Return to Sender: The Journey of Lexical List NBC 6071

by Sophia Slotwiner-Nie

How did antiquities make their way from the Middle East into Europe and the United States during the early 1900s? The process was lengthy and involved multiple forms of transportation – boat, train, and/or foot. Often, pieces made their way in a linear fashion from the Middle East, to Europe, and finally to the United States. While NBC 6071 was transported using many of these standard transportation methods, it’s route from Baghdad, Iraq to New Haven, Connecticut, USA, was complex and certainly not linear.

NBC 6071 (YPM BC 009052) is a four-sided prism containing two lexical lists (a list of professions and a list of Sumerian terms organized by the initial sign), soon to be published by Dr. Klaus Wagensonner in Lexical Texts in the Yale Babylonian Collection. Each side of the prism contains four columns of text. Portions of the inscription are still legible, but the object has incurred considerable damage. When did this damage occur? And how? Most likely during the no less than three trips this lexical list made between the United States and Baghdad, Iraq before being placed in a permanent collection at the Yale Babylonian Collection (YBC).

NBC 6071 was originally purchased from a notable and prolific antiquities dealer Elias Isaac Solomon David (1891–1969) by the collector rev. James Buchanan Nies (1856–1922). Elias was born in Baghdad and raised in Paris. His family maintained a large estate in Baghdad and appears to have been established merchants in the area. Elias however, expanded the family business to antiquities dealing across Baghdad, Europe, and the United States. This lexical list is just one of thousands of objects sold to various museums, individuals, and collections by Elias.

The lexical list was purchased by James Buchanan Nies (b. 1856) prior to his death in 1922. Unfortunately for Nies, the lexical list did not arrive in the United States prior to 1922. Instead, the object remained at customs after his death and according to YBC archival correspondence, Nies’s widow went to pick up the lexical list at the New York City customs house. She was refused the object by customs, and her lawyer recommended she allow customs to return the object to Elias Isaac Solomon David in Baghdad. There is one large issue with this story reconstructed from the archives – James Buchanan Nies’s wife Jane Dows Nies, née Orr (1857–1919) died in 1919, three years prior to the supposed shipment and attempted retrieval of the object. Furthermore, the two never had any children to inherit their possessions and James never remarried. In fact, he is buried together with Jane.

All of this begs the question, who was the woman who attempted to pick up the lexical list at customs? And who was her supposed lawyer that recommended she allow the object to be sent back to Elias in Baghdad? These questions are still unanswered, but there are numerous possibilities, many of which suggest some form of attempted foul play. Did the shipping agent used by Elias attempt to fraudulently pick up the package with a woman posing as Nies’s wife? While further information may never be recovered, the customs house did not release the object and instead the lexical list was shipped back to Elias in Baghdad, who was made aware that Nies’s will and testament bequeathed the object to the Yale Babylonian Collection. Thus, Elias re-sent the lexical list to the curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection at the time, Albert Tobias Clay (1866–1925), in New Haven, Connecticut, USA.

The lexical list made three trips across the world from Baghdad to New York, New York to Baghdad, and Baghdad to New Haven, Connecticut. It is likely that in during three long trips, the lexical list incurred some, or much, of the damage it currently contains. Shipping of antiquities during this period involved multiple modes of transportation (railroad, ship, foot, etc.) and objects could take months to years to reach their destination. This lexical list travelled at least via ship and train multiple times before reaching its final destination. Stories of objects such as these give insights into the dealer, collector, and donor networks as well as the modes and mechanisms of transport of objects from the Middle East. They also raise many unanswered questions.

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Klaus Wagensonner for providing both a description and photograph of NBC 6071. I would also like to thank Agnete Wisti Lassen, Associate Curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection, for her input and permission to share the story of this object.


Sophia Slotwiner-Nie is the Provenance Researcher for the Yale Babylonian Collection (Yale Peabody Museum) in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Her research focuses on the history of the Middle Eastern antiquities trade and establishing best methods and practices for researching and documenting provenance in museum and university collections.


OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
RETOUR - Freier Blog fĂĽr Provenienzforschende (9. April 2025). Return to Sender: The Journey of Lexical List NBC 6071. RETOUR đź ”. Abgerufen am 7. November 2025 von https://doi.org/10.58079/13prb


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