30 lines
1.8 KiB
Markdown
30 lines
1.8 KiB
Markdown
<!-- factbase:f36cdb -->
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# Cuneiform
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## Overview
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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]
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## Key Facts
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- Origin: Sumer, southern Mesopotamia, ~3400 BCE @t[~3400 BCE]
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- Medium: Clay tablets impressed with a wedge-shaped reed stylus
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- Name: From Latin *cuneus* ("wedge")
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- Languages written: Sumerian, Akkadian, Eblaite, Elamite, Hittite, Hurrian, Luwian, Urartian, Old Persian [^1][^3]
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- Influenced: Ugaritic and Old Persian alphabets derived from the cuneiform tradition [^3]
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- Deciphered by: Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1802), Henry Rawlinson, Edward Hincks, and others (~1835–1857) via the Behistun Inscription @t[~1802 CE..~1857 CE] [^1]
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## Development
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- Proto-cuneiform: pictographic/logographic system for accounting (~3400–3000 BCE), attested by ~5,000 tablets from Uruk @t[~3400 BCE..~3000 BCE] [^3]
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- Evolved into syllabic writing by ~2600 BCE @t[~2600 BCE]
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- Akkadian texts attested from the 24th century BCE onward; Akkadian became the dominant cuneiform language @t[~2400 BCE..] [^3]
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- ~600–1,000 signs in use at various periods
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- Last known cuneiform tablet: 75 CE (astronomical text from Babylon) @t[=75 CE] [^2]
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## Significance
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- Enabled record-keeping, literature, law, science, and diplomacy @t[~3400 BCE..=75 CE]
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- Preserved the *Epic of Gilgamesh*, Code of Hammurabi, and thousands of administrative records
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- ~500,000 cuneiform tablets have been excavated; many remain untranslated [^3]
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---
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[^1]: Walker, C.B.F. *Cuneiform* (British Museum, 1987)
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[^2]: Robson, E. *Mathematics in Ancient Iraq* (Princeton, 2008)
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[^3]: Mark, J.J. "Cuneiform." *World History Encyclopedia*, 2011. https://www.worldhistory.org/cuneiform/ |