some areas showing a more red hue that suggests slightly uneven firing temperatures.^146
Firing holes have been pressed into most blank spaces on the writing surfaces to a depth
of about 1 cm. This tablet would seem to have been written in Nineveh by an Assyrian
scribe, and was carefully baked in antiquity. Its discovery in the Southwest Palace en-
courages the view that this tablet was once part of the royal libraries at Nineveh.
D, K7225
This is a fragment of a tablet that is likely to have come from Nineveh, based on the mu-
seum catalogue number. Reiner assigns no date to the script.^147 Bezold’s catalogue de-
scribes this as a small fragment from the middle of the tablet, 3.5 cm wide and 4.1 cm
high, but no thickness is recorded.^148 This document will be treated as an Assyrian copy
coming from the libraries at Nineveh, with some reservations due to our incomplete
knowledge of its qualities.
F, BM37010; H, BM 36758; J, BM36395
It has been suggested by C.B.F. Walker that these fragments, plus the joined fragments
BM37121+BM37432, were from one original tablet of Late Babylonian origin that was
written around the sixth century B.C.E.^149 Reiner classifies the tablet as Neo-Babylonian.
In accord with J. E. Reade, we will consider these tablets to have been part of Rassam’s
collection, either excavated in Babylonia or purchased from antiquities dealers in that
area between 1879-83.^150
(^146) For example, see the left edge of the obverse at lines 34-37. The coloration could alternatively be due to
pigmentation from iron oxides – see note. 147
148 A transliteration of this tablet was published for the first time in E. Reiner, BPO 1.
See C. Bezold, L.W. King, and E.A.W. Budge, Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik
Collection of the British Museum 149 (6 vols.; London: British Museum, 1899) 2.838, no. 2024b.
150 C.B.F. Walker, "Notes on the Venus Tablet," 64-65.
J.E. Reade, "Rassam's Babylonian Collection: The Excavations and the Archives," Catalogue of the
Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, Volume VI: Tablets From Sippar 1 (ed. E. Leichty; London:
British Museum, 1986) xxviii.