Reproduction of Iraq’s Ancient Clay Tablets

A technology usually used in remaking surgery to generate prosthetic limbs is actually now being used to make reproductions of Iraq’s valuable and delicate cuneiform clay tablets, according to an Italian team of researchers. Thousands and thousands of pieces were nearly stolen and busted at Bagdad’s museums during the attack of Iraq in 2003, in what has been known the most disastrous theft of relics since World War II.

In the misplaced items are the delicate tablets that are some of the first known written documents. The tablets were also originated as early as 5,000 years ago by the Sumerians who intimidated the writings in clay. The clay further made stronger rapidly in the hot and dry whether of Mesopotamia, an area near new Iraq. Now scientists desire to assist protect what is left of the defenseless Iraqi cultural inheritance. Sponsored by the Italian ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ground-breaking project to digitally reconstruct the tablets was imagined by Pisa University’s Assyriology Department and the Italian Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment (ENEA).