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Cuneiform inscriptions in the collections of the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Extract

The collection of the cuneiform documents in the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, was mainly acquired between 1903 and 1923 by Professors H. W. Hogg and Canon C. H. W. Johns; these texts form the nucleus of the collection. In addition, most of the six hundred tablets in the Rev. C. L. Bedale's private collection were presented to the Library by his wife in 1919, and six more by his son, Mr Paul Bedale, and daughter in 1979. Bedale described a number of his Umma tablets for a Library publication between 1901 and 1905. A selection of these texts was published by him in 1915.

Many of the Sumerian texts, in all 884 tablets, were catalogued and published by T. Fish in 1932. Further tablets, letters of Old Babylonian date, were studied and published by him in 1936. Other tablets were also published by Fish, in Manchester Cuneiform Studies and elsewhere. More Old Babylonian tablets were studied by the late Douglas Kennedy, some of which were given numbers following on from those published by Fish. F. R. Kraus's edition of the Library's Old Babylonian letters, which appeared in 1985, included these as well as Fish's letters, and a few more unpublished letters that had not been assigned numbers in the Library's running sequence. In 1973 Claus Wilcke published most of the Sumerian literary texts, and J. N. Postgate published three of the Assyrian tablets. At that time these were also without JRL numbers.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2000

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References

1 On the formation of the collection see H. Guppy's preface to Fish, T., Catalogue of Sumerian Tablets in the John Rylands Library (Manchester University Press, 1932)Google Scholar; Tyson, M., Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 25 (1941) 58 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Wilcke, C., AfO 24 (1973) 1 n. 1Google Scholar. Hogg himself published the clay nail of Enlil-bani — catalogued here as JRL 1094 but then without number ( Hogg, H. W., “Inscribed nail of Ellil-bani, twelfth king of the Babylonian dynasty of Isin”, Journal of Manchester Oriental Society 1911 120 Google Scholar) and supplied Langdon with his reading of one of the bricks of Nebuchadnezzar (now JRL 1093, see below on No. 75).

2 Bedale, C. L., Sumerian Tablets from Umma in the John Rylands Library (Manchester, 1915)Google Scholar: Bedale 1–58. Collations of these have been published by Gomi, T., “Collations to Charles L. Bedale, Sumerian Tablets”, The Ancient Orient Museum 3 (1981) 3740 Google Scholar.

3 Fish, Catalogue: JRL 1–884 and a revision of Bedale's 58 tablets. Collations of JRL 1–884 have been published by Gomi, T., “Kollationen zu T. Fish, Catalogue …” in Gomi, T., Wirtschaftstexte der Ur-III Zeit aus dem British Museum (MVN 12, Rome, 1982) 90138 and Pls. 105–17Google Scholar.

4 Fish, T., Letters of the First Babylonian Dynasty in the John Rylands Library (Manchester University Press, 1936)Google Scholar: JRL 885–913 and two fragments later numbered JRL 914–15.

5 Fish, T., “A Rylands Cuneiform tablet concerning the conquest of Kish under Agga by Gilgamesh”, Bulletin JRL 19 (1935) 362–72Google Scholar, photographs published in Römer, W. H. Ph., Das sumerische Kurzepos ˲Bilgameš und Akka˱ (AOAT 209/1, 1980), Pls. 1–4 (JRL 931)Google Scholar; Fish, , “A cylinder inscription of Nebuchadrezzar II”, MCS 3 (1953) 46 (now JRL 1095, then without number)Google Scholar. Note also Donald, T., “A Sumerian plan in the John Rylands Library”, JSS 7 (1962) 184–90 (JRL 930)Google Scholar. For a summary of JRL 1–931 and of the remainder of the collection, at that time uncatalogued and unnumbered, see Taylor, F., The Oriental Manuscript Collections in the John Rylands Library (reprinted from Bulletin JRL 54, No. 2; Manchester, 1972) 56 Google Scholar. Most of the unnumbered items summarized by Taylor are catalogued below.

6 F. R. Kraus, Briefe aus kleineren Westeuropäischen Sammlungen (AbB X) Nos. 1–51: JRL 885–924, 926–9 and seven unnumbered pieces, including the six catalogued below as JRL 1020, 1043, 1065–6 and 1069–70 (maybe also JRL 1046?).

7 Wilcke, C., “Sumerische literarische Texte in Manchester und Liverpool”, AfO 24 (1973) 124 (now JRL 1059–63)Google Scholar.

8 Postgate, J. N., “Assyrian texts and fragments”, Iraq 35 (1973) 1336 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Nos. 1, 2 and 7 (now JRL 1045, 1055 and 1058).

9 Gomi, T., “Ur III Texts in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester”, Bulletin JRL 64, No. 1 (1981) 87116 (now JRL 932–1018)Google Scholar.

10 JRL 925 is edited in the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/) as source for Text No. 4.27.06 (Ninurta F, dupl. SLTN 62). A printed edition is forthcoming by the author and Jeremy Black, “A balbale of Ninurta, god of fertility”, ZA in press.

11 The final stage of this publication would not have been possible without the help and support of Dr Andrew Georg and his invaluable notes and suggestions.