W. G. Lambert's Notebooks

From ORACC:

W. G. Lambert (1926-2011) was an Assyriologist who spent much of his research time transliterating and copying cuneiform tablets in museums, especially the British Museum. His Nachlass included eight notebooks filled with handwritten transliterations of Babylonian and Assyrian texts. The notebooks contain more than five thousand transliterations, spread over nearly fifteen hundred pages. They are an astonishing record of sustained first-hand engagement with cuneiform tablets.

The pages of these eight notebooks have been numbered, scanned and indexed by Lambert's academic executor. They are placed online at ORACC as an open-access resource. It should be borne in mind that the transliterations are first drafts. Lambert invited a few colleagues to browse his notebooks during his lifetime but he did not write them for widespread distribution. The transliterations are therefore not to be taken as definitive, nor should any inaccuracies therein be held against their author.

Lambert's notebooks are made available here so that present and future scholars can use them to advantage in their own research. It is hoped that users of the notebooks will be encouraged by his example not to rely unhesitatingly on the work of a colleague but to visit museums and read cuneiform tablets at first hand. Should it be necessary nevertheless to quote the notebooks' contents, the recommended style is "Lambert Folio" followed by page number, e.g. K 9208 (Lambert Folio 9578).