Cylinder seal written in Sumerian cuneiform. Cuneiform was written by using a pointed stylus to make impressions on clay tablets. This tablet has not yet been translated, but possibly concerns the receipt of oil and beer. The contract has been stamped with a very elaborate cylinder seal. On all four side corners is the raised relief of a goddess (see image C026/4797). Sumerian was the language spoken and written in the 3rd millennium BC in what is now Iraq. This tablet dates from 2200-1900 BC during the Early Bronze Age.