Cunieform

     The design on the Sumerian cunieform stamp is based on a Neo-Babylonian stele commemorating a temple official, Adad-etir, set up in Babylon by his son Marduk-balassu-iqbi.
     There are three divine symbols, a winged solar disc representing the sun-god Shamash, a crescent of the moon-god Sin and a lion-headed mace on a pedestal. The text reads: “May Marduk, the great lord, in anger look upon him, and his name and his seed may he cause to disappear. May Nabu, the scribe of all, curtail the number of his days. But may the man who protects it be satisfied with the fullness of life.”
     A picture of the whole stele can be found at: L.W. King, Babylonian boundary stones and memorial tablets (London, Trustees of the British Museum, 1912), pp. 115-16, plate XCII.

The design shows the evolution of the cunieform sign for barley, še (pronounced she, as in shed). The first sign is a pictograph from approximately 3000 b.c. The next sign is more abstract and has been rotated 90°. It dates from about 2500 b.c. The last sign is Late Assyrian from about 650 b.c. Here the sign has been simplified and rotated an additional 45°

     The Austrian stamp issued in 1965 shows a clay tablet with a cunieform text. A head of anAssyrian king or god is in the background. The clay tablet comes from the second millenium b.c.