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Comment by ajb | Hacker News Reader

"Another notable document is a letter from Hittite generals in western Anatolia appealing to the king for reinforcements in men, horses and chariots to fend off enemy forces. "

I had assumed they had to wait for clay to dry before it could be carried anywhere, which seems incompatible with using them for urgent military messages. I wonder if there was a way to transport them while soft, or if this was just the archival copy of a message sent by other means.

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Most tablets were air dried, which would take a day or two. But some tablets were fired - dried in a kiln. I don't know about Hittites but at least in Mesopotamia, air drying was by far the most common method and only some important ones were fired. So methods were certainly available to dry a tablet quickly if necessary but I doubt if air drying delays made much of a difference. Messages and goods were limited to the speed of horse after all.

Firing clay in a kiln also make it more water resistant, I believe

It's not like they had to wait for the clay to dry, and then sent the message via email over fiber optic cable. It would take days to reach the palace. Drying it (maybe in a small kiln?) first was a small part of the delay.

Where do you think we get the expression clay pigeon? Earliest form of airmail…

Write it, keep it on a stabilizing platform and start running - the clay will be dried after a few days of travel. Of course there's a risk that the message will get smudged but I'm sure they had ways and means to stabilize the message before it arrived.

What I wonder about is whether these tablets as they are found today were just air dried or if they were fired at all. I can imagine that they would get fired for archival purposes in the capital.

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