646 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
vessels. The vessels found in the deepest layer were hand turned 
and delicately painted. The artifacts of this oldest culture, called 
Al-Ubaid, are covered by the 8-foot-thick clay 
layer of the flood, and above it come remnants 
of vessels, unpainted, but robust products of 
the real potter’s wheel. At some time in the 
age called that of the Uruk culture, the potter’s 
wheel was invented, obviously to provide for 
the needs of a rapidly increasing population. 
Fragments of the actual potter’s wheel were 
excavated at Ur. Clay provided the Sumer- 
ians with jugs with which to feed their babies 
and water their plants. It was also made into 
dishes for banqueting; bowls, cups, chalices, 
squat jars, highnecked jars, large jars for hold- 
ing and for storing water, oil, and grain. Cof- 
fins, too, were sometimes made of pottery. It 
seems that in certain cases the clay statues of 
the gods were toasted with clay cups, the latter \\ 
being afterward smashed—this is the explana- 
tion given for tons of broken pottery in the 
temple of Abu at Tell Asmar. No wonder  Ficure 14.—Figure of 
that the Sumerian language abounds in expres- winged goddess from 
: ; clay plaque. Nippur. 
sions for different types of vessels. 
The wooden frame which made the mass production of uniform 
brick possible, and also the firing of bricks, were inventions of major 
importance. Sumerians had a 
special god in charge of brick- 
making; his name was Kabta. 
Clay was used for making 
many toys, and clay dice were 
found, dated to the First Dynasty 
of Ur, which are exactly like 
modern dice. Clay was the Ficure15.—Fragment of carved stone vase 
cheapest material with which to from Lagash, with a succession of spouting 
fashion traylike gaming boards, ae 
probably for the same games that the princes played on boards covered 
with engraved shells and precious stones. 
The world’s first city map is preserved on a clay tablet; a carefully 
drawn and perfectly recognizable map of the ancient Sumerian city 
of Nippur. 
However, the most important use of clay in Mesopotamia, from 
the point of view of the historian, is the clay tablet for writing. 
Tens of thousands of such tablets have been unearthed in Mesopo- 
tamia, covered with cuneiform writing. These texts, incised with a 
