Tablet
The farmer's almanac is a small clay tablet of 3 inches (7.6 cm) by 4.5 inches (11 cm) with an inscription that is more than 3,500 years old. It was found in the ancient Sumerian site of Nippur. The tablet had to be completely restored as it was in poor condition when discovered.
The "Nippur tablet" has 35 lines of text and is part of the middle of the complete overall document. Different parts of the agricultural "primer" were already known in eight other clay tablets and fragments before the Nippur part was discovered. The complete Sumerian Farmer's Almanac document has 111 lines of text. It was originally made by a farmer for his son. The document has prime importance in the history of agriculture and its techniques. The document consists of a series of instructions for the purpose of guiding one throughout their yearly agricultural activities.
Before this document was discovered there were two similar farmer's "handbooks" known from ancient times. One was Virgil's Georgics and the other was Hesiod's Works and Days. Hesiod's "handbook", written probably in the eighth century BCE, was considered the earliest known farmer's almanac then known until the Sumerian Farmer's Almanac officially took the title in 1951. The Sumerian Farmer's Almanac predates Hesiod's almanac by approximately a millennium.
Read more about this topic: Sumerian Farmer's Almanac
Famous quotes containing the word tablet:
“As man, as beast, as an ephemeral fly begets, Godhead begets Godhead,
For things below are copies, the Great Smaragdine Tablet said.
Yet all must copy copies, all increase their kind....”
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“The eyes, opening and shutting like keyholes
and never forgetting, recording by thousands,
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