Tablet gallery: cuneiform tablets from the British Museum

Not surprisingly, cuneiform script took many forms, and was employed for many different purposes, over its 3000-year history. This gallery illustrates some of the rich variety of cuneiform tablets, grouped in roughly chronological order. They have been selected from the collections of the British Museum by Dr Jonathan Taylor of the British Museum's Department of the Middle East.

The British Museum's extensive collection of cuneiform tablets is housed in the museum's handsome Arched Room, built in the late 1830s for the British Library and now a major hub of Assyriological research. This engraving was made for a book called London Interiors, published in 1841. View large image on the British Museum's website.

From the fourth and third millennia BC

• BM 116628: proto-cuneiform administrative text about barley, from Jemdet Nasr (Uruk III period, c.3000 BC)
• BM 116625: proto-cuneiform lexical text from Jemdet Nasr (Uruk III period, c.3000 BC)
• BM 015829: administrative account of textiles, probably from Fara (Pre-Sargonic (ED IIIa) period, c.2500 BC)
• BM 088829: administrative text (Old Akkadian period, c.2300 BC)
• BM 019528: royal inscription of Gudea, ruler of Lagaš, on a clay nail (Lagaš II period, c.2150 BC)
• BM 104650: issue of rations for messengers, from Umma, reign of Ibbi-Suen (Ur III period, c.2010 BC)

From the second millennium BC

• BM 115132: letter from Ištar-pilah to Pušu-ken (Old Assyrian period, c.1900 BC)
• BM 092639: marriage contract, reign of Apil-Sin (Old Babylonian period, c.1820 BC)
• BM 082512 and 085813: interest-free loan (inner tablet and envelope), reign of Sabium (Old Babylonian period, c.1780 BC)
• BM 023145: letter from king Hammurabi of Babylon to Sin-iddinam (Old Babylonian period, c.1760 BC)
• BM 092618: contract for dissolving a trading partnership, from Sippar, reign of Hammurabi (Old Babylonian period, c.1760 BC)
• BM 026280: interest-free loan of barley (Nuzi, c.1400 BC)
• BM 029833: letter from Yapahu of Gazru (Gezer) to the king of Egypt (Amarna, Egypt, c.1340 BC)

From the first millennium BC

• K 7000 + Sm 1898: manuscript of the liver omen series bārûtu (pān tākalti, tablet IV), from Assurbanipal's library at Nineveh (Neo-Assyrian period, c.650 BC)
• K 309A: sale contract for a slave woman, with Aramaic label; from Nineveh, reign of Assurbanipal (Neo-Assyrian period, 636 BC)
• BM 041511: sale contract for date orchard, from Babylon (Egibi archive), reign of Nabonidus (Neo-Babyonian period, 556 BC)
• BM 063926: disbursement of grain, from Sippar, reign of Nabonidus (Neo-Babyonian period, c.540 BC)

There are also photographs of nearly thirty 7th-century letters, divinatory queries, and astrological reports, in Assyrian and Babylonian script, in the Highlights section of the website.