Shaping Minoan Clay Tablets and Hanging Nodules: Contributions from Experimental Research and X-radiography

This paper investigates the potential for experimental archaeology and X-radiography to improve our understanding of the manufacture and use of two categories of prehistoric Cretan administrative clay objects: clay tablets and hanging nodules. The results are encouraging: the simple and three-fold tablet shaping techniques can be distinguished confidently, incised writing that was erased can, potentially, be made visible again and the presence of string inside hanging nodules is clearly visible and, for the most part, can be visualised. This paper thus highlights the benefits that could be gained by treating ancient clay documents as archaeological objects and applying standard non-destructive investigative techniques to them.