In theAncient Near East,clay tablets (Akkadianṭuppu(m)𒁾)[1] were used as a writing medium, especially for writing incuneiform, throughout theBronze Age and well into theIron Age.
Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with astylus often made ofreed (reed pen). Once written upon, many tablets were dried in the sun or air, remaining fragile. Later, these unfired clay tablets could be soaked in water and recycled into new clean tablets. Other tablets, once written, were either deliberately fired in hotkilns, or inadvertently fired when buildings were burnt down by accident or during conflict, making them hard and durable. Collections of theseclay documents made up the first archives. They were at the root of the firstlibraries. Tens of thousands of written tablets, including many fragments, have been found in the Middle East.[2][3]
Most of the documents on tablets that survive from theMinoan andMycenaean civilizations were created for accounting purposes. Tablets serving as labels with the impression of the side of a wicker basket on the back, and tablets showing yearly summaries, suggest a sophisticated accounting system. In this cultural region, tablets were never fired deliberately as the clay was recycled on an annual basis. However, some of the tablets were "fired" as a result of uncontrolled fires in the buildings where they were stored. The rest, remain tablets of unfired clay and are therefore extremely fragile. For this reason, some institutions are investigating the possibility of firing themnow to aid in their preservation.[4]
Writing was not as we see it today. In Mesopotamia, writing began as simple counting marks, sometimes alongside a non-arbitrary sign, in the form of a simple image, pressed into clay tokens or less commonly cut into wood, stone or pots. In that way, the exact number of goods involved in a transaction could be recorded. This convention began when people developed agriculture and settled into permanent communities that were centered on increasingly large and organized trading marketplaces.[5] These marketplaces were purposed for the trade of sheep, grain, and bread loaves, where transactions were recorded with clay tokens. These, initially very small clay tokens, were continually used all the way from the pre-historic Mesopotamia period, 9000 BCE, to the start of the historic period around 3000 BCE, when the use of writing for recording was widely adopted.[5]
The clay tablet was thus being used byscribes to record events happening during their time. Tools that these scribes used were styluses with sharp triangular tips, making it easy to leave markings on the clay;[6] the clay tablets themselves came in a variety of colors such as bone white, chocolate, and charcoal.[citation needed]Pictographs then began to appear on clay tablets around 4000 BCE, and after the later development of Sumerian cuneiform writing, a more sophisticated partialsyllabic script evolved that by around 2500 BCE was capable of recording the vernacular, the everyday speech of the common people.
Sumerians used what is known aspictograms.[5] Pictograms are symbols that express a pictorial concept, alogogram, as the meaning of the word. Early writing also began inAncient Egypt usinghieroglyphs. Early hieroglyphs and some of the modernChinese characters are other examples of pictographs. The Sumerians later shifted their writing to Cuneiform, defined as "Wedge writing" in Latin, which added phonetic symbols,syllabograms.[6]
Text on clay tablets took the forms of myths, fables, essays, hymns, proverbs, epic poetry, business records, laws, plants, and animals. What these clay tablets allowed was for individuals to record who and what was significant. An example of these great stories wasEpic of Gilgamesh. This story would tell of the great flood that destroyed Sumer. Remedies and recipes that would have been unknown were then possible because of the clay tablet. Some of the recipes were stew, which was made with goat, garlic, onions and sour milk.
By the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, even the "short story" was first attempted, as independent scribes entered into the philosophical arena, with stories like: "Debate between bird and fish", and other topics, (List of Sumerian debates).
Communication grew faster as now there was a way to get messages across just like mail. Important and private clay tablets were coated with an extra layer of clay, that no one else would read it. This means of communicating was used for over 3000 years in fifteen different languages. Sumerians, Babylonians and Eblaites all had their own clay tablet libraries.[citation needed]
Fragments of tablets containing theEpic of Gilgamesh dating to 1800–1600 BCE have been discovered. A full version has been found on tablets dated to the 1st millennium BCE.[8]
Tablets onBabylonian astronomical records (such asEnuma Anu Enlil andMUL.APIN) date back to around 1800 BCE. Tablets discussing astronomical records continue through around 75 CE.[9]
Late Babylonian tablets at theBritish Museum refer to appearances ofHalley's Comet in 164 BCE and 87 BCE.[10]
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