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Dr. Moudhy Al-Rashid Profile picture
@Moudhy
Jul 15, 2021 • 9 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
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A clay tablet made by a young scribal student who was practicing the "A" sign 𒀀 over and over again at school almost 4,000 years ago in Babylonia.

Be still my heart 🥺
A Babylonian scribal student practicing the sign "DINGIR" 𒀭 which looks like a star sometime between 2000 and 1600 BCE
This Babylonian student got bored and drew a doodle on his school exercise tablet ~4,000 years ago in Iraq
This Babylonian student left his now almost 4,000-year-old fingerprints on what looks like maybe a math exercise text from ancient Iraq
Compare this work of a young Babylonian scribal student practicing signs with that of a seasoned student writing out a mock lawsuit in cuneiform 🥺🥺
A Babylonian artist in the making several millennia ago in a scribal school in what is now Iraq.

On one side of a clay tablet, there are writing exercises and on the other side, this lovely drawing of a fish and a goat (I think) 🧡
I love these so much 🧡
All of these Babylonian school tablets are from the UCLA special collections, and you can peruse them here oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/1…
I somehow broke the thread so here’s the rest of it, complete with kids’ fingerprints and drawings

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More from @Moudhy

Dr. Moudhy Al-Rashid Profile picture
Aug 21, 2023
In the ruins of the ancient Babylonian city of Isin lie the 3,000-year-old remains of a temple to the healing goddess Gula.

She was the patron goddess of physicians who wielded a scalpel and a bandage, and her companion was a trusted, pointy-eared dog. Image
Beneath a long ramp or platform in the healing goddess’ temple precinct in ancient Isin, 33 dogs were laid to rest.

Their remains show no evidence of ritual sacrifice, but some did have severe injuries that healed during their lifetimes. Many were puppies.
The tallest dog buried in the temple precinct to the healing goddess in Isin was 65cm tall (about the height of a Ridgeback).

The shortest was about 45cm tall (about the height of a Pit Bull). repository.cam.ac.uk/items/e7e56308…
Image
Read 7 tweets
Dr. Moudhy Al-Rashid Profile picture
Jul 24, 2023
Today, I’d like to introduce you to a woman named Lā-tubāšinni (pronounced La-tubashinni) who fought for her children in Babylon in October of 560 BCE Image
Although details of her early life are murky, she may have been adopted only to eventually be sold by her adoptive mother, Hammaya, into marriage.

This marriage-by-purchase might be how she ended up a slave.

Source: Cornelia Wunsch 1998 academia.edu/734422/_1997_9…
The history of slavery in ancient Mesopotamia does not give a clear-cut divide between enslaved and free. There were degrees of freedom and mobility among enslaved and free(d) people. It’s nuanced, important social history.

Image: the sale of an enslaved person named Aya-idâ Image
Read 11 tweets
Dr. Moudhy Al-Rashid Profile picture
Oct 25, 2021
did the Sumerians invent the wheel?

i have no idea, but here’s a thread on the history of the wheel in ancient Mesopotamia because the possible answers are unsurprisingly really interesting
there are a few places to look for early evidence of the wheel (or anything really), like…

1. archaeological evidence, or an actual wheel
2. written evidence, or textual references to a wheel
3. art, or depictions of the wheel

all three are attested for ancient Mesopotamia
let’s start with the wheel in art from ancient Mesopotamia.

the Early Dynastic Period was amazing for lots of reasons, and beautifully decorated pottery is one of them. this painted jar from early 3rd millennium BCE Khafajah is no exception
Read 16 tweets
Dr. Moudhy Al-Rashid Profile picture
May 2, 2021
Many of you may have heard of Hammurabi's "Law Code", often (incorrectly) called the earliest collection of laws recorded on a 4,000-year-old diorite monument.

But why is this incorrect, what is this extremely cool artefact about, and what do we still not know about it?
The monument that records Hammurabi's Laws is not the earliest collection of legal provisions.

Three centuries earlier, during the best-documented period of history in ancient Iraq, a ruler named Ur-Nammu (or Namma) had laws written out in the Sumerian language.
"If a man presents himself as a witness but is demonstrated to be a perjurer, he shall weigh and deliver 15 shekels of silver."

Written in Sumerian, the Laws of Ur-Nammu date to around 2100 BCE, but many have not survived.
Read 13 tweets
Dr. Moudhy Al-Rashid Profile picture
Apr 2, 2021
In 235 BCE, a boy named Aristocrates was born, and someone made predictions about his life based on where the sun, moon, and planets were in the sky.

“Venus was in 4° Taurus. The place of Venus (means) he will find favour wherever he goes.”
“The moon was in 12° Aquarius. His days will be long.”

According to his horoscope, Anu-belshunu was born on December 29, 248 BCE some time in the evening, probably in Uruk. I just love that we know that about him.
Only ~30 horoscopes survive from ancient Babylonia, and they all contain similar info in a similar order.

Date and time of birth. Positions of the sun, moon, and planets in the zodiac. Eclipses that year. Solstice and equinox data. Sometimes, a prediction.
Read 10 tweets
Dr. Moudhy Al-Rashid Profile picture
Jan 26, 2021
Calculation of the area of a trapezoid by a student from ancient Babylonia.

Three of the sides are labelled with numbers, and the area is written out in the centre in the sexagesimal notation system as 5,3,20 𒐊 𒁹𒁹𒁹 𒌋𒌋 (= 5 and 1/18th, I think)
Possibly a Babylonian approximation of pi reflected in this drawing of a circle with inscribed numbers.

Read more about it here, including a computational explanation and further biblio history-of-mathematics.org/artifacts/baby…
A school tablet with calculations of the areas of squares with the teacher’s neat copy on one side (left) and a student’s slightly messier work on the other (right). Can you spot the number 9 inside the innermost square? 𒑆

Photo by Klaus Wagensonner collections.peabody.yale.edu/search/Record/…
Read 9 tweets

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