The Blau Monuments

Illustration

by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin
published on 07 April 2016

The Blau Monuments — These 2 unusual green schist stone tablets seem to belong together and record a land sale; it appears that there was a transaction, in which land was exchanged for various goods, with the carved figures representing the individuals involved. When the British Museum received these 2 tablets in the year 1899, they were dismissed as "2 forgeries purporting to be Babylonian inscriptions". Later on, the Museum showed that these tablets were genuine and represented earliest examples of the developing cuneiform script (still mainly pictographic). Possibly from Tell Uqair, Southern Mesopotamia, Iraq. Jemdet Nasr Period, 3000-2900 BCE. (The British Museum, London)

About the Author

Associate Professor of Neurology and lover of the Cradle of Civilization, Mesopotamia. I'm very interested in Mesopotamian history and always try to take photos of archaeological sites and artifacts in museums, both in Iraq and around the world.

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Uploaded by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, published on 07 April 2016 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.

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