Cuneiform brick

A Mesopotamian sun-baked mud brick with a cuneiform inscription. It was donated to the museum in 1932. It was claimed to have been found from the site of Nebuchadnezzar’s palace in Babylon.

Tablets like these are among the first-known records created by rulers and their officials. Text was carved into the soft surface of clay and mud. The bricks were then baked to harden and preserve the writing. Cuneiform bricks were a popular item for later travellers to collect.

This object was selected by a member of the LGBTQ+ community as part of the Out and About: Queering the Museum at RAMM project. Listen to the attached audio (transcript available) to find out why.

Visual description: The cuneiform brick is a sizeable slab of baked clay. It has one clear edge on the left. The other edges are uneven and jagged, indicating that it is a fragment of a larger brick. In the centre, an inscription of cuneiform script is etched into the surface. The inscription is incomplete since the brick is missing parts.