bronze age printing on soft clay tablet
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Driftless
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To share official documents more quickly and in a standardized fashion would be the first use.
For the time being? Not very far at all. What made printing useful was that it solved a bottleneck issue: Paper had become very cheap, but putting anything on the paper was still very expensive. With both the medium and the written word expensive, its not going to advance very far until paper is around. Even parchment and papyrus are too expensive.
Obligatory mention of the Phaistos Disk, which is a clay disc from about 1600 BC, with symbols pressed into the soft clay using a set of stamps, one stamp for each different symbol. Microscopic examination shows that the same stamp was used for each imprint of a given symbol.
There was limited printing on clay. Cylinder seals were used to authenticate documents and occasionally create multiple copies of text and images. Basically a woodcut printing but in clay instead. The question is not can printing on clay happen because it definitely did but why didn't it become more regularly used?
? Clay is nearly free, and recyclable.
I think the real limitation is literacy. Only priests and scribes have enough free time to learn reading and writing; and they're not keen to give up their monopoly.
Clay is not free. Mud is nearly free, but processed clay is not. Its also not nearly as transportable as parchment or papyrus.
I've always wondered about this question.
How far this goes depends on several things.
1. How common are clay deposits in Mesopotamia and nearby?
2. How deep is the water table in these areas?
3. How much does it cost to extract and is there water transport near the clay pits? (Important -- land carriage over distances on the back of asses or on ox cart for goods like clay prohibitively expensive)
4. If water table shallow, estimate of dewatering costs -- # of pumps, labor (animal and human) required.
5. Potential we see standardization of cuneiform script and attempts to reduce the script to some sort of order, perhaps even some form of abjad/alphabetic/featural script...
I'm pretty sure that they have the bronze casting tech to make bronze cliches for mass production, and if it turns out that clay tablet books can be produced pretty cheaply, then it's imaginable that this might take off. I don't buy the notion that the scribal class would strangle this -- they're still needed in order to produce the manuscripts and to make the molds for the plates (they after all are the only ones who know how to write) and the more scribes the more knowledge produced; also, the scribes were mostly in palace societies like this, employed by monarchs or theocratic priests. Being able to produce consistent copies of sacred texts if anything is likely to appeal to priests -- since correct procedure (orthopraxy) was more important than correct belief (orthodoxy) I expect one of the earliest practical uses of this would be to record ritual procedures and the like. Indeed one of the first uses of the process will likely be exactly this. Also, they're needed to produce the molds for the stereotypes.
How far this goes depends on several things.
1. How common are clay deposits in Mesopotamia and nearby?
2. How deep is the water table in these areas?
3. How much does it cost to extract and is there water transport near the clay pits? (Important -- land carriage over distances on the back of asses or on ox cart for goods like clay prohibitively expensive)
4. If water table shallow, estimate of dewatering costs -- # of pumps, labor (animal and human) required.
5. Potential we see standardization of cuneiform script and attempts to reduce the script to some sort of order, perhaps even some form of abjad/alphabetic/featural script...
I'm pretty sure that they have the bronze casting tech to make bronze cliches for mass production, and if it turns out that clay tablet books can be produced pretty cheaply, then it's imaginable that this might take off. I don't buy the notion that the scribal class would strangle this -- they're still needed in order to produce the manuscripts and to make the molds for the plates (they after all are the only ones who know how to write) and the more scribes the more knowledge produced; also, the scribes were mostly in palace societies like this, employed by monarchs or theocratic priests. Being able to produce consistent copies of sacred texts if anything is likely to appeal to priests -- since correct procedure (orthopraxy) was more important than correct belief (orthodoxy) I expect one of the earliest practical uses of this would be to record ritual procedures and the like. Indeed one of the first uses of the process will likely be exactly this. Also, they're needed to produce the molds for the stereotypes.
Lucius Verus
Banned
Clay is bulky and becomes brittle with age, that alone limits the amount of data that can be stored as well as the time that data can be stored. At best clay is a temporary store of information useful for things such as daily transactions and long-term storage must be left to papyrus or vellum.
You can pack hundreds of pages and enough information to start a business or craft into a book but it can't be done with clay. The best commercial reason for clay tablets would be the equivalent of an expensive newspaper or pamphlet. Think that instead of clay tablets the effort could've gone to homes or public works and this is an era where the common peasant lived year to year with the risk of starvation.
It would be absurd for caravans and galleys to ferry a ton of clay tablets when a messenger could simply remember the information, travel, and transcribe it. That rules out clay as a method for mass information transit.
In the end clay is just an etch-and-sketch, useful but too bulky and short-lived compared to paper or in this case papyrus and vellum.
You can pack hundreds of pages and enough information to start a business or craft into a book but it can't be done with clay. The best commercial reason for clay tablets would be the equivalent of an expensive newspaper or pamphlet. Think that instead of clay tablets the effort could've gone to homes or public works and this is an era where the common peasant lived year to year with the risk of starvation.
It would be absurd for caravans and galleys to ferry a ton of clay tablets when a messenger could simply remember the information, travel, and transcribe it. That rules out clay as a method for mass information transit.
In the end clay is just an etch-and-sketch, useful but too bulky and short-lived compared to paper or in this case papyrus and vellum.
Bronze Age kings really cared about no one but themselves.
Basically Bronze Age kingdoms were, not to put too fine a point on it, a protection racket. They had absolutely no interest in the welfare of the mass of people except insofar as it had reference to their own ability to keep expensive noble chariots in the field and in working condition, and the ability of levies to constitute cannon fodder and provide the tribute needed. So, there wasn't a great deal of concern for the "little people," or indeed really any at all. The old joke:
[Peasants with pitchforks and torches assembled outside castle]
Advisor: "The peasants are revolting!"
King: "They certainly are."
is cliche but very relevant to understanding the period.
Basically Bronze Age kingdoms were, not to put too fine a point on it, a protection racket. They had absolutely no interest in the welfare of the mass of people except insofar as it had reference to their own ability to keep expensive noble chariots in the field and in working condition, and the ability of levies to constitute cannon fodder and provide the tribute needed. So, there wasn't a great deal of concern for the "little people," or indeed really any at all. The old joke:
[Peasants with pitchforks and torches assembled outside castle]
Advisor: "The peasants are revolting!"
King: "They certainly are."
is cliche but very relevant to understanding the period.
I just wanted to note that the empires of the period didn't care about the welfare of their people. They were protection rackets, not modern social democracy. The "variable" that the Emperor of such an empire would want to maximize is the probability of him and his successors sitting on the throne of an intact empire. So public works weren't going to be interesting unless they enhanced the military abilities of the empire (e.g. roads, port facilities, river improvements, or canals for transport, irrigation works, relay stations and warning beacon system to inform the king of an attack), or reduced the probability of revolt (granaries and temples anyone?), and the King could care less about peasant housing. Also it should be pointed out that clay tablets could be fired (with a risk of breaking them), and that there are plenty of them still around, precisely because of that -- they were in effect fired in the inferno of the city's sack. Also, given that pottery was mass produced in the period we're talking about and that it was the standard solution to storage of goods of nearly any sort, the amount of clay for a small tablet couldn't have been too expensive, and given that kings loved big archives as prestige items this is exactly the sort of thing that a period monarch might like. The point that clay tablets are fragile is a valid one -- I imagine the stereotypes used to make them would be sent around the kingdoms for making copies to put up on a board or something. It should additionally be pointed out that many documents spanned multiple tablets (indeed most of any consequence did), though she is right that there isn't any real way to make codex or scroll-style books. I'm sorry if that came off as a bit irrelevant or screedy, but I was making the point that she was committing an anachronism here.
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Lucius Verus
Banned
Mind you I never specified what sort of public works (of course not welfare, that's way too early) its not about pottery making ability but what else they could've been doing instead such as irrigation, city walls and so on.
The underlying assumption was that mass printing required mass literacy and that some reason is required to buy prints which requires some degree of mass wealth. Hence my point was about how close people were to starvation and poverty, mass printing even for a tyrant is nothing more than expensive mass-brink production when most people can't read.
If tyrants wanted prestige projects they go with the classics of the day with palaces, temples, statues, festivals, parades, and armies to remind everyone of their greatness. Not tablets they can't read and plain warehouses, where's the awe and intimidation value in those?
The underlying assumption was that mass printing required mass literacy and that some reason is required to buy prints which requires some degree of mass wealth. Hence my point was about how close people were to starvation and poverty, mass printing even for a tyrant is nothing more than expensive mass-brink production when most people can't read.
If tyrants wanted prestige projects they go with the classics of the day with palaces, temples, statues, festivals, parades, and armies to remind everyone of their greatness. Not tablets they can't read and plain warehouses, where's the awe and intimidation value in those?
one point that always bugged me on mass illiteracy.
if most were illiterate, why are all the propaganda reliefs covered in writing? whether in Thebes, Ur, Nineveh, or Minos, there is tons of writing on all the statuary.
if most were illiterate, why are all the propaganda reliefs covered in writing? whether in Thebes, Ur, Nineveh, or Minos, there is tons of writing on all the statuary.
Clay tablets could hold a surprising amount of writing. The fullest version of the Epic of Gilgamesh we have consists of 12 tablets, containing the entire (rather lengthy) epic. That must be the equivalent of around ten printed pages per tablet. So they are not quite as bulky as you might first think.
Lucius Verus
Banned
The efforts directed at peasants were with words, threats, force, and incentives do not leave artifacts.
I looked for internet sources without success, however I recall seeing an image of an intact tablet and it was about 30cm square. The writing on them was very small, as in the attached image of a recently-discovered (2015) fragment of Tablet V containing previously unknown text from the Epic. The words appear to be about the size of individual letters in modern printed pages (plus the scribe uses the entire surface of the tablet with words packed together from one edge of the tablet to the other), so it's no surprise that the entire Epic could fit into 12 tablets.
I'm sorry I was so angry at you Irene
Okay, so the point of the archives -- having a big archive DID give you a certain amount of cachet I believe in the ancient Near East as a center of learning, and made an impression that you were cultured -- it also had a practical purpose like the Library of Alexandria, in storing a good part of the world's knowledge ready at hand for the ruler to consult. It was a way to "define the character" of your reign, if you will. Also, about the hand-to-mouth condition of peasants -- it's to be pointed out that if it's easier to disseminate information, quite probably different centers of learning in the Near East begin to interact and we might find technology starting to advance faster than it did OTL. I think an industrial revolution in the sense of factories etc. is unlikely to say the least -- it was sort of a one time, flukey thing that happened in Britain in 1700 after all, but we may see a lot of refinements in artisanship, greater use of machines and machine tools (we might see dividing engines crop up), and even some interesting inventions in their own right. Agriculture is going to probably be one of the biggest beneficiaries of this not least because many temples have large amounts of land and peasants given them and it's not implausible that some of the land might be given over to researching the merits different methods of farming or breeding plants and animals. This is actually going to help the peasants a great deal. One might see the notion of progress develop early (it's a modern, post-Enlightenment thing). Also, you're right; probably the second official concern after "military" was "public works". They were usually done by the same people (cannon-fodder infantry levies being given a shovel instead of a weapon); as these kingdoms all operated as command economies they were just issued beer and other food, as well as tools, from storehouses. There wasn't any national budget as such. Now back to regularly scheduled programming.
Okay, so the point of the archives -- having a big archive DID give you a certain amount of cachet I believe in the ancient Near East as a center of learning, and made an impression that you were cultured -- it also had a practical purpose like the Library of Alexandria, in storing a good part of the world's knowledge ready at hand for the ruler to consult. It was a way to "define the character" of your reign, if you will. Also, about the hand-to-mouth condition of peasants -- it's to be pointed out that if it's easier to disseminate information, quite probably different centers of learning in the Near East begin to interact and we might find technology starting to advance faster than it did OTL. I think an industrial revolution in the sense of factories etc. is unlikely to say the least -- it was sort of a one time, flukey thing that happened in Britain in 1700 after all, but we may see a lot of refinements in artisanship, greater use of machines and machine tools (we might see dividing engines crop up), and even some interesting inventions in their own right. Agriculture is going to probably be one of the biggest beneficiaries of this not least because many temples have large amounts of land and peasants given them and it's not implausible that some of the land might be given over to researching the merits different methods of farming or breeding plants and animals. This is actually going to help the peasants a great deal. One might see the notion of progress develop early (it's a modern, post-Enlightenment thing). Also, you're right; probably the second official concern after "military" was "public works". They were usually done by the same people (cannon-fodder infantry levies being given a shovel instead of a weapon); as these kingdoms all operated as command economies they were just issued beer and other food, as well as tools, from storehouses. There wasn't any national budget as such. Now back to regularly scheduled programming.
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Lucius Verus
Banned
No offense taken.
I do find it funny that rulers boast about having the largest library of books they never read. As if having books made you smarter.