Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/26/cuneiform-gingerbread-tablet-r.html
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The picture and the rolling pin do not match.
It’s look like it’s a embossed in the roller but also on the bread.
There is an important note, so it’s the opposite of the picture displayed.
But I have no idea how the result look like for real! How funny is that!
Note: this roller creates an embossed script as opposed to an impressed one.
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Note: the roller will make cuneiform that sticks out, instead of presses in, as cuneiform usually does.
(The site does say this, but it is easy to miss)
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What does the text actually say?
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Something like : “|||=–||=-\-||//-”
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Came here to say this. In fact, I suspect the final product is completely unreadable, as the dough doesn’t get properly into the roller glyphs.
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Well hopefully it is a detailed record of a business transaction, and not a demon summoning incantation.
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I WANT NOTHING
I WANT NOTHING
I WANT NO QUID PRO QUO.
TELL ZELLINSKY TO DO THE RIGHT THING.
THIS IS THE FINAL WORD FROM THE PRES OF THE U.S.
They could have avoided that had they made the glyphs go outward instead of inward, like they’re supposed to be.
I know, it’s harder to make, but probably worth the effort.
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Also on BoingBoing today…
Coincidence 
I think not 
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Do they include a translation? I mean I don’t want to accidentally summon pazuzu… I want to do that intentionally. So help a cultist out.
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Huh, another spot for an Irving Finkel video:
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At least the post copy is correct. The roller does create “embossed script” as opposed to debossed.
It really would be much cooler for the roller to create proper impressions, but the wooden roller would be a lot more delicate were it made that way, and not well suited to fabrication by 2D laser “engraving,” which wouldn’t give the letters a solid base that tapers to the fine point of the design. The letters would be thin, freestanding slivers of wood that would partially break off in the first uses of the roller.
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But what does the roller say?
The post covers two techniques - chopstick impressions and also mentions the roller. The picture of the gingerbread is from the chop-stick technique; the roller does created embossed text. (You’d need a nice, even dough of a very specific wetness and a firm hand to get it to work, but it does in images on the roller site.)
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Considering the world today I would be good with this.
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Yeah, the biscuit they show with cuneiform figures indented in would actually be a deboss. Good catch, y’all.
Also @spizella - any excuse for an Irving Finkel vid is fine by me.
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Demon appears at the Republican convention, flexes thews in triumph
Demon: I am come to this world to corrupt, to sow discord, fear, and intolerance…
Demon looks around a bit, confused
Demon: Dang, you guys are way better at this than I am. Can I stick around for a while and take some notes?
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Now I have a hankering for a big brown Code of Hammurabi.
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The website’s store page for the roller shows the correct embossed samples that are formed by the roller.
It was BB post author John Struan who posted images of the roller along side the image of a manually impressed gingerbread from tavolamediterranea.com’s post about how to impress dough with the edge of a chopstick.
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Okay - here’s challenge to the makers out there. Anyone have a cuneiform golfball for an IBM typewriter? That would do the job nicely, and you could write your own text in gingerbread.
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Now I just need to order a ream of gingerbread… 
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