The First Letters

Writing and sending letters used to be a good deal more complicated than it is today when we can scribble a note stuff it in an envelope and into the mailbox in a matter of minutes. The very earliest letters were written before there was either ink or paper using clay tablets. Made of clean smooth clay and in various shapes — cone-shaped drum-shaped or flat — wedge-shaped letters were cut out of them and then the tablets were dried in a kiln or in the sun. This made the tablets extremely strong — so strong that many have survived until today. In fact archaeologists have uncovered thousands of clay tablets in what used to be ancient Babylonia. There are so many that half a million still haven’t been read! Clay tablets were used for all kinds of letters — business communications royal messages and regular personal letters — just like today really.

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