A brilliant archaeologist from Tel Aviv University, Prof. Yuval Goren, has developed a new tool which let archaeologists examine the millenia old clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions and find out amazing details like “who wrote it”. Goren’s device uses X-ray to reveal hidden information about a tablet’s composition without damaging the precious ancient find itself.
Amplify’d from heritage-key.com
Unfortunately, when the Mesopotamian kings exchanged letters, written in cuneiform on small tablets made out of clay, their post offices didn’t record the sender’s return address. Yet, a more thorough look at the composition of the clay tablets can help today’s archaeologists to determine the origins of this correspondence — which can reveal a great deal about ancient rulers and civilizations. It can offer information about the ancient trade networks, warfare, literature and political ties in the region.
Luckily, the medium the ancient rulers chose to correspond in, clay tablets, is composed of fine-grained materials, often less than two micrometres in size, and the exact composition differs depending on the clay’s geographical origin. Examining chemical composition of the artefacts, rather than the texts, can tell archaeologists more about where the writings were created (or at least, where the clay was sourced) and which other tablets with similar composition they relate to.
The Omega Blog 