BULLETIIV 



OP 



THE CHARLESTON MUSEUM 



NEW 



Vol. 10 CHARLESTON. S. C, MARCH, 1914 No. 3 



BABYLONIAN CLAY TABLETS 



The Museum has recently purchased for use in its traveling 

 school exhibits a series of original Babylonian clay tablets with 

 cuneiform inscriptions dating from about 2200 b. c. It will be 

 of unusual interest to school children to be able to actually handle 

 records of Babylonian life written four thousand years ago. 

 While all our Greek and Roman literature and even the Bible 

 is known to us only through copies of the original manuscripts, 

 in these tablets the hand of the ancient writer speaks directly 

 to our eyes with no intermediary. 



The preservation of these ancient writings is due to the du- 

 rable nature of the material. Four thousand years ago clay tab- 

 lets were used in Babylon in place of paper. Upon these tablets 

 were inscribed the cuneiform or wodge-shaped signs of the lan- 

 guage. The clay was then baked until it became like brick, and 

 in this form it has withstood the lapse of ages. 



Several thousand of these tablets were recently found in the 

 ruins of a Babylonian city and have been purchased by European 

 and American museums. The Charleston Museum is including 

 them in the traveling exhibits sent to the schools in order that 

 teachers may use them as object lessons to illustrate the books 

 and civilization of the ancients, and the sources of ancient history. 



The following description of the tablets purchased by the Mu- 



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