Mesopotamia Cuneiform History

Each of the four civilizations had a system of writing. The first form of writing was developed by the Sumerians from the Tigris-Euphrates River, called cuneiform. It had about 300 symbols and was used to mark property boundaries and charts of major constellations. Usually, a wedge-shaped stylus is used on soft clay to produce cuneiform symbols. Cuneiform was later diffused into other following cultures. The Nile River Egyptians developed a different form of writing to help maintain the Egyptian empire. It was pictographic and combined with sound signs to produce hieroglyphics. Most of their writing was done papyrus, which was a fine paper produced from the stem of a water plant. The Indus River also invented their own unique alphabet, however, to this day, it has not been deciphered yet. The most sophisticated form of writing emerged from the Chinese. They came up with characters that symbolized the idea of a thing, naming it

Ancient Egyptians developed a writing system based on pictures, known as hieroglyphics. The difference between cuneiform and hieroglyphics was hieroglyphics stood not only for ideas or objects, but also sounds. According to document four, Egyptians also created papyrus, the first paper, in order to keep records.

Mesopotamia’s first invention was a form of writing called cuneiform which was written on clay tablets with a sharp reed called a stylus. This permitted for recording events and

Since becoming a scribe was limited we could not decipher hieroglyphics except for one stone, the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta stone is a stone with writing in Egyptian and Greek such as hieroglyphics, demotic, and Greek script. In 196 B.C. the Rosetta Stone was carved and hidden away but was found in 1799 by an explorer. The person who deciphered the hieroglyphics was Jean Franҫois Champollion in 1822, 23 years later than the Rosetta Stone was found. Finding the Rosetta stone allowed egyptologists to figure out one of the best mysterious in Ancient

    The river valley civilizations developed writing systems. Each writing system was unique, but they also had similarities between them. The people from Mesopotamia had a writing system called “cuneiform.” The Egyptians had a writing system called “hieroglyphics.” Cuneiform was a writing system based on pictures (3.) Just like cuneiform, hieroglyphics was also based on pictures (11.) Both writing systems presented objects or ideas. Also, they were both carved into stone.

The first form of writing was created by Sumerians 5,000 years ago called Cuneiform (Document 1). Sumerians used this writing system to keep track of business dealings because they traded with people who lived in lands that were hundreds and even thousands of miles away (Doc. 2). With a written language, ideas could be shared from generation to generation (Doc. 1). To write in cuneiform somebody would need to acquire a clay tablet, then bake it hard in a kiln (Doc. 1). If cuneiform had not been created, there may have not been written languages in the

When the student was finished writing, the tablet would be turned in to be graded by the teacher. Once the tablet on the lesson was graded, it was returned to the owner. The student would then erase the previous lesson to make room for the next. It was much like our system today, only students back then were unable to keep their other lessons for reference.The evolution of how we write, record and show our work has dramatically change throughout history. The comparison of how we write and work today on laptops, notepads, and chalk board, to how it was done in the 4th century shows how we are able to learn more. Through out time, the change in resources has enabled us to become smarter and live to a higher standard because of this. The people of Egypt during the 4th century included Egyptians, Nubians, Jews, Greeks, Arabs, Romans and Syrian. They spoke and wrote in many different languages, and many of these were evident in the display found in the library. All of the artifacts had different languages written on it showing us how similar language was in the fourth century compared to now. Depending on what the writing was used for, and the time and place, many different languages were used at once. In temples, Egyptian would always be the predominant language. In administration and government, Aramaic, Greek, Latin and Arabic were used (SPO,

In Ancient China, they developed a writing system for preservation. In China, people would use logograms, which are symbols that represent a word or a meaning.In the early days of the ancient Chinese civilization, people would write on oracle bone or tortoise shell.In Ancient India, writing systems were developed for recording data and information. The Indus script used signs and words and it was written from right to left. By 1800 BCE, the Indus valley civilizations started to fall and writing were often used anymore. Ancient Egyptians started to developed a writing system called, hieroglyphics because they needed a way to record important information. They believed that recording data and communicate information about government and religion was essential. Scribes were only ones to write in hieroglyphics and were written from left to right or top to bottom. In Mesopotamia, people started developing a writing system to information. Mesopotamia created a writing system called, cuneiform. Mesopotamian scribes would record important dates and event, and position of the stars. These ancient civilizations started to create their own writing system to record history and communicate information.

In Mesopotamia, people had no money so they traded barley, pottery, fish, and other foods and inventions they made. They needed a way to keep up with what they traded, so Sumerians created the first form of writing over 5000 years ago which they called Cuneiform. They used Cuneiform for business dealings such as trading barley, keeping records, and new ideas changed between different generations.

However, the act of interacting with the spiritual world was impossible without the early uses of writing. The initial early uses of writing were to record religious ideas and events that had taken place. Some examples of the first early uses of writing were seen in the oracle-bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty, the ritual bronze inscriptions in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and the metal bound box during the Zhou dynasty. The need for record keeping and procedures for religious performance resulted in a large necessitation of literacy to continue these practices, especially for individuals of higher social standings.

To start, the Sumerians invented cuneiform, which began the path to written language in the future. Cuneiform was the first written language. It was invented over 5000 years ago! (Doc. 1). They used a stylus to make imprints for writing. Written on the clay tablets it was used to keep records, document business

Before the actual writing on the clay tablets was created, the Sumerians originally had tokens. The tokens were items that represented words. They were kept safe together in a sealed clay envelope. The way the Sumerians knew what was in the envelope was that they press the tokens into the clay on the outside. The reason that they had the tokens in

With the palaces came the development of writing, probably as a result of the new record-keeping demands of the palace economy. The Minoans on Crete employed two types of scripts, a hieroglyphic script whose source of inspiration was probably Egypt, and a linear script, Linear A, perhaps inspired by the cuneiform of the eastern Mediterranean. The scripts are found on sun-dried clay tablets that are mostly administrative records; on ritual objects such as miniature double axes and stone libation tables; and on pottery and rings.

The Cuneiform script, an early form of language consisting of pictographic symbols, was first created by the Sumerians and later built on by other cultures. Written on wet clay tablets, Cuneiform symbols were drawn with a long reed crafted into a writing instrument, also known as a stylus. The stylus created wedge shapes, which is why the name cuneiform was assigned to it. Cuneiform translates to "wedge shaped". Some Languages included in the Cuneiform classification were Sumerian, Akkadian, Elamite, Hittite, Luwian, Hurrian, Hattic, and Urartian. Cuneiform was primarily used during the time period that lasted between the 30th century BC to 1st century AD.

With hieratic writing the scribe would often leave out several details that made one sign different from another. Several smaller signs, written in one quick flow, would simply get squished together, but somehow is still able to be transcribed into hieroglyphics. Hieratic was mainly used for religious and secular writings on papyrus, or on linen. Occasionally it could be found on a temple wall during the Greek-Roman era. The name hieratic came by way of the Greeks. When they arrived in Egypt, this writing was almost exclusively used by Egyptian priest (Greek hieratikos, 'Priestly').