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From its founding at Yale University in 1911, the Babylonian Collection has been an international center for research and learning in the cultures and languages of ancient Mesopotamia. Located within Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library—in a suite of rooms with reinforced floors to hold the weight of thousands of clay tablets—the collection was formally affiliated in 2017 within the Yale Peabody Museum’s Division of Anthropology.
The world’s oldest cookbooks, an early account of the heroic king Gilgamesh, the earliest prose descriptions of the constellations, and writings of the first named author in human history (the princess Enheduanna) are among the Babylonian Collection’s more than 45,000 tablets and other materials. Along with commemorative inscriptions, letters and business documents from royal, private, and temple archives, medical treatises, and literary and legal texts in Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hittite, the collection features beautifully illustrated cylinder seals, terracotta plaques, and monumental bas-reliefs that illuminate Mesopotamian culture.
Research in the Babylonian Collection
The Peabody’s curatorial divisions are governed by the Museum’s collections policies and best practices document. Collections are available to researchers for scholarly use and loans are issued to individuals at established institutions. Loans and access can be arranged through the curatorial division’s collections manager.
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Agnete Wisti Lassen
Associate Curator,
Yale Babylonian Collection |
The Yale University Publications in Anthropology monograph series is available through Yale University Press. The series embodies the results of research in anthropology directly conducted or sponsored by the Yale University Department of Anthropology and the Yale Peabody Museum’s Division of Anthropology.
The Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, publishes original research in the natural science disciplines represented by the collections of the Yale Peabody Museum’s curatorial divisions. Issues are available online through BioOne Complete.
Cook Like a Babylonian
Learn about the foods of ancient Mesopotamia from a video presentation of modern interpretations of recipes translated from 4,000-year-old clay tablets.
Ancient Mesopotamia Speaks
Exhibitions on the Babylonian Collection, one of the major repositories of ancient Mesopotamian materials outside of Iraq, gives voice to the story of “The Land Between the Rivers.”
Cuneiform Commentaries Project
For the first time these cuneiform commentaries, the world’s oldest interpretative texts from tablets scattered over 21 museums worldwide, are accessible on one digital platform.