Clay making process

Us4-he2-hal2: The medium of damp clay as a writing surface was uniquely applicable to the ancient Mesopotamians. There clay abundantely resulted from the native soil conditions and the incessent flow of the rivers, and perhaps more than any lack of alternative, clay suggests itself for this function: it is easyily processed (comparatively speaking), mistakes are correctable while the tablet remains wet, and as it drys in the air or is baked it becomes quite hard and durable and preserve's the record indefinetly. This ancient technology which could easily take its place as the most formative tool in the development of civilization is all but unknown today - probably only the specialized university classes focusing on cuneiform writing attempt any serious exercises with clay, and this is likely by way of demonstation rather than a necessity for the future Assyriology. It is safe to say therefore that the serious production of cuneiform tablets outside academia all but completely unheard of! That makes the following is among the most unusual (important) offerings at enenuru.net.

Sheshki: The bucket infront contains watered clay. I fill it half with water, add sand until its 50/50, then i mixed it up good as possible, wait a few seconds that the sand can fall to the bottom of the bucket. Then i collect the brown, claycontaining water to fill it in different vessels. There are also bigger pieces of clay, which i put aside after watering it.

These are other vessels i filled the clayie water in. After a long while the clay sinks to the ground and you have a layer of water ontop. To get rid of the water i used some pieces of an old boxershort.

After a few days the most of the water is gone and i put those vessels near the window to dry em more. It is still very thin mud in it.

In a few days this will be perfect quality clay. Absolute sandfree.

Here in the background you can see the bigger claypieces i found inside the claysand. Rolled and ready to dry.

No, that are no cookies.

And this is how i get fresh clay out of those dry clayballs. Just add water. Easy, isnt it.

Some of the water i filled into these bottles. im not sure yet how to get the clay out, but anyway, it looks cool to shake these ;)
I call em my clay-lava-lamps.