Cecil B. DeMille seems to have been the first to introduce the imperfect tablets. In his 1923 production of The Ten Commandments, his double-arched tablets are on one hand merely symbolic—there are no words on it, only ten letters. But on the other hand, they exist in a world that appears to the view to be more realistic than of the paintings depicted by centuries of artists who tried to capture the same scenes. Though the ancient Egyptians certainly knew how to makes smooth stone writing surfaces, the tablet given to Moses in this film appears somewhat rough-hewn.
Take a look at some of the tablets that followed and notice this same theme: perfectly carved letters on imperfect stone:
It is known that DeMille strove for “authenticity” for his 1957 film—or, at least, he strove to make things look “authentic” (by his own definition of that word). He knew what his audiences expected to see, even when those expectations were based on false assumptions.
DeMille’s head researcher, Henry Noerdlinger, tried to convince his boss that having camels in the film would not present an authentic image, as domesticated camels did not exist at the time the film presents. But DeMille didn’t need convincing. He knew that Noerdlinger was correct. But he also knew that if the action of a film was to take place in a desert, then his audiences would expect to see a camel or two. And so, The Ten Commandments has camels…and imperfect tablets.