Just a thought, but paper is a much more information dense medium. Perhaps transportation of the clay tablets was expensive enough to make doing them by hand each time easier than printing them.
Indeed, but clay tablets could have been thinned, they could also have used organic material (with fired pieces it burns away, cf paper-clay) to lighten the resulting tablets without much loss in ruggedness (paperclay is stronger than clay alone, like concrete vs cement).
I think such a development would lead naturally to think "damn this epic of Gilgamesh needs a few camels to transport, perhaps instead of impressing back in to clay I can press it on something lighter" and then possibly with the realisation that pressing on a damp cloth with an unfired tablet impression produces a great serviceable print ...
I think such a development would lead naturally to think "damn this epic of Gilgamesh needs a few camels to transport, perhaps instead of impressing back in to clay I can press it on something lighter" and then possibly with the realisation that pressing on a damp cloth with an unfired tablet impression produces a great serviceable print ...