Marco Cimarosti wrote:

> My impression is that such an inaccuracy, while acceptable for a single
> copy, would not have been tolerated if the document served as a master to
> "print" several copies. Moreover, according to some technological arguments
> that I have read, punches hard and resistible enough to allow multiple use
> on clay should have been in metal, probably gold. Now, while it is
> plausible that the scribes had enough gold to build the tip of a few
> punches, it is less likely that they could afford a 14 centimeters solid
> ingot to print the whole disk.

That doesn't make sense -- gold is the *softest* metal available in
those days.

They could have been stone (like cylinder or stamp seals), or wood, or
baked clay.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...