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Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system [6] [7] and was originally developed to write the Sumerian language of southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Over the course of its history, cuneiform was adapted to write a number of languages in addition to Sumerian.
- Early Cuneiform
- Development of Cuneiform
- Cuneiform Decipherment & Impact
- Conclusion
The earliest cuneiform tablets, known as proto-cuneiform, were pictorial, as the subjects they addressed were more concrete and visible (a king, a battle, a flood) and were developed in response to the need for long-distance communication in trade. Sophisticated compositions were unnecessary since all that was required was an understanding of the t...
One no longer had to struggle with the meaning of a pictograph; one now read a word-concept, which more clearly conveyed the meaning of the writer. The number of characters used in writing was also reduced from over 1,000 to 600 in order to simplify and clarify the written word. The best example of this is given by scholar PaulKriwaczek who notes t...
The great literary works of Mesopotamia such as the Atrahasis, The Descent of Inanna,The Myth of Etana, the Enuma Elish, and the famous Epic of Gilgameshwere all written in cuneiform and were completely unknown until the mid-19th century when men like George Smith, the Reverend Edward Hincks, Jules Oppert, and Rawlinson deciphered the language and ...
Along with other Assyriologists (among them, T. G. Pinches and Edwin Norris), Rawlinson spearheaded the development of Mesopotamian language studies, and his Cuneiform Inscriptions of Ancient Babylon and Assyria, along with his other works, became the standard reference on the subject following their publication in the 1860s and remain respected sc...
- Joshua J. Mark
Cuneiform, system of writing used in the ancient Middle East. The name, a coinage from Latin and Middle French roots meaning ‘wedge-shaped,’ has been the modern designation from the early 18th century onward. Learn more about cuneiform’s development and influence.
- Jaan Puhvel
May 26, 2021 · Cuneiform was a writing system invented by the ancient Sumer people of the Mesopotamian region (ancient Middle East). According to historians, this form of writing emerged about 5,000 years ago, making it the world’s first-known written language.
Most of the early tablets come from the site of Uruk, in southern Mesopotamia, and it may have been here that this form of writing was invented. These texts were drawn on damp clay tablets using a pointed tool .
Later, in 1638, Sir Thomas Herbert from England claimed cuneiform as legible and intelligible, and the linguist Thomas Hyde coined the term “cuneiform” in 1700. The race to decipher and translate cuneiform inscriptions would quicken throughout the late 1700s and into the 1800s.
Modern (nineteenth-century) scholars called this type of writing cuneiform after the Latin term for wedge, cuneus. Today, about 6,000 proto-cuneiform tablets, with more than 38,000 lines of text, are now known from areas associated with the Uruk culture, while only a few earlier examples are extant.
