vintage postcard
If you were living in Ancient Babylon (six thousand years ago) you might bake a letter along with your daily bread. 
Messages were written on clay tablets, which were then baked to harden them. The tablets were then covered with more clay and popped in the oven a second time.
The inner tablet could only be read by breaking open the outer layer of clay. The 'secret' message was thus secure. A hammer is my kind of letter opener!
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Babylonian Envelopes
Posted by Marie Reed at 8:29 AM
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37 cool cats commented:
Ha ha. I enjoyed this posting. I guess it would be called slug mail, rather than snail mail, coz it would require a shite load of lugging to send it through the post!
I wonder if what some people wrote was only half-baked...oh, that's baaaad.
Such luxury we have - get onto the internet... click away!
that's amazing! And I thought I just wanted to go back to my old typewriter. I feel as if we really missed out on something with this baking and hammering business :)
How interesting! Not quite efficient, but unique :). Have a great day, Marie.
What a neat thing! I always learned something new when I come for a visit here!
Like Maggi, I feel like I always learn a "new" bit of trivia when I visit your blog......Thanks for keeping it up! You are such a grand girl.
Neat little history fact. Always fun digging up ancient artifacts and piecing it all together.
Cheers,
Candy
wow it is really amazing!And nowadays I just cannot imagine myself without my laptop here! LOL
Thanks for this history lesson so interesting!
Great post Marie!
(by the way, so nice that you liked that funny and hilarious video from our cat idol Hugh Grant!I think he had a lot of funny moments doing that comedy!)
purrs and lov
Luna(from Brazil)
I am loving this idea of course those self sticking stamps wont work...
Quite clever those Babylonians :)
Maybe I should have made one for my friends yesterday, when I was making bread :) might have been a bit expensive to send :)
Tried to find Good Morning England, but I think it is one of those silly translated titles :) and that I might be called The Boat That Rocked over here, can that be right?
Cool post with some very interesting history!
thanks for visiting me today, Marie.
What does "Cpaphil" mean?
Wow! Love it!!
And I'm glad we don't have to use clay anymore or I wouldn't be making cards, lol!
Ha...try steaming THOSE open!!! ~Lori
Now, that must have been the ideal way of ensuring safety! A bit heard on the postman's back and a bit difficult for a quick note - but no need for encryption an virus checking!
PS Alexander has just released a CD called - "Fairytales"!
I wonder what it said - I can only imagine that the tablets would be important information. I mean they couldn't possibly say things like: I'm so bored, there is nothing to do here...I can't believe we have to gather firewood AGAIN, I mean why can't she do it?!...Mom, Billy won't stay in his own shelter, he keeps coming into my space. He has his own room afterall. Mom make him stop!
Haha
whew, i am glad we don't have to do that anymore!
If I knew you were coming, I'd have baked a.....letter.
Wow...and now we twitter, from our mobile phones.
But I bet when baking a note, it really said something meaningful.
None of this..."today I'm picking up my laundry" we see at times in twitterville.
Thanks for coming by my blog!
Wow! I never knew they did that
How great is that?
Now I know why Fred Flintsone used to break his newspaper lol
:)
That won't only require a great load of lugging, it will be very expensive too, haha.
If only the bill collectors would send me my bills that way. I would say, "Oh, sorry, I dropped it and I couldn't understand how much was due and when."
HELLO! Came over to visit after I saw that you left a post at my blog. Thank you for the sweet comment. You have a neat blog:)
Blessings,
aimee
That is a little more secure than our computers and their touted "encrypted" messaged.
This must be a museum piece. It sure is nice to see.
So funny with the translations :) a bit weird when then change a foreign title to another title in the same language, like La Mome they changed to La vie en Rose :)
Great post Marie, nice history lesson.
Oh, yeah, using a hammer is definately my way of opening something!! ha ha Great history lesson. :o)
Amazing!
Thanks, Marie.
Oh wow! This is so awesome! I am an archaeology nerd and this kind of stuff is so cool! Thanks! Great post!
That must have been the job of all six year old boys - to open the mail! You know what they say about hammers and little boys? Give a boy a hammer and the whole world is a nail. I know it was true for me:)
LOL I just love your Little Tid Bits
Thanks for the Fun information and the Laugh
Very interesting. I wonder how they got it to open with out breaking the inside letter? Really cool-I love learning something new!
You wouldn't have been able to hold it up to a light to snoop....
How interesting. I wonder what they would think if they could see our modern way of writing and communicating.
Thanks for sharing.
Charlotte
Drats! Can't think of any more "half-baked" puns! ;-) This just shows humans had the need to communicate in writing long before paper was invented. But baking a letter and then baking the envelope? Betcha there was no junk mail back then. And that women didn't tie up a bundle of love letters with a pretty ribbon and stick 'em in a drawer either!
I knew that many ancient cultures wrote their messages on clay tablets, but I had no idea they put them in an envelope of clay, too! That's wonderful! Are there any unopened letters in existence, do you think?
How cool is that.....
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