Irving L.

Finkel

Drawings on Tablets

Drawings on clay were made with a point that produced a continuous line – as with pencil
on paper – in contrast to the individual strokes of the square-edge stylus that made up devel-
oped cuneiform script. Evolved cuneiform writing is, in fact, more analogous to printing than
drawing, and thin-line drawings on tablets from the historic period are consequently more
closely related to the earliest pictographic signs that preceded cuneiform, as these too were
drawn with a fine tip and with continuous lines. Indeed, this corpus of early tablets from Uruk
includes one or two specimens of real drawing side by side with the most archaic text signs2.
The richest sample of drawings proper is found among the early third millennium tablets,
largely uninscribed, excavated at the site of Fara, assembled in Heinrich3. The subject matter
includes animal, human and composite-creature drawings. As already indicated by Heinrich,
the majority are remarkably authoritative and competent in their depiction of limbs and ani-
mal movement, although others are much more tentative, or linear4. The two largest specimens
include complex drawings of snakes5 or a gazelle with tree. Use is made of free-flowing lines
both deep and shallow, and the snake scales are represented by small, ‘wedge-like’ elements. The
young scribes here, or the artists, are clearly in control of drawing on clay, and the Fara finds, as
well as those from Abu Salabikh, suggest that at this period drawing was a curricular matter, or
at the very least encouraged.
Despite the considerable quantities of school texts that survive from subsequent peri-
ods, however, it is not possible to document to a continuum of curricular drawing training
or exercises, however plausible that may seem6. Some Old Babylonian administrative tablets
include sketches of divine symbols at the end of the reverse, consideration of which belongs
in this context7. Roughly contemporary lenticular school texts include some rare examples
of more sophisticated drawing. Probably unique is one of about 1700 BC (Fig. 1), surely a

1 5
  This topic is worthy of a full-length study   Nissen - Damerow - Englund 1993, p. 89.
6
which cannot be attempted here.   Hilprecht 1903, p. 527; Lieberman 1980, p.
2
 See Englund 1994, pl. 117, a figure of a man, 349 even thinks to have identified an Old Babylonian
and pl. 118, a finely-drawn fore-part of a bull. drawing master (ša us.urātim).
3 7
  Heinrich 1931, pp. 61-69 and pls. 27-33.   Feigin 1979, nos. 284, 296, 450, 451 and 525.
4
  Deimel 1923, p. 63.
338 I.L. Finkel Sc. Ant.

caricature of the teacher judging by the hairs

sprouting from the nostrils and the unpleas-
ant small mouth8; a second tablet with draw-
ings of a fish and goat9, is more closely related
to the earlier “realistic” repertoire. A stylised
seated figure is drawn at the end of a Sumer-
ian proverb tablet from Nippur10; From the
first millennium the harvest of school artwork
is similarly sparse11. The obverse of a school
text from the Nabû-ša-harê temple at Baby-
˘
lon includes a sketch of divine symbols with a
fragmentary inscription12.
This lack of material from the school
resources is the more curious in that the best
examples of drawing on clay from the second
Fig. 1 – (after Wilson 2008, p. 35 no. 63), perhaps the
and first millennia are self evidently the result
world’s oldest caricature.
of training and practice. The majority of those
identified come from technical literature. Two highly-unusual Old Babylonian incantation
tablets include drawings of demons, for example13 (Figs. 2-3). These have been drawn with
directness and certainty.
First millennium sources for healing regularly prescribe the manufacture of figurines,
and a handful includes drawings as a guide for the practitioner who will come after. These can
vary from more or less amorphous blobs14 to careful and detailed drawings of considerable
precision. Thus a tablet of prescriptions for mental troubles includes an elaborate likeness of
two clay figurines in BM 40183+ (Fig. 4); the central figure, evidently an antediluvian sage, is
modelled after the contemporary visualisation of a Neo-Babylonian king15. While the drawing
of the head and crown indicates one or two ‘dry runs,’ most of the remainder is drawn with a
clear confidence. Comparanda in a very thin line technique from the British Museum include
BM 47817 (Fig. 5, figurines to dispel a ghost) and 47701 (Fig. 6, figurine of the demon called
Any Evil) where the curves of the limbs, and especially the outlines of the heads, are drawn
with authority and sureness; all three documents will be published in detail elsewhere. Draw-
ings of somewhat similar standard are to be found in the two well-known astrological tablets
published in Weidner16.
A further case of late first millennium date occurs in BM 33055 (Fig. 7), a most unusual
tablet with a rare pinkish slip containing what one might call religious ethnography, in which

8 13
  Wilson 2008, p. 35 no. 63.   Pinches 1963, nos. 26 and 25.
9 14
  Wilson 2008, p. 46 no. 70.   Gurney - Finkelstein 1957, no. 73 with its
10
  Kramer - Bernhardt 1961, pl. 105, no. 49. smarter duplicate Gurney 1974, no. 118 (see Reiner
11
  Gesche 2001, pp. 208-209 who itemises a few 1987, p. 30).
15
scrappy examples from about 500 BC in her collec-   Finkel 2009, p. 163.
16
tion of school tablets.   Weidner 1967, pp. 12-34.
12
  Cavigneaux 1981, no. 79 B.1: 85.
17, 2011 Drawings on Tablets 339

Fig. 2a-b – BM 92670, an Old

Babylonian demon.

zoomorphic or anthropomorphic images of specific local gods from Kish were drawn out in
some detail and labelled. These, working from left to right are: (i) the head of a king with a
crown – the face largely abraded; (ii) a right-facing eagle-like bird standing on a board with
carrying pole; (iii) and (iv) simple maces; (v) a bird-headed entity on a carrying pole and (vi) a
lion-headed entity on a carrying pole. Considering here merely the drawings themselves, it is
noticeable that the curved lines have been undertaken with less than perfect assurance, but the
overall results are clear and competent.

Fig. 3a-b – BM 92669, another

Old Babylonian demon.
340 I.L. Finkel Sc. Ant.

Fig. 4 – BM 40183+, a magical sage and his assistant. Fig. 5 – BM 47817, figurines to dispel a ghost.

Perhaps the highest level of drawing on clay is exemplified by the late Babylonian rep-
resentation of a struggling lion and boar on a tablet from Babylon shown in Marzahn17. Here
the style and execution are strongly reminiscent of glyptic in stone; indeed, it was suggested
by J. Marzahn that the drawing was a model for a seal-cutter18. If this is correct there is no
compelling reason to consider that the artist was literate
and therefore it might not bear on the issue of scribal-
draughtsmanship, but the clay drawing is wonderful and
the conclusion unavoidable that whoever produced it had
made many before.
In contrast come more than a sprinkling of simple
drawings on the reverse of certain Nebuchadnezzar-period
Babylonian administrative archive documents, such as have
been the subject of a recent study by S. Zawadzki and M.
Jursa19. In addition to designs and cross-hatchings, or the
use of archaic-type signs forms such as KU6 (perhaps, as
suggested by S. Zawadzki, to record scribal family names),
there is a number of more or less realistic simple drawings
which often correlate with the subject matter of the docu-
ment in question. While no high art, there is often real fa-
cility about such drawings20. Two important points here
are that these drawings are surely the work of the scribe
who wrote the document, and that it is extremely doubtful
Fig. 6 – BM 47701, figurine of Any Evil. that the lines could be produced with the same tool that

17 20
  Marzahn 2008, p. 246 fig. 168.   For example the birds in Pinches 1982, nos.
18
  Marzahn 2008, pp. 272-273. 712 and 713.
19
  Zawadzki - Jursa 2001.
17, 2011 Drawings on Tablets 341

made the wedges21. Undoubtedly there will be further cases; comparanda from British Museum
collections include BM 29501, BM 46874 (fish), BM 64064 (cross on top), BM 69642 (long leaf
Fig. 8), BM 83005 (7-pointed star), BM 83400 (tree?), BM 84328 (circle) and BM 84446 (fish). K
13154 shows a geometric figure crudely carved on reverse; dog’s tooth; note also BM 131186 (=
UET 4, 82, a dog), BM 131205 = UET 4, 158 (unclear).
Viewed overall, clay tablets with drawings offer several important points for considera-
tion. First is that the many clay drawings – if not the group as a whole – evince a higher level of
skill than can with any degree of probability reflect natural or untrained ability. The authority
and mastery of the best examples force one to conclude that a good deal of experience in the
use of the point and familiarity with clay as a drawing medium lay behind many of the samples
that survive. It is not enough to assume that facility in drawing on clay would just follow on in
an individual well-trained in writing cuneiform on clay. The opposite is surely true. Clay, fur-
thermore – as was undoubtedly drummed into the head of all would-be scribes – is a medium
unforgiving of errors, for it is close to impossible to erase a mistake invisibly on clay, even
when over-writing entirely. This factor, a daily reality with an argillary support, must have
meant that scribes needed uninhibited freedom in writing or drawing on clay such as could
only derive from dedicated practice in both22. For these two reasons it seems that we must ac-
cord drawing a place in many scribal curricula, even without substantial supporting evidence,
and assume that skill with a fine point was considered part of the facilities of a finished scribe.

Fig. 7 – BM 33055, the gods of Kish.

21
  For further examples see the archive discussed
in Zadok 1997 and 2005/2006, pp. 151-152; also
Janković 2004, pp. 193-194 and Baker 2003, p. 245.
22
 Ask an untrained adult to draw such a scene as
that in Fig. 8 with a pencil correctly at first try and who
would be able to? Graphic freedom of eye and wrist is
characteristic of small children with shiny crayons and
new blocks of paper, but it disappears quickly. Adults
are intimidated by a sharpened pencil and an empty
sheet of paper, and such freedom is only exhibited by
trained artists, draughtsmen and calligraphers who
have strived laboriously to recapture it.
342 I.L. Finkel Sc. Ant.

If this basic supposition is correct, one would need

to conclude that drawing exercises were simply dis-
carded in great numbers.
Second, it is evident even from the samples il-
lustrated here that free drawing on clay is in no way
inhibited by the need to include curved lines. Many
of the animal parts in these drawings resemble or re-
call the earliest stage of pre-cuneiform pictographic
signs, in which the miniaturisation of nature, pars pro
toto, was often achieved by “realistic” representa-
tion in what Stephen Lieberman usefully called “cur-
viform” script. The received view on the evolution
from “realistic curviform” to “abstract cuneiform” is,
broadly speaking, attributed to the so-called unsuit-
ability of clay as a support for curved lines produced
with a point, on the assumption that the “scooped-
out” material would necessarily obscure the signs in
their very writing or build up unsatisfactorily. The
repertoire of both early and later “realistic” drawings
on clay tablets gives the lie to this argument, and in-
dicates that whatever the motive for the shift in sign Fig. 8 – BM 69642, a leaf from Babylonian
structure from realistic to abstract, unsuitability of administration.
the pointed stylus for clay purposes was not the ex-
planation. Two more probable factors to affect this change were perhaps speed of writing and
the ease with which the more complex signs could be standardised. Be that as it may, the level
of graphic skill exhibited by the best examples from the scribes of ancient Mesopotamia enti-
tles them to status within the broader history of the world’s drawings.

Irving L. Finkel
London, The British Museum
ifinkel@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

References

Baker 2003: H.D. Baker, Record-Keeping Practices as Revealed by the Neo-Babylonian

Private Archival Documents, in M. Brosius (ed.), Ancient Archives and Archival Traditions.
Concepts of Record-Keeping in the Ancient World, Oxford 2003, pp. 240-263.
Cavigneaux 1981: A. Cavigneaux, Textes Scolaires du Temple de Nabû ša Harê (Texts
from Babylon vol. 1), Baghdad 1981. ˘
Deimel 1931: A. Deimel, Die Inschriften aus Fara II. Schultexte aus Fara, Leipzig 1931.
Englund 1994: R.K. Englund, Archaic Administrative Texts from Uruk (Archaische Texte
aus Uruk vol. 5), Berlin 1994.
17, 2011 Drawings on Tablets 343

Feigin 1979: S.I. Feigin, Legal and Administrative Texts of the Reign of Samsu-iluna (Yale
Oriental Series vol. 12), New Haven - London 1979.
Finkel 2009: I.L. Finkel, The End of the Dynasty, in I.L. Finkel - M.J. Seymour (eds.),
London 2009.
Gesche 2001: P.D. Gesche, Schulunterricht in Babylonien im ersten Jahrtausend v. Chr.
(Alter Orient und Altes Testament vol. 275), Münster 2001.
Gurney - Finkelstein 1957: O.R. Gurney - J.J. Finkelstein, The Sultantepe Tablets, vol.
1, London 1957.
Gurney 1974: O.R. Gurney, Middle Babylonian Legal Documents and Other Texts (Ur
Excavations Texts vol. 7), London 1974.
Heinrich 1931: E. Heinrich, Fara. Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Orient-
Gesellschaft in Fara und Abu Hatab 1903/03, Berlin 1931.
Hilprecht 1903: H.V. Hilprecht, Explorations in Bible Lands, Edinburgh 1903.
Janković 2004: B. Janković, Vogelsucht und Vogelfang in Sippar in 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr.
(Alter Orient und Altes Testament vol. 315), Münster 2004.
Kramer - Bernhardt 1961: S.N. Kramer - I. Bernhardt, Sumerische Literarische Texte aus
Nippur I. Mythen, Epen, Weisheitsliteratur und andere Literaturgattungen, Berlin 1961.
Lieberman 1980: S.J. Lieberman, Of Clay Pebbles, Hollow Clay Balls, and Writing: A
Sumerian View, in American Journal of Archaeology 84/3, 1980, pp. 339-358.
Marzahn 2008: J. Marzahn, Die Arbeitswelt - Wirtschaft und Verwaltung, Handel und
Profit, in J. Marzahn - G. Schauerte (eds.), Babylon. Wahrheit, Berlin 2008, pp. 231-276.
Nissen - Damerow - Englund 1993: H.J. Nissen - P. Damerow - R. Englund, Archaic
bookkeeping: early writing and techniques of economic administration in the ancient Near
East, Chicago 1993.
Pinches 1963: T.G. Pinches, Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, vol. 44, London
1963.
Pinches 1982: T.G. Pinches, Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, vol. 55, London 1982.
Reiner 1987: E. Reiner, Magic Figurines, Amulets and Talismans, in A.E. Farkas - P.O.
Harper - E.B. Harrison (eds.), Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds.
Papers Presented in Honor of Edith Porada, Mainz 1987, pp. 27-36.
Weidner 1967: E.F. Weidner, Gestirn-Darstellungen auf Babylonsichen Tontafeln (Öster-
reichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-Historische Klasse Sitzungberichte, vol.
254/2), Vienna 1967.
Wilson 2008: M. Wilson, Education in the Earliest Schools. Cuneiform Manuscripts in the
Cotsen Collection, Los Angeles 2008.
Zadok 1997: R. Zadok, A Group of Late-Babylonian Letter-orders and Administrative
Documents, Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires, vol. for 1997/4, pp. 135-138.
Zadok 2005/2006: R. Zadok, The Text Group of Nabû-ēt.er, Archiv für Orientsforschung
51, pp. 147-197.
Zawadzki - Jursa 2001: S. Zawadzki - M. Jursa, Šamaš-tirri-kus.ur, a smith manufacturing
weapons in the Ebabbar temple at Sippar, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes
vol. 91, 2001, pp. 347-363.
344 I.L. Finkel Sc. Ant.

Riassunto

L’articolo focalizza l’attenzione su un relativamente piccolo e diversificato gruppo di tavolette cunei-

formi che presentano disegni, dal quarto al primo millennio a.C. Questi disegni devono essere distinti
da altri oggetti raffigurati sulla superficie della tavoletta, quali mappe, piante e diagrammi matematici o
divinatori o semplici simboli. Questi disegni sono, nel loro complesso, ben lungi dall’essere omogenei
e variano da irregolari schizzi a molto realistiche rappresentazioni fino a delle linee astratte. Anche la
purezza delle linee e l’autorevolezza della tecnica variano ma il corpus degli esempi che vi sono perve-
nuti dimostra un sorprendente livello artistico, considerando anche la scomodità e difficoltà di disegnare
sull’argilla morbida e implica pertanto che gli scribi, oltre alle loro abilità scrittorie, erano talvolta anche
maestri nel disegno.