Nevertheless, searching for the earliest forms of cartography is a continuing effort of considerable interest and fascination. As such, there are a number of well-known early examples which appear in most standard accounts of the history of cartography. In detailed accounts of these cartographic artifacts there are conflicting estimates concerning their antiquity, content and significance. The surface of the tablet is inscribed with a map of a district bounded by two ranges of hills and bisected by a water-course. This particular tablet is drawn with cuneiform characters and stylized symbols impressed, or scratched, on the clay.
Inscriptions identify some features and places.
None of the names of other places can be understood except the one in the bottom left comer. Whether the map shows a stream running down a valley to join another, or running from that to divide in to three, and whether they are rivers or canals, cannot be determined. The shaded area at the left side, to or from which the channels run, was named, but the writing is illegible. Groups of overlapping semicircles mark ranges of hills, a convention used by artists then and in later times. The geographic content consists of the area of a river valley which may be that of the Euphrates flowing through a three-lobed delta and into a lake or sea in the northern part of Mesopotamia.