Cuneiform script (pronounced /kjuːˈniː.ɨfɔrm/ kew-NEE-i-form or /ˈkjuːnɨfɔrm/ KEW-ni-form) is the earliest known writing system in the world. Cuneiform writing emerged in the Sumerian civilization of southern Iraq around the 34th century BC during the middle Uruk period, beginning as a pictographic system of writing. Cuneiform was the most widespread and historically significant writing system in the Ancient Near East.
The development of cuneifor...
more
Cuneiform script (pronounced /kjuːˈniː.ɨfɔrm/ kew-NEE-i-form or /ˈkjuːnɨfɔrm/ KEW-ni-form) is the earliest known writing system in the world. Cuneiform writing emerged in the Sumerian civilization of southern Iraq around the 34th century BC during the middle Uruk period, beginning as a pictographic system of writing. Cuneiform was the most widespread and historically significant writing system in the Ancient Near East.
The development of cuneiform writing was an evolution of an earlier Mesopotamian accounting system that had been used for five thousand years before. Clay tokens had been used for some form of record-keeping in Mesopotamia since as early as 8,000 BC. Cuneiform documents were written on clay tablets, by means of a reed stylus. The impressions left by the stylus were wedge shaped, thus giving rise to the name cuneiform ("wedge shaped," from the Latin cuneus, meaning "wedge").
Cuneiform script underwent considerable changes over a period spanning three millennia. In the...
less
