Cuneiform tablet: a-she-er gi-ta, balag to Innin/Ishtar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This cuneiform tablet records part of a balag, a song of lament that accompanied a stringed instrument. The text is typical of the Seleucid period, where the words are written in Sumerian but with a large number of lines accompanied by an Akkadian translation. Sumerian was the language spoken in southern Mesopotamia until around 2000 B.C., while Akkadian had probably ceased to be a spoken language by the time this tablet was written, having been replaced by Aramaic and Greek throughout much of the Near East. However, both Sumerian and Akkadian continued to be written in cuneiform until the early centuries A.D. by learned scribes. This tablet contains a lament by Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of fertility, over the destruction of her cities and shrines, and contrasts her present humiliation with her previous power. There are parallels with well-known myths dating from the late third and second millennia B.C.—such as the Sumerian version of the myth of Inanna's descent to the netherworld—demonstrating the very longlived literary tradition maintained by the temple scribes of Mesopotamia.

Ancient Near Eastern Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art cares for approximately 7,000 works ranging in date from the eighth millennium B.C. through the centuries just beyond the emergence of Islam in the seventh century A.D. Objects in the collection were created by people in the area that today comprises Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean coast, Yemen, and Central Asia. From the art of some of the world's first cities to that of great empires, the department's holdings illustrate the beauty and craftsmanship as well as the profound interconnections, cultural and religious diversity, and lasting legacies that characterize the ancient art of this vast region.

Metropolitan Museum of Art