Tools and Media used
A limited use of tools and media were used in Ancient Mesopotamia in order for their civilisation’s writing to be recorded. During the most significant stage of Mesopotamia’s writing revolution in 3300BC, because paper, as we use nowadays had not yet invented as a writing surface, Sumatrans utilised wet clay formed from the elements of nature, earth and water for this purpose. It is found that 99% of the surviving Mesopotamian written material is on clay. Most of the clay tablets and tokens have yet to be dug from underground, showing the extensive use of this type of media in the region.
Mesopotamia land was often fertile with lush valleys, thus being surrounded by The Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which would flood seasonally. This resulted in wet clay formations around the riverbanks and patches of land, making clay an easily available commodity. Clay was extracted from the land and moulded into a flat pancake surface known as a clay tablet. The scribes, to record their writing in the form of cuneiform, would inscribe into the clay, while wet, with a blunt reed tool writing utensil, known as a stylus, derived from reeds that grew on the sides of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The tablets, once written upon, were then sun-baked in the scorching sun to preserve the triangular shaped markings. Once the tablets had served their purpose and were of no use to the Sumatrans, would be soaked in water and recycled into new clean tablets. Hundreds of years later, kilns were developed as a faster and more efficient way to harden the clay in hot air rather then sunbaking them. Nowadays historians have discovered that the tablets fired in kilns are imperishable, being a reason they have survived until this day. However, most tablets are of unfired clay and extremely fragile; some modern scholars are investigating the possibility of firing them now, as an aid to preservation. Although clay was used extensively as a writing surface, other media were also used to a lesser extent. Mesopotamian scribes also inscribed objects of metal, glass, pottery and ivory, which were used for more formal writing purposes such as the worshipping of gods or messages to kings. However, to inscribe these media, sharper pointed writing tools had to be used to press into the material. These were made by Sumatrans and derived from harder and sharper materials such as iron, bone or ivory. |
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