HKB
[Image] Fig 2.
I may here mention that I entered upon this interesting subject with no pretensions as a linguist, nor with any idea of investigating the meaning of these remarkable inscriptions; but only as a Mechanic, to ascertain the manner in which the striking characters were produced, so as to convey words and ideas through their variety of combinations. I soon perceived that the simple but distinctive characters shown in the above representations were essentially connected with the employment of plastic clay; this being the material most suitable for their impression, by means of a three-sided instrument or stylus. The angular extremity of this instrument, when depressed into the surface of a tablet of plastic clay in different positions and directions, would leave these cuneiform impressions in all their beautifully distinct and characteristic forms. And thus, after the tablets had been subjected to fire and made into hard brick, the impressions have come down to us, after the lapse of thousands of years, as fresh and distinct as if they had been produced but yesterday!
I was so fortunate as to have my conjectures confirmed with respect to the exact form of the instrument by which these remarkable characters are produced, observing, in what appeared to be a hastily-formed inscription on the edge of a large brick, that the inscriber had apparently used rather more pressure on his stylus than was requisite. In consequence of which, the end of it had been so deeply depressed into the soft clay as to leave an exact counterpart of its size and form. I secured a cast of this over-deep impression of the stylus, from which Fig. 3 is taken, after a photograph.
[Image] Fig 3.
In order further to illustrate the simple mode of producing inscriptions on tablets of clay, I give in Fig. 4 a tablet inscription
[Image] Fig 4.
The next illustration (Fig.5) is intended to convey an idea of the manner in which the stylus was held and applied to the surface of the clay when a cuneiform inscription was being produced. The upper, flat, or third side of the stylus enabled the inscriber to keep it in correct relative position in respect to the tablet, yielding at the same time a convenient flat surface upon which to rest the end of his finger when indenting the angular end into the clay.
[Image] Fig 5.
Refer back to Fig. 2, and it will be found that any variety in the size of the cuneiform inscriptions may be produced by the same stylus, by simply depressing the angular end of it to a greater or less depth into the surface of the clay. In many of the most elaborate inscriptions, a certain lob-sidedness of the cuneiform character may be observed. This is due to the inscriber having held his stylus somewhat askew, as we do a pen in ordinary writing. Referring to my remark that the distinctive shape of the cuneiform character was essentially due to the use of plastic clay as the most suitable material for its production, I think it highly probable that the origin of these inscriptions took its rise not only from the facility with which the characters could be indented on the material, but from the abundance of plastic mud which forms the natural soil of the lands adjoining the great Assyrian rivers. This when made into bricks, became the chief building material of the energetic people of Babylon and the other great cities of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. The laborious work of brickmaking was generally assigned to captives as taskwork, and it appears to me highly probable that "the tale" of the brickmaker or his taskmaster might be most readily marked by simply indenting the side of the soft tale brick with the corner angle of a dry one; and that thus the strikingly peculiar character of the cuneiform character was produced (see Fig. 6).
[Image] Fig 6.