Search results
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.
Dec 6, 2023 · Cuneiform was also used to write stories, myths, and personal letters. The latest known example of cuneiform is an astronomical text from 75 C.E. During its 3,000-year history, cuneiform was used to write around 15 different languages including Sumerian, Akkadian , Babylonian , Assyrian, Elamite, Hittite , Urartian, and Old Persian .
Cuneiform was a writing system used between roughly 5,300 and 1,950 years ago, so for more than 3,300 years. That makes it the longest-lasting writing system in known history-longer than the Chinese writing system, which has existed for about 3,200 years. Cuneiform was invented by the Sumerians, who lived in what is now southern, relatively ...
Cuneiform is one of the oldest forms of writing known. It means "wedge-shaped," because people wrote it using a reed stylus cut to make a wedge-shaped mark on a clay tablet. Letters enclosed in clay envelopes, as well as works of literature, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh have been found.
Alphabetic systems. While cuneiform had many graphs that represented syllables, many syllables were not represented. The methods used for representing syllables that did not have distinctive graphs were quite unsystematic.
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.
The cuneiform script (kjuːˈniːəfɔrm) is the earliest known form of written expression. As such, those writings that remain are communications from peoples long gone from the earth. Created by the Sumerians in approximately 3000 B.C.E., cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs.
