Writing Tablets
Zechariah, who wrote in Hebrew “John is his name,” may have used a wooden tablet similar to the one shown here. Such tablets were in use for centuries throughout the ancient Middle East. The recessed portion of this type of tablet was filled with a thin layer of wax. Using a stylus made of iron, bronze, or ivory, a writer made notes on the soft surface. A typical stylus was pointed on one end and flattened into a chisel shape on the other. The flattened end was used to erase the writing and smooth the wax. Two or more tablets were sometimes held together by small strips of leather. Businessmen, scholars, students, and tax collectors used tablets for records that needed to be kept only temporarily. The tablets shown in the photo date from the second or third century C.E. and were discovered in Egypt.
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© Trustees of the British Museum. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Source: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?partid=1&assetid=1129969001&objectid=AN422058001
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