Uhaymir, Babylon Governorate, Iraq. A plaster cast of the tablet is in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, while the original is housed at the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. ^{[1] [2]} It should not be confused with the Scheil dynastic tablet, which contains part of the Sumerian King List and is also sometimes called the Kish tablet. ^[3]

The signs on the Kish tablet, possibly related to proto-cuneiform, are purely pictographic, and have not been deciphered or demonstrated to correspond to any currently known human language. It has been dated to the Late Uruk period (c. 3500–2900 BC). ^{[4] [5]}

See also

• History of writing
• Narmer Palette
• Warka Vase

References

1. Henry Field, "The Field Museum-Oxford University Expedition to Kish, Mesopotamia, 1923–1929", Anthropology Leaflet, no. 28, 1929.
2. Langdon, Stephen, "Excavations at Kish: The Herbert Weld (for the University of Oxford) and Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago) Expedition to Mesopotamia. Vol. 1", P. Geuthner, 1924.
3. Scheil, Vincent (1911). "Les plus anciennes dynasties connues de Sumer-Accad". Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (in French). 55 (8): 606–620.
4. Hayes, John L., 1990 A Manual of Sumerian Grammar and Texts, Undena Publications
5. Woods, Christopher (2010), "The earliest Mesopotamian writing" (PDF), in Woods, Christopher (ed.), Visible language. Inventions of writing in the ancient Middle East and beyond, Oriental Institute Museum Publications, vol. 32, Chicago: University of Chicago, pp. 33–50, ISBN   978-1-885923-76-9

Further reading

• A. C. Moorhouse, The Triumph of the Alphabet: A History of Writing