Cuneiform

Cuneiform is writing with wedge-shaped signs, usually impressed with a stylus into a clay tablet. It developed in MesopotamiaMesopotamiaA historical region associated with the Tigris and Euphrates, home to many societies and civilisations.Glossary · Click to read the explanation from earlier recording traditions that appeared in the late fourth millennium BCE, and was used during the third millennium and afterwards for administrative, literary and religious texts. ^[1]

Several languages were written in it, including SumerianSumerian languageAncient language of southern Mesopotamia, clearly attested in third-millennium BCE texts and maintained in learning and ritual after its spoken use declined.Glossary · Click to read the explanation and AkkadianAkkadianAn ancient East Semitic language written in cuneiform in Mesopotamia.Glossary · Click to read the explanation. A sign may represent a word or a syllable, depending on the language, text and period. This distinguishes a tablet’s language from its script: “cuneiform” describes the writing, while “Akkadian” identifies the language. ^[1][3]

The photograph shows an example from UgaritUgaritAncient city and kingdom at Ras Shamra on the Syrian coast, flourishing between the fourteenth and early twelfth centuries BCE and preserving multilingual archives.Glossary · Click to read the explanation on the Syrian coast: a fragment bearing a sequence of Ugaritic alphabetic letters, dated in the Louvre catalogue to about 1400–1200 BCE. It illustrates the use of cuneiform signs in an alphabetic system too, many centuries after the beginnings of Mesopotamian writing. ^[2]