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Dickson (Edward A.) Cuneiform Tablet collection
LSC.1813
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Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Edward A. Dickson Cuneiform Tablet collection
Creator:
Dickson, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.1813
Physical Description:
1 oversize box
Date: Ur III period-Neo-Babylonian period (circa 2100-562 BCE)
Abstract: The majority of the eight tablets are administrative in nature, citing loans, receipts, and inventories. Most of the administrative
texts date to the Ur III period (Third Dynasty of Ur). One tablet contains a royal inscription from the Early Old Babylonian
period (ca. 2000-1800 BCE) on a clay cone. This collection was donated to UCLA by Edward A. Dickson.
Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Language of Material: Materials are in Cuneiform.
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained
by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue
the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
9964269373606533
[Identification of item], Edward A. Dickson Cuneiform Tablet collection (Collection 1813). UCLA Library Special Collections,
Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Transliterations by Justin Cale Johnson. Processed by Sara Brumfield in the Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT),
with assistance from Kelley Wolfe Bachli, 2008.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user
interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides
a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive
processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating
existing description of our materials that contains language
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Collections.
Edward Augustus Dickson donated his collection of tablets to the University of California-Los Angeles. Dickson was one of
the founding fathers of the Los Angeles campus for the California university system. He was appointed to Board of Regents
in 1912 and served until his death in 1956, at the age of 76.
The majority of texts in this collection are administrative in nature, citing loans, receipts, and inventories. All but one
of the administrative texts date to the Ur III period (Third Dynasty of Ur), known for its abundance of economic documents.
During the Ur III period (ca. 2100-2004 BCE), the state reached a level of centralization that was unprecedented. To accommodate
the large population of workers and products under this state run economy, written records of business transactions and inventories
were constantly issued.
The collection also contains a royal inscription from the Early Old Babylonian period (ca. 2000-1800 BCE) on a clay cone.
Clay cones were often used to commemorate the building of monumental architecture. An inscription praising the king and his
deities would be written around the cone on its vertical axis. Then the cone would be inserted into the wall of the structure
obscuring the inscription from human eyes.
The cone is from the reign of Lipit-Ishtar (ca.1934-1924 BCE). His seat of power was in the city of Isin. Lipit-Ishtar is
best known for his set of laws, issued even before Hammurabi's famous law code. When Lipit-Ishtar published his law code,
he also built the Enisisa (literally, "house of justice") and he had its construction recorded on over a hundred clay cones,
of which this is just one.
Tablets are described at the item level.
Cumberland Clark Cuneiform Tablet Collection (Collection 1826). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Portions of this collection have been digitized and are available online:
CDLI contributors. 2023. "Special Collections, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA - Collections." Cuneiform Digital Library
Initiative. May 25, 2023. https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/collections/1072.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Dickson, Edward A. (Edward Augustus), 1879-1956--Archives.