The main edge of the stylus, which is dropped in the clay, will always correspond to the main axis of the wedge, i.e. To pass from one type to another and to determine the wedge’s length is all a matter of varying the stylus’ orientation to the tablet and the angle at which it meets the surface. There are three basic types of wedges: vertical, horizontal, and oblique additionally, the Winkelhaken or “corner wedge” represents the head of an oblique wedge.
6).įinally, start writing: it’s simply a matter of pressing the stylus’ corner into the moist clay, the signs consisting of combinations of wedges and each wedge being obtained through a separate impression. Usually, schoolboys formed small tablets shaped as a lentil (so-called lentil tablets), which can be hold in the palm of hand and are very suited for practicing (fig. Also the shape of the tablets varied a lot, depending on genre and scribal tradition. The quality of clay which was used for tablets in ancient times was variable, depending on the available raw material, the way it was processed, and also the text genre – tablets of administrative and ephemeral character are often of coarse clay, while finer clay was used e.g. Sometimes, inspection of the inner structure of a tablet reveals a complex process consisting of repeated folding and rolling of separate sheets of clay, a bit like for the preparation of puff pastry. Proverbs and mathematics represented important parts of scribal training. 6: An Old Babylonian school tablet with a Sumerian proverb and mathematical calculations (CDLI no. To form a clay tablet is much like kneading a pizza dough – best of all, follow this 4000 year-old Sumerian recipe: “Quick, come here, take the clay, knead it, flatten it, mix it, roll it like a ball, make it thick, make the tablet!” Fig.
SCRIBE MESOPOTAMIA SKIN
The reason for this was probably the willingness to optimize the use of the waterproof, non-sticking skin of the reed, since the right-face of the wedge is normally larger than the other ones. If not, you may ask the botanical garden of your town, or perhaps use bamboo, which however is much harder to cut!Ĭlose observation of original tablets shows that the ancient scribes coherently handled the stylus in such a way that the stylus’ face consisting of the reed’s glossy outer skin produces the smooth, slightly curved right-hand face of the wedge, whereas the left-hand face of the wedge results from the stylus’ face corresponding to the cut-off inner part of the stalk (fig.
So, if you live in a country like Turkey, Iraq, Spain, or the USA, it won’t be difficult to get a stalk. Giant reed is native to the Mediterranean basin and has been naturalised in the mild temperate, subtropical and tropical regions of both hemispheres. Of these, only the second one is suitable to obtain a writing stylus. Two species of reeds were common in ancient Mesopotamia, namely Phragmites australis (which formed the famous marshes still existing in southern Iraq) and Arundo donax (giant reed, fig. 3: Close-up showing the typical appearance of a wedge resulting from a reed stylus: the right-hand face is smooth and slightly curved, whereas the left-hand face is flat and displays fibrous impressions (author’s photo).
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