#6 Clay Tablets And Technology Today?

Archaeological 'finds' have enabled us to gain valuable historical insights into past civilizations. The earliest forms of archiving information and the subsequent 'storing' of these records have both been located in Ancient Mesopotamia. The clay tablets were often described as having been stored in groups or batches that sometimes were as large as one thousand in number.

Amazingly, a 'collection of tablets' had been discovered near the ancient city of Nippur that included 'inscribed lists of geographical names, lists of gods, lists of professions, writing exercises, a number of hymns' [Casson, Libraries in the ancient world, p. 3]. This 'library' may have been a reference centre that was utilized by a school of scribes and now proves invaluable for us today seeking historical information. Just as the Babylonians and Assyrians treasured the Sumerian language and wished to preserve it within their respective civilizations, we too are benefiting from these ancient writings.

A detailed gallery of items from the Reign of Gudea of Lagash to Shalmanassar 111 held within the Library Of Congress site, it displays these items with photograph images, transcriptions and drawings of clay tablets. Included here is a variety of tablets such as accounting, school exercise books and contract seals. How is this for a date of publication (or creation) 2200-1900bc!

The Library of Congress
Ancient Iraq historical online information is also available here to reference.

Discovery Channel
This site shows the ability of modern digital technology to create virtual, 3D copies of clay tablets and other Ancient Iraq items lost from modern Iraq museums during conflict. The old made new!

#5 Cuneiform Writing

As the small villages of Sumer developed into the more renowned ancient Sumerian cities of Ur, Nippur, Uruk to name a few, so did the need to develop a system of recording information about their daily lives and the stories that were being communicated at that time (these becoming the history for us to discover today). The clay tablet and stylus were the writing implements that the scribes being the responsible persons trained to utilize them. The stylus' indentations left a mark on the damp clay and this resulted in wedge shapes being formed. These symbols produced in this wedge (in Latin - 'cunei') shape gave name to this type of script - cuneiform. Cuneiform writing was in use for approximately 3000 years and evolved from being picture signs (pictograms) representing objects, to sound signs (phonograms) that represented the sounds of the language and each of these signs subsequently represented a syllable.

From the early beginnings of recording simple information, Sumerian writing and the re-telling of information or the language of the people, developed into various forms of literature written in cuneiform including myths, poetry, hymns and the law at about 2500BC. Cuneiform writing also transgressed to become the written language of other civilizations including the Babylonians, Assyrians and Persians.

I located this interesting video link that shows images (and commentary) that helps to explain symbolic writing and the progression more complex forms of writing.
[Youtube video Written Word - Birth of Writing date accessed 15/10/09]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7JsfwAcCo0

#4 Other Online Museums, Mesopotamia timelines and article searches

Written communication evolved from the need of early civilizations such as the Sumerians of Ancient Mesopotamia to communicate, organize and document their daily lives. The earliest forms of written communication were probably tokens that were in picture format and attached to sacks of goods. It took two centuries for these pictures to then evolve into a pictographic language as their daily lives became more involved and detailed.

Utilising both google, clusty web search engines and Answer.com to obtain an understanding of terminology and events, I discovered The British Museum - Mesopotamia website. This site produced an excellent insight into the time line of events of the technologies that were developed by the civilizations inhabiting Ancient Mesopotamia. This site and also The Oriental Institute Museum as part of the University of Chicago that includes information about Mesopotamian facts, history, clay tablets images and associated teacher resources.

I also commenced research at Swinburne library's supersearch facility to locate journal articles that maybe helpful. Some titles that I have found useful are so far are -

• 'Chicken scratches' written in clay yield their secrets by Marion Steinmann
• Written in clay by Karen E. Hong
• Information technology, 2500B.C. by P. Morrison
• From ancient Mesopotamia to a modern basement by Ewa Wasilewska

I have been truly amazed with the volume of reference material that I have obtained so far. I am beginning to feel like I have information overload and need to make decisions about which resources will help address my topic the best. The web offers so many choices, I am coming to the realization that I must become more selective and to stay focussed!

[Photo Image http://www.flickr.com/photos/verbeeldingskr8/3638834128/ :

Flickr Creative Commons accessed 14/10/09]

#3 National Gallery of Victoria

“Through the written word we can connect with some of those who went before us”
[Cowley & Williamson 2007, p. 3]

Interestingly, when exploring the National Gallery of Victoria, I came across two Ancient Iraq items, a clay tablet and clay brick which I photographed and scanned, including their descriptions. It is amazing to view something that is so old, that tells a story from the past gone by and subsequently, becomes believable and is now today’s library materials. Following my visit, I searched the National Gallery of Victoria’s website and located these items. Luckily I had taken photographs of the items as these two items on the gallery’s site are not available to view.

Tablet - Third Dynasty of Ur - Old Babylonian Period
[Scanned Photographs : National Gallery of Victoria]
























Brick - Third Dynasty of Ur - Reign of Ur-Nammu
[Scanned Photographs : National Gallery of Victoria]

#2 Sumerian Clay Tablets

Digesting the information that I gleaned from Lionel Casson’s book about who invented the earliest forms of writing and subsequently infant libraries, I noted keywords, phrases and new terminology to help enlarge the areas that I could now begin to search. I commenced with reading monograms discovered on library catalogues followed by web browsing, linking and journal searches.

Scanned Image - Clay Tablet

[Donoughue, C 2007, The story of writing, British Museum Press, London]

Archaeological 'finds' in Ancient Mesopotamia have uncovered numerous forms of clay tablets. Wet clay, the material used by the early Sumerian civilization was abundant as the Sumerian people had settled on land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The clay tablets were formed by hand and once inscribed, were sun baked (ideal desert climate for this) or kiln baked. More importantly, from the historical point of view, the clay tablet has stood the test of time (unlike the papyrus scrolls developed by the Ancient Egyptians). The clay tablet was in use for more than two and half millennia from the beginning of the Bronze Age and in some cases to the beginning of the Christian era.

Clay tablets recorded a range of information that recorded both facts and ideas of the civilization including business transactions, employment arrangements, laws, legends, proverbs, poems and music [Cowley, D & Williamson, C 2007, The world of the book, The Miegunyah Press, Carlton, p. 3).

The link to the University Library of the VU Amsterdam University shows some excellent digital examples of early clay tablets (some 49) that have been photographed from different angles.

#1 Introduction

As I pondered my chosen topic 'Clay Tablets As Library Materials', I decided my first step would be to gain some basic knowledge that would be suitable as an introduction for my research and to help organize a plan of direction. I decided to browse my P-12 college and local public library book resources to answer some what, how, where, who and why type questions to gain a general introduction to the topic before searching electronically. Some of my new found knowledge follows.

Mesopotamia was a country located in what was then referred to as the Ancient Near East region. Ancient Mesopotamia comprises of most of Iraq, and small parts of both Syria and south east Turkey, countries that we know today. It was a country of many 'firsts'. Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of the first known civilization, cities, the invention of the wheel, agriculture and irrigation, all mechanisms that ensured the survival of a population and their culture at that time.

It was in Sumer, Southern Mesopotamia (later known as Babylonia), that a nomadic people settled in a fertile area bounded by the two river systems, the Tigris and the Euphrates. Archaeological finds have proven that during the third millennium (approximately 3500BC), that it was these inhabitants that were the inventors of the earliest forms of writing which was then followed later by mathematics. This map shows the northern and southern regions of Ancient Mesopotamia called Assyria and Akkad Sumer. It is in the southern region that a nomadic people settled and were known as the Sumerians.

Map image - The Greco-Roman world: the east (Casson, L 2002, Libraries in the Ancient World, Yale University Press, New Haven)