Kish tablet

Limestone tablet from Kish (Sumer) with pictographic writing, Late Uruk period – Ashmolean Museum
Geographical range	Iraq
Period	Late Uruk period (c. 3500–2900 BC)
Dates	After 3500 BC

The Kish tablet is a limestone tablet found at the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Kish in modern Tell al-Uhaymir, Babylon Governorate, Iraq. A plaster cast of the tablet is in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, while the original is housed at the Iraq Museum in Baghdad.^[1][2] It should not be confused with the Scheil dynastic tablet, which contains part of the Sumerian King List and is also sometimes called the Kish tablet.^[3]

The signs on the Kish tablet, possibly related to proto-cuneiform, are purely pictographic, and have not been deciphered or demonstrated to correspond to any currently known human language. It has been dated to the Late Uruk period (c. 3200–3000 BC^[4]).^[5][6]

See also

• History of writing
• Narmer Palette
• Warka Vase

References

Further reading

• A. C. Moorhouse, The Triumph of the Alphabet: A History of Writing

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