Cuneiform Texts in the National Museum of Denmark

This book is the first complete catalogue of cuneiform tablets and inscriptions at the National Museum of Denmark and includes the publication of more than one hundred previously unpublished manuscripts. The cuneiform tablet collection, which the museum acquired over more than a century, reflects the long-standing Danish interest in the cultural heritage of ancient Iraq, Syria and Iran. Also included are a number of cuneiform tablets that were excavated during the Danish archaeological campaigns in Hama (Syria).

The catalogue itself is the result of a four-year project called Hidden Treasures: Cuneiform Texts at the National Museum of Denmark, co-funded by the Carlsberg Foundation, the Augustinus Foundation, the Edubba Foundation and the University of Copenhagen. The project was a collaboration between the National Museum and the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies of the University of Copenhagen, with the goal to fully catalogue and digitize for the first time the entire collection of written artefacts inscribed with the cuneiform writing system, one of the earliest scripts to ever be devised. The digital catalogue and images are now made available on the website of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI).

The manuscripts and inscriptions catalogued and published here range in date from the middle of the third millennium up until the late first millennium BCE, covering almost the entire timespan of cuneiform cultures. It includes newly identified historical, legal, administrative, literary and religious texts from three millennia of cuneiform cultures and thus reflects a wide array of time periods, languages and genres.