Ancient Assyria - Weld Prism

 

 

The Weld-Blundell Prism is the most extensive surviving list of the rulers of ancient Iraq for the period from 3200 - 1800 BC. It contains an outlined history of the world written by a scribe named Nur-Ninsubur. He provides a list of the kings that reigned from the beginning of his race to the present time. Among the kings listed are 10 kings with extraordinary long life spans, and they existed before the flood. The Weld Prism discovery is important in the study of Biblical Archaeology because it confirms the Biblical account of longevity before the flood, and contains other similarities in its list of kings as well.

"And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died."  Genesis 5:27

Material - Baked Clay Prism 
Larsa in Babylonia. just north of Ur.
Date: 2170 BC. 
Height: 20 cm (7.87401575 inches)
Width: 9 cm (3.54330709 inches)
Depth: 
Style: 4-Sided Prism, 2-Columns on each of the 4 faces
Text: Old Akkadian Cuneiform
Writer: Nur-Ninsubur a Scribe
Larsa in Babylonia, Iraq
Excavated by: Weld-Blundell Expedition 1922
Location: Ashmolean Museum in Oxford

https://www.ashmol.ox.ac.uk/ash/faqs/q001/q001006.html 

The Weld-Blundell Prism 

Why is it so famous beyond the world of scholars? 

The list begins with kings before "the Flood". 

The earlier sections of the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament parallels this part of the Sumerian King-List. 

Not only are there close parallels with the Biblical Flood Story, but also with the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11. 

The superhuman life-spans given there, which decrease after the Flood, are comparable to those in the inscription on this prism.