DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5625#0079
6o
Survey of the Ancient World
Fig. 37. Early Sumerian Clay Tablet with Cuneiform, ob
Wedge-Form, Writing (Twenty-eighth Century b.c.)
This tablet was written toward the close of the early period of the city-
kings (§ 106), a generation before the accession of Sargon I (§ 107)-
It contains business accounts. The scribe's writing reed, or stylus, was
usually square-tipped. He pressed a corner of this square tip into the
soft clay for each line of the picture sign. Lines so produced tended to be
broad at one end and pointed at the other, that is, wedge-shaped. Each
picture sign thus became a group of wedges as shown in Ancient Times,
Fig. 80. When the clay dried it was hard enough to make the tablet a
fairly permanent record. Such tablets were sometimes baked and thus
became as hard as pottery. (By permission of Dr. Hussey)
cattle, sheep, and goats. The ox drew the plow; the donkey
pulled wheeled carts and chariots, and the wheel as a burden-
bearing device appeared here for the first time.1 But the horse
was still unknown. The smith had learned to fashion utensils
1 Probably earlier than the wheel in the Swiss lake-villages of the Late Stone
Age (§13).
Survey of the Ancient World
Fig. 37. Early Sumerian Clay Tablet with Cuneiform, ob
Wedge-Form, Writing (Twenty-eighth Century b.c.)
This tablet was written toward the close of the early period of the city-
kings (§ 106), a generation before the accession of Sargon I (§ 107)-
It contains business accounts. The scribe's writing reed, or stylus, was
usually square-tipped. He pressed a corner of this square tip into the
soft clay for each line of the picture sign. Lines so produced tended to be
broad at one end and pointed at the other, that is, wedge-shaped. Each
picture sign thus became a group of wedges as shown in Ancient Times,
Fig. 80. When the clay dried it was hard enough to make the tablet a
fairly permanent record. Such tablets were sometimes baked and thus
became as hard as pottery. (By permission of Dr. Hussey)
cattle, sheep, and goats. The ox drew the plow; the donkey
pulled wheeled carts and chariots, and the wheel as a burden-
bearing device appeared here for the first time.1 But the horse
was still unknown. The smith had learned to fashion utensils
1 Probably earlier than the wheel in the Swiss lake-villages of the Late Stone
Age (§13).