Writingin

Mesopotamia

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Cuneiform meaning “wedged shapes”, is the

Sumerian writing system. Cuneiform was used to

record and communicate different types of

information, they recorded daily events, trade,

astronomy and literature. Before cuneiform, the

writings on these tablets were simple pictures, or

pictograms, which represent an object or an idea. But

because clay is a difficult material to draw lines and

curves on, the pictures eventually became fairly

standardized linear drawings that made recording for

the Mesopotamians a lot simpler. They came to have

wedged shaped appearance because they were

pressed into soft clay tablets with the slanted edge of

a stylus.

CuneiformMesopotamianstylus

The Ending Of CuneiformThis trend increased as the script was modified and distributed

to even more places around Mesopotamia. When the Hittites

and Old Persians got hold of it, the script was being used for Indo-European languages as well. Finally, someone in Ugarit

got fed up with the whole thing, so he/she decided to invent

an "alphabet" of sorts ,with one symbol per sound. (This

revolution in writing wasn't discovered in Sumerian times.)

http://www.mrdowling.com/603-writing.html

http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/writing/home_set.html

http://mesopotamia.lib.uchicago.edu/mesopotamialife/article.php?theme=Invention%20of%20Writing

http://history-world.org/cuneiform_writing.htm

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Sumerian/Grammar/Lesson_Nine_-_Cuneiform

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