Weld-Blundell Prism: The Sumerian King-List
(Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; number: AN1923.444)
Who wrote it, when and where?
Map of Southern Iraq
- It was written by an unnamed scribe in the city of Larsa in Babylonia about 1800BC.
- At that time, the language of scholars was still that of the Sumerian-speaking peoples, who had inhabited the region for thousands of years.
- However, the spoken language of the ordinary people of Larsa was Akkadian, which had superseded Sumerian in everyday life between 2300-2000BC.
- So far as we know, virtually all scribes at this time were male.