We Found The Eleven Months. It Was In A Divorce File.
Every story this desk has written about the tablet reports the same gap: February to December 1974, and nobody could say where it was. A reader with a genealogy subscription closed it in three evenings.
ITHACA, N.Y. — For three years the foot of every story this desk has written about tablet PX-1207 has carried the same sentence.
Eleven months in 1974 are unaccounted for. Nobody we have found can say where it was.
They can now. It was in a dentist's house in New Jersey, and then it was in a divorce.
What happened
The museum deaccessioned it in February 1974 as surplus to a collection that already held four.
In March a dentist bought it at the sale, as an anniversary present for his wife. His nephew, who is his executor, still has the receipt and supplied it without being asked twice. He also said, and our correspondent has written it down exactly, that his uncle "bought her a rock with writing on it, and she wanted a coat."
She did not want it. In August it appears in their divorce filing, Schedule B, item 41.
The description is four words long: One Babylonian tablet.
It is valued at $180 and awarded to her. In December she sold it on, at a loss, to the dealer this newspaper has been reporting for three years as the first private owner.
The chain we already had begins one month later.
Who found it
Not us.
On 8 August a reader in Lisbon left a comment on this desk's Ur coverage. It said, in full and in italics, eleven months, and went on to observe that we report the gap every single time and that she had never seen another outlet do it.
Two days later she wrote again, having spent three evenings in a genealogy database she pays for in order to trace her grandmother, with a county, a docket number and a schedule reference.
Her full reply is printed at the foot of this page. She is annoyed about our headline and she is right to be.
Why she looked
This is the part this newspaper wants to sit with rather than accept a compliment for.
She did not find it because our reporting was good. She found it because our reporting kept saying, in public, at the bottom of stories where nobody was making us, that there was something we could not do.
"It became a thing I noticed," she told us. "Then it became a thing that annoyed me."
A hole reported often enough stops being an embarrassment and becomes an invitation. That is a mechanism and it is available to any newspaper that is willing to look worse in the short term.
What this does not close
The dealer's 1974 day-books are still missing and this story has not found them.
What is now established is where the object was, not every record of its movement. A divorce schedule records ownership, not location, and nothing here proves the tablet did not leave the country in those months — nothing suggests it did, either.
Our antiquities correspondent, who has built fourteen stories on this fragment and spent three years writing that sentence at the foot of each one, was asked how it felt.
"Deflating," she said. "It was a dentist. It was always going to be a dentist."
What changes in this newspaper
The chart above has been printed eleven times with a red mark in the middle of it. This is the first printing without one.
Every story that carries the old provenance line has been updated, each with a dated note at the foot saying what changed and who found it, and the corrections archive records it as a completion rather than an error, because nothing we printed was wrong — it was incomplete, and we said so at the time.
The document is PX-2167, and it cost twenty-two dollars.
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Sources & Method
We did not do this. A reader did, and we have printed her method in her own words rather than paraphrasing it, because paraphrasing it would make it sound like ours. What this newspaper did was order the court record she pointed at, photograph Schedule B, telephone the estate, and check that the receipt matched.
Who we spoke to
- Delfina Ferreira, Reader, Lisbon; commented on this desk's Ur coverage on 8 August. Interviewed by video call twice; supplied her search log unprompted August 2026 Has no professional connection to archaeology, archives, or law. Pays for a genealogy subscription to trace her own family.
- The 1974 divorce filing, County court record, public. Ordered from the clerk of court for $22; Schedule B photographed August 2026 The tablet is item 41. The description is four words long.
- The dentist's estate, He died in 2011; his executor is his nephew. Telephoned; confirmed the purchase and supplied the receipt August 2026 Had no idea what it was and was surprised anybody cared.
- The first named dealer's day-books, Previously reported as missing for 1974. Still missing. This story does not close that. 2026
Documents
- PX-2167 — Divorce filing, Schedule B (division of chattels), August 1974 — item 41 accepted
What we could not confirm
- Nothing about the eleven months. There is a receipt, a court schedule, and an executor who confirms the purchase.
- The dealer's 1974 day-books are still missing and this story has not found them. What is now closed is where the object was, not every record of its movement.
- Whether the tablet was ever out of the country in that period. Nothing suggests it was and nothing rules it out; a divorce schedule records ownership, not location.
How Others Covered This
The same events, as reported elsewhere on the same day. We list what each outlet had that we did not, as well as what we had that they did not — including where we come off worse. Why we print this.
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The Hollow PostTHEY BURIED ADMITS TABLET PROVENANCE WAS FAKED
Reported the closing of the gap as an admission that the earlier chain was fabricated.
Had that we did not
That this newspaper reported a gap for three years. It did, in every story, on purpose.
Left out
That a gap reported is the opposite of a gap concealed, and that what filled it was a dentist buying a bad anniversary present.
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They Buriedthis newspaperWe Found The Eleven Months. It Was In A Divorce File.
Printed the answer, and printed who found it, which was not us.
Had that we did not
The court schedule, and the reader's method in her own words.
Left out
'We found' is doing work in that headline that the story spends four paragraphs undoing. She found it. — V. Ashcombe-Doyle, standards editor
Right of Reply
They Buried contacted Delfina Ferreira, who found it throughout; read the full draft with no deadline. Asked to reply, mostly to complain about the headline. Printed unedited.
Your headline says we found it and I would like to be petty about that for one paragraph, and then say something else.
I found it. It took three evenings and cost me nothing beyond a subscription I already pay for because I am tracing my grandmother.
Now the something else, which is the reason I am writing back at all.
I found it because you kept printing that you could not. Eleven months, every time, in the same words, at the foot of every story. It became a thing I noticed. Then it became a thing that annoyed me. Then one evening I was in a records database anyway and I thought: a tablet is property, and property in America in the 1970s turns up in two places, probate and divorce.
It was divorce. It was the second search.
So I do not want your gratitude, I want you to notice the mechanism. You did not solve this by being clever. You solved it by admitting, in public, repeatedly, and at the bottom of stories where nobody made you, that there was a hole. Somebody was eventually going to be irritated enough to look.
That is worth more than a correspondent. Keep printing the holes.
And change the headline.
Published unedited under our right-of-reply guarantee.
How was this story?
We publish the result, whatever it is. Reader verdicts appear on the front page and in our newsroom metrics.
Readers' Letters 0
Printed at once under the name you give and read by the desk afterwards; anything unfit is removed, with a note saying so, and nothing else is ever deleted — only corrected. Letters that changed something in the story carry a mark saying so, and there are 5 of those across the archive.