Meaning of clay tablet | Babel Free

Definitions

A writing medium made of clay used in Mesopotamia and nearby regions.

historical

Equivalents

Examples

““He is the stench of a mongoose... a smitten man who makes himself important.” No, this isn’t clunky dialogue from a low-budget film. It’s one of the many pieces of correspondence archaeologists have discovered etched on clay tablets in Uruk, the chief city of Sumer, the earliest known civilization in southern Mesopotamia (near present-day Samawah, Iraq).”

“In southern Iraq, archaeologists have excavated a remarkable collection of carved clay tablets—ancient records of Akkadia, the world’s oldest empire. Marked with the administrative details of government, the tablets have illuminated the complicated bureaucracy of an ancient Mesopotamian civilization.”

“Some artefacts found at the site—on a mound known as Tablet Hill—also reveal, Rey says, a standard metric system, the Akkad-gur, used across the empire to measure quantities of resources such as flour, as well as evidence of the “propagandistic programme and cult of personality” around Naram-Sin. On one clay tablet, for example, he is shown wearing a horned crown, resembling, Rey adds, “a god-like figure.””

CEFR level