I thought that in this new year, I would spend some time writing occasional articles exploring a few of the varied ways in which writing was captured in the ancient near east. Of course, there were comparatively few men – and even fewer women – who could actually read what had been set down, but often the writing itself was displayed publicly. Whether on a temple or a tomb, in many cases the written word was often meant to be seen. At other times, it was a private message, smaller in scale and less demonstrative in production.

Today I want to look at one specific kind of writing – cuneiform tablets. These are usually surprisingly small, and incredibly densely packed with information. One wonders how, in dim light, it was possible to read the contents at any speed. One’s expectation is that the surface will be rough like a brick, but (unless the tablet has been physically damaged over the years) the surface is typically surprisingly smooth.

Physically producing the tablet from clay was itself a challenge – the raw material had to be damp enough to take the impression of the wedge-shaped stylus, but firm enough to retain the shape. The two sides are visibly different – the side originally against the table is almost flat, while the one uppermost has a distinct curved pillow shape. We still use the terms recto and verso for the two sides of a piece of paper – nowadays the only difference is of physical relationship, but once upon a time the “right” side and the “turned” side really were quite different.

Turning to actual writing, the scribe had to work swiftly in order to get the message impressed into the surface as it was drying. Sometimes we see that the last few lines have been squashed together with smaller signs, or else continued round the edge onto the vertical sides of the tablet – better that, than have to stray onto a second piece for just a few signs!

The great virtue of clay tablets is that, if everything goes horribly wrong, they can be softened and reused, so long as you are prepared starting from scratch. But this commits the scribe to a lot of effort, so one suspects that the decision was not made lightly. Cuneiform tablets often contain minor slips and typos – it is possible that a poorly trained scribe did not notice, but it is also possible that somebody chose to let the mistakes slip through the net rather than go through the pain of rework.

The most common cuneiform tablet is written using the Akkadian script – a character set where a symbol represents a syllable rather than a single letter. Akkadian was used as an international written form for well over 2 millennia, and on a smaller scale for nearly 3. It was used by different scribes to capture several different spoken languages – exactly like modern English letters are used today – so today’s reader of the tablet has to not only decipher the syllabic signs, but then identify the specific language being used. Another form of cuneiform, using the same technology to produce tablets, is found in Ugarit, on the Syrian coast. Ugaritic employs a smaller sign-list representing a true alphabet, closely related to modern Arabic but of course visually quite different.

Finally, it would not be right to finish this without mentioning a recipe for cuneiform tablet cookies, courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania museum blog – a fine way to practice your writing and then eat your words. Audible books have been making the rounds for some little while, and perhaps now it is the time for edible books…

Credits: I discovered the cookie recipe through Judith Starkston’s excellent blog, and the pictures are served from the British Museum web site.