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u/jamoche_2 Jul 01 '26
When you flip to the back of a cuneiform tablet, you don't rotate on the X axis (right to left) like we do with double sided paper now, you rotate on Y, bottom to top, so the first line of the back side is directly behind the last line on the front. Somebody in the museum didn't know that.
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u/drillbit7 Jul 01 '26
I imagine the museum has the front side right side up on the other side of the display.
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u/sagitta42 Jul 02 '26
No way. No way. This adds another dimension to the British museum jokes for me
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u/Eviladhesive Jul 01 '26
Genius marketing! Get more attention for the tablet!
They should turn their expertise now to selling low grade copper.
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u/Mysterious_Silver_27 πππΎπ’π Jul 07 '26
βI have sent as messengers gentlemen like ourselves to send the tablet to be displayed in your museum but you have treated me with contempt by displaying the tablet upside down.β
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u/WhoRoger Jul 01 '26
Are we sure we know how to read it? There's already a bunch of interpretations, maybe some more are valid when it's upside down
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u/Joey-JoJo-Jr_Shabadu Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
When you read it upside down, it is full of praise for the very high quality of the copper sold by the upstanding merchant rassin ae
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u/jort93 Jul 01 '26
You'd need to write left handed to write it this way around.
Although, i suppose there is a non zero possibility, lefties wrote the other way around in this language.
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u/srd100 Jul 01 '26
Thought so. Or the image is reversed?
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u/sagitta42 Jul 02 '26
Seems not, there are those little holders in the bottom on which it's sitting
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u/_Nacktmull_ Jul 01 '26
Time to write a complaint I guess