cuneiform tablet
Ancient clay record
A cuneiform tablet is a clay slab inscribed with wedge-shaped marks, used for writing in ancient Mesopotamia.
Scribes pressed a reed stylus into wet clay to create the distinctive triangular impressions.
These tablets recorded everything from royal decrees and epic poetry to merchant inventories and school exercises.
Thousands survive, preserving some of humanity's earliest written records: The cuneiform tablet detailed a shipment of barley.
- clayMoldable earth for ceramics
- MesopotamiaTigris-Euphrates river region
- Fertile CrescentMideast arc where civilization began
- SumerianEarliest known civilization
- scribeManual document copier
wedge · stylus · reed pen · Akkadian · Babylon · ancient · ancient writing · inscription · writing · Gilgamesh · reed · pictograph · temple · archive · seal · cylinder · pressed · dried
- museum itemsartifacts, relics, specimens, exhibits, Egyptian artifacts
- MesopotamiaBabylon, Sumer, Tigris, Mesopotamia, Euphrates
- ancient textsscrolls, scroll, Euclid's Elements, Epic of Gilgamesh, codex
- literary artifactsilluminated manuscript, first edition, rare book, Dead Sea Scrolls, Gutenberg Bible
- Assyrian artifactswinged bull, winged lion, stele, guardian spirit, protective spirit
- clay tablets
cuneiform tabletpapyrus scroll
Rolled plant-fiber writing material
e-book · parchment · LCD screen · silicon chip · cloud storage
cuneiform, tablet, tablets, table, tables, tabled, tabling, tabular, tabulate