DePaul University Library Special Collections and Archives recently acquired the Charles L. Souvay Cuneiform Tablets Collection, an assortment of 94 clay cuneiform tablets up to 4,000 years old. Cuneiform is a Mesopotamian writing system that began being used around 3300 BCE in the region of Sumer, in modern Iraq. It consists of a series of wedge shaped marks made by a stylus that are applied to wet clay tablets. The tablets can be air-dried or oven-fired, and do not degrade like plant-based paper. Those that have survived represent some of the oldest written documents known to exist.
Please join us on May 7, from 4:30pm-6:00pm in MacGowan South, Room 107, 1110 W. Belden Avenue as we explore the significance of these tablets. To speak about the collection, its contents, and its context will be K. Lawson Younger, PhD, Professor of Old Testament, Semitic Languages, and Ancient Near Eastern History at Trinity International University. A specialist in Assyriology and Aramaic, as well as the Hebrew Bible, Dr. Younger is a trustee of the American Schools of Oriental Research, and was recently the Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professor at the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, Israel.
Dr. Younger’s lecture, entitled “A Look through DePaul’s New Window into the Distant Past: Cuneiform Tablets from 2350-1100 BCE,” will explore the importance of several of the tablets in the collection. Refreshments will be provided upon the lecture’s conclusion.
For more information about cuneiform and the Souvay Collection, please see this recent Library blog post.
This lecture is sponsored by DePaul University Library and the Office of Mission and Values.