Ancient Sumerians in Mesopotamia were the first to develop writing around 3500 BC. They created a system of pictographic symbols called cuneiform that were written on clay tablets. Cuneiform allowed the Sumerians to keep records, send messages, and pass knowledge to future generations. Over time, writing systems evolved from pictographs to representing sounds through written symbols like the alphabets used in modern languages such as English and Spanish. Writing has become essential for communication, recording history, and sharing information and stories through books, maps, and other media.

1. Ancient Sumerian Writing
Cuneiform
Written and created by: Sasha Chua

2.  Why I chose this topic p.3
 Why, where, when was it invented and how
was it used p.4
 How Did Ancient Writing Look like p.5
 How Does It Make Life Easier And
how does writing change the world today p.7
 Resources p.8
 Q&A p.9
 Reflection p.10

3. I think writing will be interesting and fascinating to
research about since writing is so important and
you see it wherever you go. And I love creative
writing, so why not?

4. Mesopotamians the people living in ’the land between
the two rivers’ were the first people to develop a written
language. Writing was created so Sumerians and
people now days to keep records of the past. People
can send messages to each other as well. Writing also
let people to pass important information to future
generations.

5. Ancient Sumerian record keepers wrote pictographic symbols
called cuneiform. Cuneiform was written on soft pieces of clay
tablets. The clay tablets were baked to make them hard so it
makes writing easier. Writing simple things was easy like
drawing a fish or broom to communicate with others. The
system worked well in a simple society. But how can they draw
justice or liberty or other hard things? Most people now write
symbols to represent sounds. E.g: English, French, Spanish etc.

6. People Use writing to communicate, write history, write
notes in class of what they are learning. Write rules,
instructions and what they do in daily life. Now people
use writing for entertainment and learning. E.g., books,
poems and comprehensions. If the world didn’t have
writing people will forget things easily and there would
be no signs, GPS, atlas or maps so people will get loss
easily. Things would be entirely perplexing and difficult.

7.  http://www.mrdowling.com/603-
writing.html
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform
 http://www.crystalinks.com/sumerlanguage.
html
 http://mesopotamia.mrdonn.org/cuneiform.h
tml

8.  Q: Why was writing created?
 A: So Sumerians and people now days can keep
records of the past, send messages to each other
and pass important information to future
generations etc.
 Q:What are pictographic symbols called?
 A: Cuneiform
 Q: Give me an example of what country that still
uses pictographic symbols?
 A: China
 Give me a few languages that represent sound?
 English, French, Spanish, German etc.

9. I think I did alright on this PowerPoint. I
did research on this invention and found
pictures to go with it. I learned quite a lot of
things about ancient writing. Things I never
knew before.

10. Thank you! I hope you
all learned something!