John Peters on the Storage and Discarding of Cuneiform Tablets

[p. 210] Here [on Hill X, Site F], in one room of a house of unbaked brick, about ten metres long by five metres broad, there had evidently been a depository of [p. 211] tablets; these had been placed around the walls of the room on wooden shelves, the ashes of which we found mixed with the tablets on the floor. We took out of this room thousands of tablets, and fragments of tablets, of unbaked clay.

For four days eight gangs were taking out tablets from this room, as fast as they could work, and for four days the tablets were brought into camp by boxfuls, faster than we could handle them. These tablets were of later date than the ones found at E [Ur III period, 2112-2004 B.C., houses, also on Hill X, to the southeast of F], as might be conjectured from the difference of level. Other rooms of this group contained tablets in fair numbers, but in no other had they been stored in the same way in which they had been stored in F.

Close to F, to the northeastward, was a brick structure, on which tablets were found half-imbedded in bitumen. Between the two was a brick well, the bricks laid in bitumen. The d�bris in this well, like all the d�bris in that immediate neighborhood, was full of unbaked tablets, with occasional baked ones intermixed. We excavated the well to a depth of 14.5 metres, at which point, 4.5 metres below plain level, we struck water, finding for over thirteen metres, fragments of tablets, most of which were badly injured by water. Neither in this series of rooms, nor at E, did we find any pottery or household utensils.