On these clay tablets, scribes would use a stylus, which was a sharp and wedge-shaped tool. By holding the stylus at an angle and applying varying amounts of pressure, the scribes pressed the stylus into the soft clay, creating cuneiform characters. Cuneiform is the ancient writing system of Mesopotamia, consisting of wedge-shaped symbols that represented sounds or syllables.
The stylus could also produce additional marks on the clay such as indentations or lines to further signify certain word or numbers. Once a tablet was inscribed with the desired text or information, it was left to dry under the sun or baked in kilns to harden it and preserve the writing for a long period.
Clay tablets were commonly used for various purposes in ancient Mesopotamia, including record-keeping, administrative tasks, legal documents, religious texts, scientific knowledge, and literary works like the famous Epic of Gilgamesh. However, it's important to note that Mesopotamia was not the only civilization to use clay tablets as a writing material, other ancient cultures such as the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Chinese also employed this method of writing on clay.