Identifying cuneiform tablets

Wedge-marks in clay.

Cuneiform tablets are clay with wedge-shaped impressions made by a reed stylus. Shape and script style indicate period and language — the script served Sumerian, Akkadian, and their neighbours across three thousand years.

Most tablets are administrative — rations, receipts, contracts — and a pillow-shaped tablet that fits the palm is the classic form. Cones, bricks, and cylinders with royal inscriptions are building dedications; cylinder seals, rolled across wet clay, belong to the same world.

Firing may be accidental (a burnt archive) or deliberate. Unbaked tablets are simply dried mud and crumble at a touch — handle with great care and keep them dry.

Provenance carries real ethical weight here: unprovenanced tablets have fuelled looting in Iraq and Syria, and several countries bar their trade. Record documented history plainly, and treat its absence as the serious gap it is.

From the guide library inside Collectors Catalogues, a free app for cataloguing antiques and finds with honest, museum-grade records.

More on religious objects

Seals and seal matrices — Reading a reversed device.

Identifying pilgrim badges and ampullae — Lead-tin devotional souvenirs.

Identifying scarabs and amulets — Egyptian protective forms.

Identifying reliquaries and devotional objects — Containers for the sacred — from enkolpia to house shrines.

Identifying ushabti figures — The mummiform servants of Egyptian burials — and their million imitations.

Identifying icons and devotional art — Painted panels, brass travelling icons, and the grammar of sacred images.

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