More than 4,000 years ago, a writing stylus was used to scratch or press into the clay tablet that can be seen in the PANEUM in the month of August.

The official document, written in cuneiform script, lists in 34 lines the allocation of barley, beans and peas to named persons. The units of measure used were gur (= 300 litre), barig (= 60 litre), ban (= 10 litre) and sila (= 1 litre), and these individual amounts were added together at the end. The grain and the legumes might have been intended for sowing.

Cuneiform tablet
Garšana (Mesopotamia)
ca. 2035 BC (Ur III period), clay