clay tablet

English

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clay tablet

Wikipedia

Etymology

From clay +‎ tablet.

Noun

clay tablet (plural clay tablets)

1. (historical) A writing medium made of clay used in Mesopotamia and nearby regions.
   • 2022 July 26, Patricia S. Daniels, “Age-old secrets revealed from the world’s first metropolises”, in nationalgeographic.com‎, archived from the original on 20 December 2025:

     “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).

   • 2025 March 19, Sonja Anderson, “4,000-Year-Old Clay Tablets Show Ancient Sumerians’ Obsession With Government Bureaucracy”, in smithsonianmag.com‎, archived from the original on 20 December 2025:

     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.

   • 2025 March 20, Hadani Ditmars, “Ancient Mesopotamian clay tablets discovered in Iraq reveal intricate details of how empire was governed”, in theartnewspaper.com‎, archived from the original on 20 December 2025:

     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.”

Translations

writing medium made of clay used in Mesopotamia and nearby regions

Akkadian: ṭuppum m or f Catalan: tauleta d'argila f Czech: hliněná tabulka f Danish: lertavle c Dutch: kleitablet (nl) f or n Esperanto: argiltabuleto Finnish: savitaulu French: tablette d'argile (fr) f German: Tontafel (de) f Hungarian: agyagtábla (hu) Icelandic: leirtafla f Italian: tavoletta d'argilla f Polish: gliniana tabliczka f Portuguese: tabuleta de argila f Russian: гли́няная табли́чка f (glínjanaja tablíčka), туппу́м m (tuppúm) Slovak: hlinená tabuľka f Spanish: tablilla de barro f Sumerian: 𒉎 Swedish: lertavla (sv) c Turkish: kil tablet Ukrainian: гли́няна табли́чка f (hlýnjana tablýčka)