How to Make Cuneiform Flashcards from Clay to Study the Sumerian Language

I just finished Learn to Read Ancient Sumerian: An Introduction for Complete Beginners by Joshua Bowen and Megan Lewis (other than the additional exercises in the appendix), as well as their YouTube series that goes along with the book. I feel like I need to go back through the whole book and video course to really understand it and memorize everything, however. Verbal chains are hard!

Anyway, I had the idea to make little “flashcards” from clay to help me memorize the cuneiform signs. I made them for the signs shown in every chapter of the book. Here is an article I wrote on how I made them:

Learning to Read Sumerian: How to Make Clay Cuneiform Flashcards

I used air-dry clay for the mini-tablets and I made a stylus from a disposable chopstick that I whittled a bit to make the edges more defined.

I know my cuneiform handwriting isn’t the neatest, but neither is my modern handwriting.