Article ID: CBB001420903

Reading Colophons from Mesopotamian Clay-Tablets Dealing with Mathematics (2012)

unapi

In the first millennium BCE Mesopotamian scribes used to add highly developed colophons to their works, especially when writing scholarly texts, for example, on medicine, divination or astral sciences. This kind of postscript, often located at the end of the text, provides modern historians with a plethora of information relative to the scribe who wrote the text, the place where he composed it, the content of the composition, the original document copied (if any), and the owner of the tablet. Other writing practices are particularly remarkable, such as noting long compositions on series of dozens of numbered tablets, in the same way as we number the pages of a book. These practices reflect a very specific context of that time: that of the creation, enrichment, management and maintenance of large libraries. Organization into series, the presence of colophons, as well as the existence of catalogues, are considered as the three criteria for determining that a set of documents comes from a library (Clancier 2009: 13).1 In the Old Babylonian period (circa 2000--1600), colophons were not widespread, at least as far as we can judge from surviving documents. However, they are attested in some specific contexts to be analysed in detail. In this article I will focus on colophons found in Old Babylonian mathematical texts. I do not intend to inventory and describe all these colophons, but rather to analyze the relationship between the colophons and other features of the documents in which they appear.2 Indeed, such a relationship may provide some answers to important questions concerning the mathematical practices in the Old Babylonian period: To whom were the texts addressed and what was their purpose? In secondary literature, the answer to these questions is generally that the mathematical cuneiform texts reflect teaching practices developed in the scribal schools. Nonetheless, I will show that the practices involved may have been more diverse.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001420903/

Similar Citations

Article Robson, Eleanor; (2004)
Mathematical Cuneiform Tablets in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (/isis/citation/CBB000520001/)

Article Clark, Kathleen; Robson, Eleanor; (2007)
Ancient Accounting in the Modern Mathematics Classroom (/isis/citation/CBB000831568/)

Article Proust, Christine; (2008)
Quantifier et calculer: usages des nombres à Nippur (/isis/citation/CBB000932283/)

Article Gonçalves, Carlos H. B.; (2013)
Mesopotamian Lexical Lists: Structure, History, and Interpretations (/isis/citation/CBB001320170/)

Article Pangas, Julio Cesar; (2006)
Des rêves, de leurs troubles et de leurs thérapeutiques dans la Mésopotamie ancienne (/isis/citation/CBB000932464/)

Book Ossendrijver, Mathieu; (2012)
Babylonian Mathematical Astronomy: Procedure Texts (/isis/citation/CBB001200940/)

Article Robson, Eleanor; (2000)
Mathematical Cuneiform Tablets in Philadelphia Part 1: Problems and Calculations (/isis/citation/CBB000770588/)

Article Yuste, Piedad; (2005)
Estudio geométrico de AO 17264 (/isis/citation/CBB000933617/)

Article Robson, Eleanor; (2001)
Mathematical cuneiform tablets in Philadelphia. Part 1: Problems and Calculations (/isis/citation/CBB000102368/)

Book Proust, Christine; (2007)
Tablettes mathématiques de Nippur (/isis/citation/CBB000931495/)

Article Clark, Kathleen; Robson, Eleanor; (2008)
Ancient Accounting in the Modern Mathematics Classroom (/isis/citation/CBB000931922/)

Article Muroi, Kazou; (2000)
Quadratic Equations in the Susa Mathematical Text No. 21 (/isis/citation/CBB000770587/)

Book Wayne Horowitz; (2014)
The Three Stars Each: The Astrolabes and Related Texts (/isis/citation/CBB554735445/)

Article Hermann Hunger; (2015)
A Collection of Observations from the Reign of Artaxerxes I (/isis/citation/CBB643113061/)

Article M. Willis Monroe; (2022)
Astronomical and astrological diagrams from cuneiform sources (/isis/citation/CBB344158538/)

Chapter Verderame, Lorenzo; (2002)
Enuma Anu Enlil Tablets I-XIII (/isis/citation/CBB000550746/)

Authors & Contributors
Robson, Eleanor
Clark, Kathleen M.
Yusta, Piedad
Proust, Christine
Yasuyuki Mitsuma
Middeke-Conlin, Robert
Concepts
Tablets; papyri
Mathematics
Cuneiform inscriptions
Astronomy
Science education and teaching
Scribes
Time Periods
Ancient
Prehistory
21st century
Places
Mesopotamia
Middle and Near East
Sumer
Babylon (extinct city)
Larsa
United States
Institutions
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment