How to Calm a Crying Baby Like a Mesopotamian

In these lullabies, parents entreated their babies to be calm as well water, to “be given sleep like a sleepy gazelle buck” calf, and to doze like a shepherd nodding mid-watch. Along with songs, the text suggests parents rub dust from a significant street, doorway, or even a grave—perhaps representing an ominous, ultimate silence—on a wailing baby. The tablet, which scholars believe originated in Nippur (about 100 miles south of present-day Baghdad, Iraq) and is currently on display in the exhibit Ancient Mesopotamia Speaks at the Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, Connecticut, is one of only two known collections of cuneiform lullabies.

Source: www.atlasobscura.com