Clay tablet | writing | Britannica (original) (raw)

• • Though the Old Assyrian tablets are concerned exclusively with commercial matters, the seal impressions that they bear contain a new and elaborate system of religious symbolism (iconography) that later reached its maturity under the Hittites. Here a whole pantheon of deities, some recognizably Mesopotamian, others native Anatolian, are distinguished…
• • The ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Hittites wrote on tablets made from water-cleaned clay. Although these writing bricks varied in shape and dimension, a common form was a thin quadrilateral tile about five inches long. While the clay was still wet, the…
• • …by a stylus into soft clay tablets, which were subsequently hardened by drying in the sun or the oven. The earliest Chinese writing, dating to the 2nd millennium bc, is preserved on animal bone and shell, while early writing in India was done on palm leaves and birch bark. Applications…