Clay: Did you mean...?

Clay tablets with cuneiform letters found at Kültepe in central Turkey (ancient Kanesh), 1900 BCE – 1700 BCE. They were all written by merchants who, from around 1900 BCE, had come to Kanesh from the city of Ashur in Assyria and established...

A Jomon clay mask or domen. Kidukuri, Kamegaoka, Tsugaru-shi, Aomori, Japan. Jomon Period, 1000-400 BCE. Important Cultural Property. (Tokyo National Museum)

These counterparts of real mastiffs were buried to guard a property from devils and demons. Ritual instructions for making and inscribing them survive on clay tablets. This pack was found beneath a palace doorway at Nineveh. Each is named...

This clay tablet narrates a geometric-algebraic theory of how to make a solution for a mathematical problem. The conclusion applies a theory very similar to the Pythagorean theorem. From Tell Tell al-Dhabba'i, Iraq. Old-Babylonian period...

Clay tokens probably used as passports by travellers or messengers reporting between military headquarters. Belonging to Xenokles, a border commander, 4th century BCE. (Agora Museum, Athens)

This prehistoric domen clay mask is from Kami Hata in Nagano, Japan. It dates from the Jomon period or roughly from 2000-1000 BCE. (Tokyo National Museum)

The Chunkey Player Effigy Pipe (also known as "The Chunkey Player"), made of flint clay, measuring 8.5 inches (22 cm) high by 5.5 inches (14 cm) wide. Thought to have originally come from Cahokia but found in Muskogee County, Oklahoma, dated...

This very large clay vessel was unearthed in Zhinvali, Georgia and dates from the first half of the 3rd millennium BCE. (Georgian National Museum, Tbilisi)

This clay tablet records the restoration of the temple of the sun god Shamash at Larsa (modern-day Sankarah or Tell as-Senkereh) by King Hammurabi. Old Babylonian Period, reign of Hammurabi, 1792-1750 BCE. From Larsa, Southern Mesopotamia...

This clay tablet was illegally excavated. The precise provenance of the excavation is unknown, but probably from Southern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq. It is currently housed in the Sulaymaniyah Museum, Iraqi Kurdistan.