A Babylonian kudurru seized in Britain

30 April 2019

In early March, a stone stele inscribed in cuneiform and decorated with reliefs – a kudurru – dating from the late 12th century BCE was seized at Heathrow airport as its buyer attempted to bring it into Britain. The label on the crate read: "cut stone for interior decoration made in Turkey".

After being identified by the British Museum, the stele was returned to the Iraqi Embassy in London on 19 March 2019 for transfer to the Iraq Museum in Baghdad.

The Akkadian word kudurru refers to an inscribed stone stele often decorated with reliefs. These monuments appeared in the 14th century, and more than one hundred and fifty such stelae have been recorded in Babylonia, the latest dating from the 7th century BCE. The text inscribed on these stelae generally concerns land, indicating whether it was given by the king, exempt from taxes, offered as a dowry, etc. It ends with curses against anyone who would try to cancel the donation.

The kudurru seized at Heathrow Airport is about 30 centimetres high, but is broken and its lower part is missing. The inscribed text in two incomplete columns is worn away on the surface. It dates to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I (1126-1105), a Babylonian ruler of the second Isin dynasty. This king is known to have defeated the Elamites in their own land (Iran) and brought back to Babylon the cult statue of the god Marduk, taken a quarter of a century earlier as a trophy to Susa. A kudurru granting privileges to a certain Shitti-Marduk who distinguished himself in battle tells of one of the Babylonian king's battles in Elam.

The seized stele refers to a battle that could also be linked to the king's victorious campaign in Elam. The text ends with the traditional formulas of curses against anyone who would alter the stele, and cites Enlil, the protective divinity of the city of Nippur, and Gula, the goddess of medicine.  On its flat side, it presents a relief typical of kudurrus: symbols of deities, placed on thrones, such as the spade of the god Marduk, and real or imaginary animals.

This object had never been recorded before. The repeated mention of the Babylonian city of Nippur in southern Iraq may suggest that it was found there by illegal excavators. Sites in southern Iraq have been subject to intensive looting since the early 1990s and until a few years ago. Some of these stelae exhumed in situ were discovered in a temple and it is possible that this one was located in the temple of Enlil. In recent years, archaeologists have been reopening excavations at important sites in southern Iraq, such as Tello and Ur, and exploring new sites. We can only hope that the lower part of this kudurru will be discovered in situ in the coming years by an archaeological mission, which would allow the object to be returned to its archaeological context.