Wooden Wax-Covered Writing Boards asVorlageforkudurruInscriptions in the Middle Babylonian Period

Abstract

AbstractThe inscriptions on Middle Babyloniankudurrumonuments contain references to a certain type ofVorlage, wooden wax-covered writing boards. Thekudurrumonuments were erected in temples as (legal) proof of a royal land grant. In this article I explore three ways in which wooden wax-covered writing boards may have functioned as aVorlageforkudurruinscriptions. Wooden wax-covered writing boards may have served as aVorlagefor literary passages, as a draft for thekudurruinscription or as a writing material for land survey documents (possibly the Middle Babylonianammatudocuments). Firstly, parallels between the colophons ofkudurruinscriptions and first millennium literary and scholarly texts imply a shared scholarly practice in a temple context, in which wooden wax-covered writing boards were used as aVorlage. Secondly, the use of wooden wax-covered writing boards to draft monumental inscriptions is well attested in the 1st millennium BC. Thirdly, I propose that writing boards may have been used to record the land survey necessary for the royal land grant, since land surveys and ground plans were traditionally recorded on writing boards in Mesopotamia. Wooden wax-covered writing boards and wooden writing materials became more widespread in the Middle Babylonian period. The Middle Babylonian land survey document was calledammatudocument. Further, in this article I demonstrate that the equation of the Middle Babylonianammatudocument with the Old Babylonianṭuppi ummātim, a term for title deeds written on clay tablets, is problematic.