Whatever his performance in the “James Ossary” case, the composition of the clay should nail down its origin pretty well and this technique seems to do that in a nondestructive manner. The source of 99.9% pure gold can be determined by the .1% impurities.
Ironically, some parts of Iraq have enormous numbers of mud tablets, and Saddam made quite a bit of money selling thousands of them.
They were the mail of the day, and caravans made a lot of money by transporting hundreds of them from city to city, over many centuries. And like most mail, once read, they were discarded. Most of it was business mail, news and personal correspondence.
The funny part is in the content of some of these letters. One expert compiled a list of some cuneiform writings that would not be out of place today.
For example, one was from a student asking his parents for money, because his peers wore better clothes and ate better food than he could afford, and it was embarrassing.
Another was a creditor sent “third warning” to a debtor who had skipped town, warning him that he had better pay up, or the next letter would be to the authorities of his new town.
By far the funniest was by a young woman who was complaining to her mother that, “Men are no good. They only want one thing, and at the mere mention of marriage they take off.”
