Ancient Mesopotamians made rock from silt.(Brief Article)

Inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia cultivated crops in the rich soil of the Fertile Crescent. They also took that soil and, thanks to a surprising technological innovation, transformed it into the slabs of rock that they desperately needed for grinding grain and constructing buildings, according to a new study.

Pieces of gray-black rock previously excavated at the second-millennium--B.C. Mesopotamian city of Mashkan-shapir, located in Iraq, look like natural basalt but were actually manufactured by melting and slowly cooling silt, reports a team led by anthropologist…