Tablets and Scrolls

Last week we made some clay tablets and practiced cuneiform writing (ancient Mesopotamia-type stuff).

Here is Toviel's name in cuneiform:

Toviel also wanted to try his hand at this ancient writing:

I was getting ready to help Elijah write his name in cuneiform, but he stopped me. He didn't want me to write his name - he wanted to me write "mammoth". So I did:

And then he drew a picture of a mammoth with his tool:

We discussed some of the advantages and disadvantages to using clay tablets for recording information, then proceeded to make the more modern scroll:

Elijah wrote his name beautifully with paint in cuneiform script inside this scroll. Toviel slapped some paint on his and mucked it around a little (okay - a lot) with very precise strokes that seemed to me to be very random, but his level of concentration was too intense for it to have been random and willy-nilly.