Artifact overview
YPM BC 018686 is an artifact (Clay Tablet) related to the mythological story named 'Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld.' The artifact's condition is Excellent and it is currently located at Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, United States of America, catalogued as record number YPM BC 018686. The language of the text contained is Sumerian (Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform writing system). Its estimated date is 1900—1600 BCE, which is a range based on available data and scholarship. The mythology associated with this artifact includes the Sumerian belief system and related deities: Dumuzi and Inanna.
About this artifact
Basic details
| Type | Tablet Clay material |
| Condition | Excellent |
| Date created | 1900—1600 BCE |
| Language | Sumerian |
| Writing system | Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform (script) |
| Location | Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History · New Haven, United States of America |
| Collection | YPM.BC.018686 |
| Digital access | Record No. YPM.BC.018686 Fully digitized |
Provenience
| Discovery | Unknown |
Museum record data
Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History
Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History · New Haven, United States of America
Item specifications
| Museum No. | YPM BC 018686 |
Mythological contents
Sumerian Religion
The contents of this artifact may depict or reference the following myths and deities associated with this belief system.
Associated myths and deities
| Myths | Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld |
| Deities | Dumuzi, Inanna |
Cuneiform Digitial Library Initiative data help_outline
Core CDLI data
| CDLI record No. | P293336 |
| Composite No. | Q000343 |
| Period | Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC) |
| Provenience (origin) | Unknown |
| Primary publication | CDLI Literary 000343, ex. 015 |
| Author/date | CDLI/2014ff. |
The YPM BC 018686 tablet is preserved in excellent condition and contains almost one fourth of "inanna's Descent" in its ninety lines of translated text. This artifact was initially noticed by Edward Chiera, a Sumerian scholar, but wouldn't be published until many years later. In 1950, Samuel N. Kramer, a well-known Sumerian scholar, published his translation of YPM BC 018686 (formerly YBC 4621) in a revised translation of "Inanna's Descent."[1] This publication also contained the first translation of a tablet named Ni 9685, a small clay tablet artifact that provided twenty-six more translated lines of "Inanna's Descent."
Significance for the ending of "Inanna's Descent"
YPM BC 018686 was an extremely important artifact for the decipherment of the conclusion of "Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld." Another Sumerian scholar, Bendt Alster, published an article in Acta Sumerologica (volume 18, 1996) where he reconstructed the last fifty lines of "Inanna's Descent" by primarily comparing three artifacts: CBS 6894, UET VI 10, and the current artifact.[2] As Alster noted, the Yale tablet was an important part of his translation.
Extended artifact data for YPM BC 018686
See detailed information about this artifact from the entity that has access to it.
Location description
- Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History New Haven, United States of America
Full address: Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, 170 Whitney Ave, New Haven, Connecticut, 06511, United States of America
The Yale Peabody Museum is supported by nearly 100 full- and part-time administrative and divisional staff. Curators, associate curators, and curators emeriti, who are faculty members in related Yale University academic departments, also provide vital support, along with curatorial affiliates and a large corps of Museum volunteers.
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Record numbers
| Collection | YPM.BC.018686 |
| Digitized record | Record No. YPM.BC.018686 |
| Artifact access | Other |
Full artifact data
| Catalog No. | YPM BC 018686 |
| Original No. | YBC 04621 |
| Summary | Tablet. Inanna's Descent. Old Babylonian. Clay. |
| Material | Clay |
| Measurements | 157 x 67 x 29 (mm) |
| Language | Sumerian |
| CDLI No. | P293336 |
| Tablet | Function |
| Culture Period | Old Babylonian |
| Primary Publication | Kramer, JCS 4, 1950, 199ff (C, T, Tr) |
Record notes
About these data
| Retrieval date | Aug. 4, 2022 |
| Copyright | Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History |
Render
See a rendering of the artifact in images, text, and other form factors. Where available, a translation is included.
Digital scan
OMNIKA Reader
Good news. This original artifact is digitized and available in the OMNIKA Library.
Text: "ETCSL 1.4.1: Inana's Descent to the Nether World"
Sumerian ⟶ English a
| Line # | Translation |
|---|---|
| Source a Black et al., "ETCSL 1.4.1: Inana Netherworld." More info launch | |
All texts
| Title |
|
|---|---|
| "Inanna's Descent / Ending": English Translation by Bendt Alster |
|
| "Artifact YBC 4621": English Translation by Samuel Noah Kramer |
|
Mythological contents
This artifact contains mythological contents associated with Sumerian Religion. The main narrative mentioned may be Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld, a Afterlife myth. The deities depicted or mentioned in the artifact may be: Dumuzi and Inanna.
Parent belief system
- Sumerian Religion · PolytheisticHeads up. This Religion belongs to the Mesopotamian collection on the basis of shared myths and deities.
Sumerian religion refers to spiritual beliefs practiced from ca. 4500-1900 BCE in Mesopotamia, or modern-day southern Iraq. Many deities were diffused into other Mesopotamian cultures.
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Associated myth
Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld Afterlife mythNuthsell
Inanna descends from the great above to the great below. She abandons several temples and heads for open country. She gives precise instructions to her companion—Ninsubur: Inanna says "if I don't return in three days, go to the temples and plead on my behalf." At the netherworld she enters and goes through seven gates before she is turned into a corpse. Ninsubur follows the instructions and tells Inanna's father Enkil what happened. He helps her by sending two a-sexual creatures to sneak in and bring her back to life. Once Inanna is alive she ascends while being escorted by demons from the netherworld. The demons allow her to trade her husband Dumuzi in her place.
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Deities depicted
CDLI data for P293336
The artifact named YPM BC 018686 is listed in the CDLI database as record number P293336. It belongs to composite number Q000343 .
About the CDLI
Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative Est. 1998The Cuneiform Digitial Library Initiative (CDLI) is a collaborative project among the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of Oxford, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin, Germany). The project is funded by various universities and donors in the hopes of cataloging, translating, and digitizing artifacts with text in cuneiform script.
Record numbers
Publication information
| primary publication | CDLI Literary 000343, ex. 015 |
| author | CDLI |
| publication date | 214ff. |
| secondary publication(s) | Kramer, Samuel N., JCS 04 (1950) 199ff. |
| author remarks | (C, T, Tr) |
| cdli no. | P293336 |
| ucla library ark | 21198/zz001wx9j6 |
Collection information
| owner | Yale Babylonian Collection, New Haven, Connecticut, USA |
| museum no. | YBC 04621 |
Text contents
| genre | Literary |
| sub-genre | ETCSL 1.04.01 Inanna's Descent (witness) |
Provenience and chronology
Provenience
Chronology
| period | Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 BC) |
Physical information
| object type | tablet |
| material | clay |
Record notes
About these data
| Retrieval date | Aug. 4, 2022 |
| Copyright | CDLI @ UCLA |
Artifact condition
The artifact named 'YPM BC 018686' is appraised as being in Excellent condition based on how much reliance is placed on other resources to make it complete and readable.
| Condition | Excellent | Just OK | Poor |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  | |
| Completeness | More than 80% | 50 - 80% | Less than 50% |
| Fragmentation | Minor | Moderate | Significant |
| Damage | Minor | Moderate | Significant |
| Legibility | Highly readable | Somewhat readable | Unintelligible |
What's a 'joined' artifact?
A joined artifact is one that was originally part of the other and was broken or fragmented at some point in time. Joins are common among clay tablets because they may get broken during discovery and transportation. The join is notated with the + sign. For example, if tablets A000 and Z999 are joined, we would express this relationship by grouping them as A000 + Z999 to indicate they are related.
If the fragments are owned, maintained, and cataloged by separate museums then classifying the join relationship is critical for accurate translations.
Cite this page
OMNIKA Foundation Contributors. "YPM BC 018686." OMNIKA – World Mythology Index, OMNIKA Foundation, 29 Apr. 2019, omnika.org/stable/103. Accessed 10 May. 2024.
OMNIKA (2019, April 29). YPM BC 018686. Retrieved from https://omnika.org/stable/103
OMNIKA Foundation Contributors. "YPM BC 018686." Las Vegas, NV: OMNIKA Foundation. Created April 29, 2019. Accessed May 10, 2024. https://omnika.org/stable/103.
