# Cuneiform ## Overview Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system, developed in Sumer ~3400 BCE. Written by pressing a reed stylus into wet clay tablets, it was used for over 3,000 years across multiple languages and civilizations. @t[~3400 BCE..=75 CE] ## Key Facts - Origin: Sumer, southern Mesopotamia, ~3400 BCE @t[~3400 BCE] - Medium: Clay tablets impressed with a wedge-shaped reed stylus - Name: From Latin *cuneus* ("wedge") - Languages written: Sumerian, Akkadian, Eblaite, Elamite, Hittite, Hurrian, Luwian, Urartian, Old Persian [^1][^3] - Influenced: Ugaritic and Old Persian alphabets derived from the cuneiform tradition [^3] - Deciphered by: Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1802), Henry Rawlinson, Edward Hincks, and others (~1835–1857) via the Behistun Inscription @t[~1802 CE..~1857 CE] [^1] ## Development - Proto-cuneiform: pictographic/logographic system for accounting (~3400–3000 BCE), attested by ~5,000 tablets from Uruk @t[~3400 BCE..~3000 BCE] [^3] - Evolved into syllabic writing by ~2600 BCE @t[~2600 BCE] - Akkadian texts attested from the 24th century BCE onward; Akkadian became the dominant cuneiform language @t[~2400 BCE..] [^3] - ~600–1,000 signs in use at various periods - Last known cuneiform tablet: 75 CE (astronomical text from Babylon) @t[=75 CE] [^2] ## Significance - Enabled record-keeping, literature, law, science, and diplomacy @t[~3400 BCE..=75 CE] - Preserved the *Epic of Gilgamesh*, Code of Hammurabi, and thousands of administrative records - ~500,000 cuneiform tablets have been excavated; many remain untranslated [^3] --- [^1]: Walker, C.B.F. *Cuneiform* (British Museum, 1987) [^2]: Robson, E. *Mathematics in Ancient Iraq* (Princeton, 2008) [^3]: Mark, J.J. "Cuneiform." *World History Encyclopedia*, 2011. https://www.worldhistory.org/cuneiform/