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The answers to the questions posed on the previous page:

1. The one on the left is genuine. The one on the right is pure nonsense.

2. This is a fake: see how the false signs are oriented when the tablet is flipped in the correct manner. Also the signs are nonsense.

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Do send me your pics of fake cuneiform!

 

        From Evan

It must be me - I don't see the problem with the bottom example.  I don't understand when you say "see how the false signs are oriented " - what are the "false signs" I'm supposed to be looking at?  Are you saying that if you took the tablet shown on the left and flipped the bottom up (to get to what's shown on the right), that the writing should appear on the top (but is really on the bottom)? And because it's on the bottom, then the example is a fake?

 

Since we're on the topic, how do you know what's top and bottom?  Here's a tablet which, if flipped in the manner you state, would show writing on both the top and bottom.  So is that one OK?  Or do you have to study which way the cuneiform markings go?

 

Sorry, I wasn't being clear enough.

It's the orientation of the individual wedges which I'm referring to rather than whether the writing is at the top or the bottom of the tablet.

The thick end of each wedge should be at the top with the thin tail pointing down or to the right obliquely or to the right hand side.

So the orientation on this tablet is correct on side A.

 

 



 

When we turn the tablet the conventional way, flipping the bottom up...

We see it like this.

Look at how the wedges are now  oriented.



 

The maker of this fake tablet has assumed that the tablet turns like a page in a book written in Western script, flipping the right edge over to the left.

If we do this with this tablet we see this........and the wedge orientation is mostly "correct".



 

The usual and conventional way with cuneiform scripts is not like this.

Here is a diagrammatic summary.

 



There are genuine tablets which break the convention but they are rarities.

In any event the correctly oriented wedges on this tablet do not make up recognised signs. They are nonsense.

 

And this one...........

No comment really needed!



 

From Evan

3rd March 08

To me, it looks like the wedges are going the wrong direction in places - what do you think?

 




The seller (rifaija on eBay , who has a 100% positive feedback record!) says:

This exceptional tablet is made of clay. It measures 1.9 inches long, or 4.8 cms, and 1.4 inches wide, or 3.6 cms. It is near eastern circa 9th - 6th centBC. It is fully intact, with the earliest writings on it. No reserve

Yes, of course you are correct: total nonsense.

A few more silly fakes which have sold on eBay.

 






 

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