The common root of Kurd and Qardu is first mentioned in a Sumerian tablet from the third millennium BC as the "land of Kar-da."

It was an ancient Sumerian clay envelope which meant that the ancient Sumerian tablet was untouched inside.

No further Sumerian tablets relating to the Flood have yet been discovered.

The most ancient, adapted from Sumerian and Babylonian tablets, date from 2500 B.C.

Sumerian tablets refer to a country called Magan or Makan, a name believed to refer to Oman's ancient copper mines.

It is as old as Sumerian tablets, to say nothing of the Gutenberg press.

A Sumerian tablet from Nippur (Ni 4486) reads:

Ancient Egyptian Papyri and Sumerian tablets dating back to 2200 BC detail the medicinal role of wine, making it the world's oldest documented man-made medicine.

He briskly reviews the innovations-from ancient Sumerian tablets to telegrams and wire services-that led to e-mail's astonishing ubiquity.

In Mesopotamia, the oldest evidence of beer is believed to be a 6,000-year-old Sumerian tablet depicting people drinking a beverage through reed straws from a communal bowl.