The corpus
All tablets.
Every tablet in the corpus — sortable by date, title or period; filterable by theme and period. Use the controls below or change the URL parameters directly.
1–5 of 5
Cyrus Cylinder
Often called the world's first declaration of human rights — a 20th-century characterization that overstates its scope; it is, more accurately, a typical Mesopotamian royal accession text framed as Marduk's restoration of order. But its references to religious tolerance and the return of exiled peoples (which the Hebrew Bible echoes in describing the end of the Babylonian Exile) have made it one of the most politically resonant cuneiform artifacts ever recovered.
LawWriting & Literature
Cuneiform tablet- Atra-hasis, Babylonian flood myth MET 266810
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Babylonian or Achaemenid; Cuneiform tablet; Clay-Tablets-Inscribed
Mythology
Cuneiform tablet- Atra-hasis, Babylonian flood myth MET 266811
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Babylonian or Achaemenid; Cuneiform tablet; Clay-Tablets-Inscribed
Mythology
Cuneiform tablet- Gula incantation MET hb86 11 130
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Babylonian or Achaemenid; Cuneiform tablet; Clay-Tablets-Inscribed
Mythology
Cuneiform tablet- ritual fragment MET ME86 11 359
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Achaemenid or Seleucid; Cuneiform tablet; Clay-Tablets-Inscribed
Mythology