Clay tablet
The clay tablet ( general and commonly known as Tablet or stone tablet ) is one of the oldest writing materials of mankind. She found especially in the area of the Fertile Crescent in predominantly hot and dry climate since the 5th millennium BC application.
Nature
A clay tablet is a slab of clay or clay, in which can be carved or pressed symbols using a stylus. Then the panel cured from. The engraved signature can be canceled or corrected by scraping off the top layer, a burning of the clay tablet, often unintentionally by fire disasters, making them durable. Due to the special handling of the pen as a stamp wedge cuneiform writing originated.
The shape of the clay tablets and the way they were described, changed over time and allows how the development of the script and the language, a rough chronology.
Dissemination
Clay tablets were used in Mesopotamia. They represent one of the oldest permanent medium in the cultural history that allowed the fixation of both picture and writing records. Besides inscriptions were carved in stone and bone carved (China).
The earliest fixed on clay tablets in cuneiform texts keep records established from the control and accounting. Later, diplomatic correspondence, liturgy and poetry was added. Around 2300 BC a card in the so-called clay tablet from Nuzi was (also Ga -Sur ), today's Jorgan Tepe, southwest of Kirkuk in Iraq scratched. At approximately 7 x 7 inches large clay tablet mountains, rivers and cities are located.
The use of clay tablets spread, together with the cuneiform, to Assyria, Anatolia ( Hittites ), Syria, the Levant and Egypt ( Amarna archive ), Cyprus and Urartu (since Rusa II ). In spätassyrischer time the clay tablet has been replaced as the storage medium increasingly papyrus, which was described in Aramaic.
Even Linear A and the Greek Linear B script of Crete were written on clay tablets, as well as the Cyprian syllabary.
Archive
The ancients had the kingdoms of the Bronze Age civilizations palace archives of economic and diplomatic correspondence, and administrative writings. Significant archives were found in Babylon, Uruk, Ugarit, Hattusa, Ashur, Nineveh and Amarna in Egypt. There were also private archives where promissory notes, deeds, but also judgments were stored. They originate, for example, from Kane in Anatolia, Isin and Hana. From Sippar the archive of the Ur -Utu, which included nearly 2,000 panels and covers 250 years, from Dilbat the archive of ILI amranni that covers 180 years comes from.
Significant archives:
- Tontafelsammlung of Ashurbanipal
- Amarna letters
- Mari archive
Aid
There are prepared, but undescribed clay tablets known, for example from Terqa. As eraser acted axtförmiges a device that could delete both individual characters or entire lines.