A witness reading. A Vigslist translation.
A second Nippur witness of the Fable of the Crane and the Raven — a documented partial: an Early Old Babylonian fragment from Nippur whose degraded surface did not yield a certifiable sign-by-sign reading, printed as a documented account of the object.
A witness reading. Tier W — witness reading only, documented partial. The posture is the same as the UM 29-13-329 witness’s, and for the same reason: the composition these tablets witness is served with a transliteration and English from the Ur witness UET 6, 0199 (P346284) and stands edited in Alster, Wisdom of Ancient Sumer (2005), as “The Goose and the Raven.” No composition claim and no first-translation claim attaches to this tablet; it is not restored from the Ur witness or from Alster anywhere on this page; and whether it stands among the further witnesses in Alster’s source list was not verified — no claim is made either way. No line of this witness reached a certifiable sign-by-sign reading from the photograph, so no sign value is printed for this tablet.
One fragment: CBS 06930, Penn Museum, Philadelphia — Nippur, Early Old Babylonian (ca. 2000–1900 BC). CDLI number: P264357. CDLI condition note: “LLo. part, edges missing, ruled”; genre comment: “Fable of the Crane and the Raven; (Obv)7x(Rev)5 lines.” The record has no references at all. The museum ink “6930” stands at the principal face’s right edge, read from the ink.
The principal face is a ruled single-column face whose surface is heavily degraded: dark encrustation spreads across the middle registers, the clay is cracked and pitted throughout, and long stretches read as almost polished smooth. Rulings and rows of wedge heads survive across the face, and sign forms separate at scattered points, most at the upper lines and at the lower-left — what remains is the outline of a text, not a text that certifies. The second face is worse: largely effaced, with faint sign traces only in a band at the top centre. As with its pair, the limit is surface state under flat light, not the photograph’s size; the tablet is flagged for re-reading under raking light or from the object.
Counts: 12 line positions — 0 whole, 0 part, 12 fragments, 0 invented (obverse 7, reverse 5). Both totals are CDLI catalogue counts, adopted and labelled as such: the obverse registers can be followed in the photograph; the five reverse registers cannot be individually traced in it and are carried on the catalogue’s authority, flagged as such. Dragon scan: not decidable from the photograph, on the same terms as its pair — no dragon or serpent reading is claimed, and absence is not claimed either.
Obverse 1–7: rulings and rows of wedge heads across the face; sign forms separate at scattered points, interiors gone. (Fragments — no value is printed for any obverse line.) Reverse 1′–5′: faint sign traces only, in a band at the top centre of the face. (Fragments — the registers are carried on the catalogue’s count, as stated above.) End of the inscribed area as photographed.
Witness reading only, documented partial, CBS 06930. No sign value is printed for this tablet, because none was certified. Published 2026-10-23. A Vigslist translation.
Built 2026-10-23 from the Second Collection of the Vigslist translations program (October 23, 2026).
Nuvira Technologies conducts this research with AI assistance, cross-verified against the primary sources to scholarly integrity standards. Uncertain readings are marked; broken lines are left broken.
— Richard Vigslist, Founder, Nuvira Technologies
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