Archives: Tooltips

A wedge-shaped script invented in southern Mesopotamia in the second half of the 4th millennium BCE. It was primarily written on clay tablets. The signs were impressed in the wet clay with a (reed) stylus. Several languages were written in cuneiform, most notably Sumerian and Akkadian, including the Assyrian and Babylonian dialects. The latest clay tablet with cuneiform writing on it dates to the 1st century CE.

In ancient Mesopotamia (end 4th millennium BCE – 1st century CE) clay tablets were used to write on, primarily in cuneiform script. The tablets could be dried in the sun or baked in an oven so they would be less fragile. The Akkadian word for ‘clay tablet’ and, hence, for ‘text’ is ṭuppu.

Borsippa or present day Birs Nimrud is located in Central Iraq. It was an important city in Babylonia, situated only 20 km southwest of the capital Babylon.

The region in modern day southern Iraq, where power has been concentrated several times in ancient Mesopotamia.

The capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire during the first millennium BCE.

Assyriology is the field that studies all aspects of ancient Mesopotamia and related ancient Near Eastern cultures that use cuneiform writing. Assyriologists read and study the ancient texts from this area. Historical, philological, linguistic, and archaeological research form the basis for this field of study.

Assyria was a political entity centred in what we nowadays call Northern Iraq (Kurdistan). Since the early second millennium BCE it has formed the topographical and political counterpart of its southern neighbour Babylonia. Culturally having much in common, the two countries were in continuous confrontation with each other. In the first half of the 1st millennium BCE Assyria grew to such an extent that scholars usually speak of the Neo-Assyrian Empire which in its heydays also incorporated Babylonia.

The term archive refers to a group of documents and/or the location where they are stored. The archival documents of ancient Mesopotamia are connected to activities of the palaces and temples, or record transactions of private individuals.

An archaeological site is, simply put, any area with significant traces of past human activity. It is characterised by the spatial clustering of structures (e.g. houses), features (e.g. storage pits, walls, floors, etc.), artefacts (e.g. potsherds, clay tablets, etc.), and/or ecofacts (e.g. plant remains, human and animal bones, etc.).

The term ‘archaeological find spot’ or ‘find spot’ stands for the exact context in which structures, features, artefacts and/or ecofacts are found during archaeological research. If it is the context of original deposition in the past, undisturbed by deliberate or accidental past and present human activities (e.g. looting, the ploughing of a field, the construction of a house) or unruffled by natural phenomena (e.g. floods, sand storms), then this findspot constitutes the primary archaeological context. If not, then it is the secondary archaeological context.