Yale Babylonian Collection

In 2017, the collection was affiliated to the Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Beyond the ongoing study and conservation of its own holdings, the Yale Babylonian Collection stands as an important center for innovative research in Assyriology and other related fields.

The collection contains over 1,300 private and official letters that span several different time periods in Babylonian history.

Several of these letters were still sealed in their clay envelopes to only be opened and read for the first time when they entered the collection.

Among the highlights of the collection are several tablets dating to the first half of the second millennium BCE, which contain culinary recipes.

Cuneiform text containing culinary recipes dating to the Old Babylonian period (c. 1900–1600 BCE), YBC 4644, obverse
The collection holds Babylonian clay tablet YBC 7289 (c. 1800–1600 BC). [ 1 ] The tablet displays an approximation of the square root of 2 .