BPY Middle School students are not just learning about Mesopotamia, they’re imagining that they lived there. Since the Mesopotamians invented the first writing system, cuneiform, the pupils tried their hand at it. First, they translated their name into cuneiform, and then they copied the symbols onto “clay tablets” with a “stylus.” Most students agreed that the scribes in Mesopotamia had a tough job. “I think I’d be fired!” one student commented. Students spent some time playing the Royal Game of Ur (also known as the Game of Twenty Squares). Using a replica of a game found in excavations, students made up their own rules. They had a great time!