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16 CBS 11319+: Introduction and Analysis

CBS 11319+, pictured in Figure 17, was produced in Nippur during the Old Babylonian period (c. 1900-1600 BC) and is now housed at the Penn Museum at University of Pennsylvania. The tablet contains the same information side-by-side in different columns written in Sumerian and Akkadian. It was likely used to teach the scribe, who during this period would have grown up speaking Akkadian, how to read and write in Sumerian.[1]

A photo of the front and back of the tablet CBS 11319+ along with 4 of 3 of the tablets edges. The tablet has three columns of dense cuneiform. There is a large notch taken out of the bottom right corner.
Figure 17. A photo of the front and back of CBS 11319+ courtesy of the Penn Museum.

While the tablet contains a variety of material, we are interested in the very first few lines on the front of the tablet, which contains a sequence of numerals. It appears to be a nearly complete list of counting numbers listed in order of magnitude. If you look closely at Figure 17, it is repeated in both the Sumerian and Akkadian columns. Its position at the top of these columns speaks to the priority placed on numeracy in scribal education. This portion of the tablet has been reproduced below in Figure 18.[2]

A simplified rendering of the top right corner of CBS 11319+ containing the cuneiform symbols for System S.
Figure 18. A rendering of the numerical entries at the top of the first column on
the front of CBS 11319+.

Activity 18. Refer to Figure 18 to answer the following questions.

  1. Assuming the scribe was counting upwards as writing down the list of numerals present in Figure 18, fill in the following blanks with whole numbers that make the equations true.
    • The cuneiform for 1=                    The cuneiform for 10
    • The cuneiform for 60 =                The cuneiform for 1
    • The cuneiform for 3600 =            The cuneiform for 60
  2. The numerals present on CBS 113191+ are cuneiform version of the curviform symbols for System C numerals we learned in Table 2. Using your answer to part 1, determine which curviform symbols corresponds to each and draw them in the table below.
    Cuneiform Curvifrom
    The cuneiform for 10
    The cuneiform for 1
    The cuneiform for 60
    The cuneiform for 3600

 

Media Attributions

  1. Åke W. Jøberg, "CBS 11319+ An Old-Babylonian Schooltext from Nippur," Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie, vol. 83, no. 1, (1993), https://doi.org/10.1515/za-1993-0102, pp. 1-21. ↵
  2. Based on the drawing in Christine Proust, Christine, "Les Listes et les Tables Métrologiques, entre Mathématiques et Lexicographie." Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Held at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, (July 18-22, 2005), 151. ↵

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