Otago Museum staff long suspected that an ancient cuneiform inscription in a polished brick-like rock in their collection was something special.No, this doesn't have anything to do with ancient Judaism. It just goes with a recent theme of ancient inscriptions showing up in unexpected places.
But it was only after assyriologist Prof Wayne Horowitz, of Jerusalem, visited the museum in 2013 and made a careful study, that the truth about this 3500-year-old inscription has become known.
And the museum now realises that it is home to one of only five known cuneiform inscriptions linked to Hasmar-Galsu, a ruler in the ancient Sumerian civilisation, in the ancient equivalent of southern Iraq.
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Sunday, August 16, 2015
Old Sumerian in New Zealand
IN A MUSEUM, THAT IS: Inscription one of five known (John Gibb, Otago Daily Times).