Cuneiform Copywork?

The Mesopotamian people wrote using cuneiform, made of wedge-shaped marks pressed into clay.

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has a great webpage where you can find out what your initials (or any combination of three letters) looks like in cuneiform. Check it out here: www.upennmuseum.com/cuneiform.cgi.

They also have a page of information about cuneiform, which includes a fascinating sidebar on a Babylonian student's clay tablet. The "Round School Tablet" is from the Babylonian city of Nippur during the Hammurabi Dynasty.

According to the site,

This type of school tablet is called a "lentil" or "bun." The convex shaped back fits naturally into the palm of the hand.

There are 4 rows of signs on the front of the tablet. The teacher in ancient Nippur inscribed the signs in rows 1 and 2. The student then took the soft tablet and copied the text into rows 3 and 4. Our student was learning Sumerian signs that were already 1000 years old.

The signs in row 1 were pronounced gi-gur, which translates as "reed basket." Row 2 reads gi-gur-da and that means a type of large reed basket.

This lesson was both for handwriting and vocabulary.

It is fascinating to think that I am using similar ancient methods of teaching with my children in 2009!