A Melbourne Moment

This beautiful gem, a Cuneiform table, being just one marvellous item to be seen at the State Library of Victoria’s excellent exhibition The World of the Book.

This was the third version of this exhibition we have viewed – all great viewing experiences. The exhibition is up on the fourth floor; be prepared to do battle with the huge number of tourists who have obviously been told that they must head up to the dome for a selfie.

to quote from the library’s web site:

2025 marks the 20th anniversary of World of the Book. Since 2005, the Library’s annual exhibition has displayed more than 5000 objects and provided free access to some of the rarest and most unusual items in the Library’s Rare Books and State Collections.Cuneiform tablet, Southern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), c 2050 BCE, Rare Books collection.

Cuneiform writing, developed by the ancient culture of Sumer, was one of the world’s first scripts. It was written on clay tablets using a wedged stick (cunea is Latin for ‘wedge’); the tablets were then sun-dried or fired. The earliest tablets (c 3400 BCE) record economic transactions. This tablet records taxes paid in sheep and goats in the tenth month of the 46th year of Shulgi, second king of the Third Dynasty of Ur.

The main Reading Room was very busy: