cuneiform script
Ancient Mesopotamian writing
Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known writing systems, developed in ancient Mesopotamia around 3400 BCE.
The name refers to the wedge-shaped marks made by pressing a reed stylus into soft clay tablets.
Originally pictographic, it evolved into a system of abstract symbols used to record Sumerian, Akkadian, and other ancient languages.
Cuneiform was used for everything from royal decrees to accounting records until it fell out of use around the first century CE.
- clay tabletsInscribed earthen slabs
- SumeriansAncient southern Mesopotamian people
- MesopotamiaTigris-Euphrates river region
- Near EastSouthwest Asian region
- river valleyErosion-formed watercourse lowland
ziggurat · Behistun Inscription · logogram · cuneiform · ancient writing · wedge-shaped marks · stylus · syllabary · ideogram · transliteration · dead language · Enuma Elish · royal inscriptions · Gilgamesh · scribes · determinative · Code of Hammurabi · philology
cuneiform scripthieroglyphics
Symbolic picture-based writing
Egyptian hieroglyphs · Latin alphabet · phonetic alphabet · Chinese characters · Mayan glyphs