CLAY TABLETS. Clay tablets, the world’s earliest known writing material, commonly were shaped something like a shredded wheat biscuit. Important historical matter often was inscribed on clay prisms or cylinders. The letters used on the clay tablets were wedge-shaped (cuneiform) and were imprinted in the wet clay with a stylus. The most important tablets were then baked; the others were simply allowed to dry slowly. Although the invention of the alphabet c. 1500 b.c. made available a much better writing technique on papyrus and parchments, the use of clay tablets continued through the Assyrian and Babylonian world empires. See Writing.

Bibliography E. Chiera, They Wrote on Clay (1938).