How to Make a Cuneiform Tablet from Ancient Mesopotamia

This was one of the fastest easiest projects we've ever done. Not only easy, but so instructional and experiential. With just a few materials, you, too, can make your own cuneiform tablet.
We used clay from Aardvark Clay. While this clay is meant to be fired, we let it air dry. To avoid cracking, use a final piece at least a quarter inch thick, any thinner and the tablet is likely to break. To avoid breakage while drying, form tablet on a plastic wrapped clipboard so you can easily lift clay tablet before or after drying.
We used a chopstick as our writing utensil. Cuneiform writing is a mix of short and long strokes. We used our Live Education Waldorf curriculum for Ancient Mesopotamia for the phrase we wrote: Heaven and Earth.
We cut our clay with a homemade tool of wire twisted around two dowels. We easily sliced portions of clay off our block. The clay had dried out considerable since we purchased it years ago, but I soaked it in water for 12 hours and it was soft enough to work with. I probably could have soaked it for 2-3 hours and it would have been soft enough.
Once we formed the clay to the desired size, we rolled it out with a wooden roller. If you didn't have this miniature tool, we could use a rolling pin. Keep the thickness at least 1/4" to reduce breakage once dried.
If you didn't have clay, you could use Sculpey, Ultralight Oven Bake clay. Once you do your writing, you could bake it for 15-20, then paint it.

Check out the Ancient Mesopotamia blog post:
https://www.pepperandpine.com/ancient...

Check out the Ancient Mesopotamia playlist:
Ancient Mesopotamia



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