Second Dynasty extraction schedule, tablet fragment (obverse and reverse)

Origin: Private collection, Basel
Dated: c. 2340 BCE (composition); 1908 (excavation)
Extent: 1 pages
Status: contested
Redactions: The tablet is broken at line 10. Nothing is redacted; the clay is simply gone.

Chain of custody

A clay tablet fragment, 9.4cm by 6.1cm, excavated at Tell al-Muqayyar in 1908 and deaccessioned by a European museum in 1974 as a duplicate. It passed through two named private collections, both of which supplied purchase records to this newspaper, before being placed on long loan with the Cornell Rare Books reading room, where our correspondent photographed it. The eleven-month gap in 1974 that this newspaper reported for three years is closed as of 10 August 2026: the object was bought at the deaccession sale by a private purchaser and passed to his former wife in a divorce settlement (PX-2167). The gap formerly described was in 1974 during which we cannot say where the fragment was. We say so wherever we cite it.

Held by: Cornell Rare Books reading room, long loan

Excerpt

col. ii, ll. 4–11 (transliteration and rendering by P. Nkemelu)

  4  KÙ.GI  ma-aḫ-ri-tum  ša  a-na  KASKAL
  5  [x x]  ni-bi-ru  i-na  MU.3600.KAM
  6  ...quota of the first gold, that which is for the road,
  7  ...at the crossing, in the three-thousand-six-hundredth year
  8  ...seven hundred talents short of the schedule
  9  ...the overseers of the lower workings did not deliver
 10  ...[break]
 11  ...and the fault was not with the workmen.

Transcribed by the data desk. Line breaks follow the original. Bracketed matter is ours.

Editor's note

Two Assyriologists we consulted read line 5 as an ordinary calendrical formula and not as a planetary name. We cite this tablet with that objection printed every time, and both scholars are named in the sources box of every story that uses it. — Updated 10 August 2026: the eleven months are accounted for. They were found by a reader, not by this newspaper, and PX-2167 is the record.

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