Comment by Podrod
4 days ago
A hell of a lot more texts survived from ancient Mesopotamia thanks to them writing on clay tablets. If the town burnt down the tablets just get better preserved.
4 days ago
A hell of a lot more texts survived from ancient Mesopotamia thanks to them writing on clay tablets. If the town burnt down the tablets just get better preserved.
True, at the expense of being even harder to write than pen/ink.
I'm no expert, but my understanding is most of the tables survive because the town brunt - otherwise the clay was erased and we lost what was on it. It is really hard to write something book length on clay because of thickness, but for lists you will erase when done (think shopping lists - which is of great interest to archaeology because it is insights that wouldn't have been put in books) clay is easier than making more paper.