2. Before Writing Came Numbers Sumerian counting tokens, contained in a clay “envelope” Probably used to count items such as livestock, crops, or quantities of land
4. The First Written Languages Around 3,000 B.C., Mesopotamia moved from using counting tokens to using pictograms to record more complex economic data.
5. The Earliest Forms of Writing Pictograms are symbolic, abstract representations of actual objects. Pictograms were used to communicate basic information about crops and taxes.
6. From Pictogram to Cuneiform The first pictograms were drawn in vertical columns with a pen made from a sharpened reed.
7. Writing = Economics Writing began with economic transactions. This tablet is one of the earliest on record. It describes the transfer of 300 acres of land between two parties. As the city states of Sumer grew in size, an increasingly complex social structure called for more sophisticated techniques to record and store accounts of economic transactions.
8. Pictograms Early pictograms resembled the objects they represented, but through repeated use over time they began to look simpler, even abstract. These marks eventually became wedge-shaped ("cuneiform"), and could convey sounds or abstract concepts.
10. Advancements in Writing Two things happened that revolutionized writing, moving it from pictogram to cuneiform: People began to write in horizontal rows A new type of pen was used called the “stylus”, which was pushed into the clay, producing "wedge-shaped" signs that are known as cuneiform writing.
11. Cuneiform Using the Stylus Scribes created the wedge shapes which made cuneiform signs by pressing the stylus into a clay or wax surface. Scribes
12. From Pictogram to Cuneiform Over time, the need for writing changed and the signs developed into a script we call cuneiform. Over thousands of years, Mesopotamian scribes recorded daily events, trade, astronomy, and literature on clay tablets.
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14. Cuneiform “Cuneiform” is a general word , like “alphabet,” used to describe a kind of writing. In fact, "cuneiform" came from Latin cuneus, which means "wedge". Therefore, any script can be called cuneiform as long as individual signs are composed of wedges.
15. Cuneiform Sumerians created cuneiform script over 5000 years ago. It was the world's first written language. The last known cuneiform inscription was written in 75 AD. Cuneiform was adapted by the Akkadians, Babylonians, Sumerians and Assyrians to write their own languages and was used in Mesopotamia for about 3000 years.
16. Cuneiform Tablets Clay tablets were the primary media for everyday written communication and were used extensively in schools. Tablets were routinely recycled and if permanence was called for, they could be baked hard in a kiln. Many of the tablets found by archaeologists were preserved because they were baked when attacking armies burned the building in which they were kept.
17. Student Tablet This type of school tablet is called a "lentil" or "bun." The convex shaped back fits naturally into the palm of the hand. There are 4 rows of signs on the front of the tablet. The teacher inscribed the signs in rows 1 and 2. The student then took the soft tablet and copied the text into rows 3 and 4.
19. Deciphering Cuneiform: Inscriptions on a Cliff Knowledge of cuneiform was lost until AD 1835, when Henry Rawlinson, an English army officer, found some inscriptions on a cliff at Behistun in Persia. Carved in the reign of King Darius of Persia (522-486 BC), they consisted of identical texts in three languages: Old Persian, Babylonian and Elamite. After translating the Persian, Rawlinson began to decipher the others. By 1851 he could read 200 Babylonian signs.
Editor's Notes
Sumerian "tokens," from Susa, Iran, about 3300 B. C., now housed in the Louvre Museum. Tokens were a form of data storage or transmission. The hollow clay ball—the essay!—contained the tokens (foreground), with symbols stamped and punched on the outside indicating the contents inside. The tokens inside probably represented different counts.The illustration above is from HartmutGunther and Otto Ludwig (Eds.), Schrift und Schriftlichkeit, Vol. I (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1994).
Five thousand years ago the people of Sumer began to write. They were the first, and they began not with poetry or stories or great literature, but rather with economic transactions. This tablet is one of the earliest on record. It describes the transfer of 300 acres of land between two parties. As the city states of Sumer grew in size, an increasingly complex social structure called for more sophisticated techniques to record and store accounts of economic transactions. This tablet illustrates the transition from a token oriented record keeping to the use of the world's first writing: cuneiform. The tablet is divided into 3 columns, which are further subdivided in panels. Solid lines mark both the columns and the panels. Reading begins at the top left (column 1), moves down the three panels on that side. and continues around the bottom edge and on to the reverse side. The text picks up again on the front at the top of column 2, which continues down and around to the back. Column 3 does the same. Column 1 describes the acquisition of 180 iku (63.5 heactares) of land by a person or temple household of a deity. Columns 2 and 3 describe how the 180 iku is divided into 4 fields. The round holes in the tablet count the bur (or field size).
