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Description (Catalog Card):
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Originally of wood (which has disappeared and left no trace at all), the top and edges encrusted with bone, shell, lapis and red paste tesserae set in bitumen: the bone tesserae are themselves engraved with geometrical and other patterns and inlaid with red paste and lapis. The board is in 2 unequal parts, rectangular, joined by a narrow neck: the upper part consists of 6 squares inside the border, the neck is 1 square wide and 2 long, the lower part had originally 4 rows of squares (12) and below those one or more rows of long triangular tesserae, shell and mother of pearl, with red paste triangles between them, the points of (one row of) the white tesserae pointing downwards. When found the object lay face downwards and on a slant: the upper part, nect, and 3 rows of squares of the lower part were complete, all except for one square at the bottom of the 4th row there was left there in position only a broken corner of a square. The broken square and 3 others, and also a number of triangles, were found separately in the dirt in front and below, but part of a row of white triangles (the red paste was reduced to powder) lay points upwards and face outwards against the back of the board: clearly the latter had been broken and doubled back: the tesserae at the line of the break had sprung and been dislodged. [drawing 1:5]1
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