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According to the British "Mirror" report on August 18, archaeologists discovered a 3,500-year-old clay tablet document at an archaeological site in Turkey, dating back to the 15th century BC.

The tablet was found outside the ancient city of Alallah during reconstruction work after the Turkish earthquake. It weighs 28 grams and is only 4.2 centimeters long, 3.5 centimeters wide and 1.6 centimeters thick. It is engraved with cuneiform characters, one of the oldest scripts used in the Middle East. The tablet could give people a better understanding of life in the late Bronze Age.

The clay tablet appears to be a receipt that records a large amount of furniture sales in Akkadian cuneiform, which can help experts understand the ancient economic structure. According to reports, Mehmet Ersoy, Minister of Culture and Tourism of Turkey, said in a statement: "We believe that this 28-gram clay tablet will provide us with a new perspective on the economic structure and state system of the late Bronze Age." Dr. Murat Akar, head of the excavation, said that it is not uncommon to unearth cultural relics after natural disasters, and archaeology has become a form of regional recovery in disguise.

Archaeologists Dr. Jacob Lauinger, an associate professor of Assyriology at Johns Hopkins University, and Zeynep Türker, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University, are working with Dr. Akar of the Department of Archaeology at Mustafa Kemal University in Turkey to study and translate the contents of the clay tablet, and their findings will be published in a paper. So far, they have successfully deciphered the sales of about 200 wooden tables, chairs and stools. Archaeologists have previously found clay tablets recording furniture production at the same site, but none as large as the recently discovered one. "These clay tablets provide a great deal of help in understanding the ancient social and economic conditions of Alalach," Lauinger said, according to CNN. "We are reading the accounts of an ancient accountant who lived 3,500 years ago!"