Cuneiform - Ancient History Encyclopedia Cuneiform by Joshua J. Mark published on 28 April 2011 Cuneiform is a system of writing first developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia c. 3500-3000 BCE. It is considered the most significant among the many cultural contributions of the Sumerians and the greatest among those of the Sumerian city of Uruk which advanced the writing of cuneiform c. 3200 BCE. The name comes from the Latin word cuneus for 'wedge' owing to the wedge-shaped style of writing. In cuneiform, a carefully cut writing implement known as a stylus is pressed into soft clay to produce wedge-like impressions that represent word-signs (pictographs) and, later, phonograms or `word-concepts' (closer to a modern day understanding of a `word'). All of the great Mesopotamian civilizations used cuneiform (the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Elamites, Hatti , Hittites , Assyrians, Hurrians and others) until it was abandoned in favour of the alphabetic script at some point after 100 BCE.

Early Cuneiform The earliest cuneiform tablets, known as proto-cuneiform, were pictorial, as the subjects they addressed were more concrete and visible (a king, a battle , a flood) but developed in complexity as the subject matter became more intangible (the will of the gods, the quest for immortality). By 3000 BCE the representations were more simplified and the strokes of the stylus conveyed word-concepts (honour) rather than word-signs (an honourable man). The written language was further refined through the rebus which isolated the phonetic value of a certain sign so as to express grammatical relationships and syntax to determine meaning. In clarifying this, the scholar Ira Spar writes: Remove Ads Advertisement This new way of interpreting signs is called the rebus principle. Only a few examples of its use exist in the earliest stages of cuneiform from between 3200 and 3000 B.C. The consistent use of this type of phonetic writing only becomes apparent after 2600 B.C.

It constitutes the beginning of a true writing system characterized by a complex combination of word-signs and phonograms—signs for vowels and syllables—that allowed the scribe to express ideas. By the middle of the Third Millennium B.C., cuneiform primarily written on clay tablets was used for a vast array of economic, religious, political, literary, and scholarly documents. The great literary works of Mesopotamia such as the famous Epic of Gilgamesh were all written in cuneiform. Development of Cuneiform One no longer had to struggle with the meaning of a pictograph; one now read a word-concept which more clearly conveyed the meaning of the writer. The number of characters used in writing was also reduced from over 1,000 to 600 in order to simplify and clarify the written word. The best example of this is given by the historian Paul Kriwaczek who notes that, in the time of proto-cuneiform: All that had been devised thus far was a technique for noting down things, items and objects, not a writing system.

A record of `Two Sheep Temple God Inanna ’ tells us nothing about whether the sheep are being delivered to, or received from, the temple, whether they are carcasses, beasts on the hoof, or anything else about them (63). Cuneiform developed to the point where it could be made clear, to use Kriwaczek's example, whether the sheep were coming or going to the temple, for what purpose, and whether they were living or dead. By the time of the priestess-poet Enheduanna (2285-2250 BCE), who wrote her famous hymns to Inanna in the Sumerian city of Ur , cuneiform was sophisticated enough to convey emotional states such as love and adoration, betrayal and fear, longing and hope, as well as the precise reasons behind the writer experiencing such states.

Cuneiform Literature The great literary works of Mesopotamia such as the Atrahasis, The Descent of Inanna, The Myth of Etana, The Enuma Elish and the famous Epic of Gilgamesh were all written in cuneiform and were completely unknown until the mid 19th century CE, when men like the brilliant translator George Smith (1840-1876 CE) and Henry Rawlinson (1810-1895 CE) deciphered the language and translated it into English. Rawlinson's translations of Mesopotamian texts were first presented to the Royal Asiatic Society of London in 1837 CE and again in 1839 CE. In 1846 CE he worked with the archaeologist Austin Henry Layard in his excavation of Nineveh and was responsible for the earliest translations from the library of Ashurbanipal discovered at that site. George Smith was responsible for deciphering The Epic of Gilgamesh and in 1872 CE, famously, the Mesopotamian version of the Flood Story, which until then was thought to be original to the biblical Book of Genesis.

Cuneiform | Define Cuneiform at Dictionary.com cuneiform [kyoo-nee-uh-fawrm, kyoo-nee-uh-] /kyuˈni əˌfɔrm, ˈkyu ni ə-/ Spell having the form of a wedge; wedge-shaped. 2. composed of slim triangular or wedge-shaped elements, as the characters used in writing by the ancient Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and others. 3. Anatomy. noting or pertaining to any of various wedge-shaped bones, as of the tarsus. noun 1670-80; < Latin cune(us) a wedge + -i- + -form Dictionary.com Unabridged Examples from the Web for cuneiform Expand Historical Examples cuneiform inscriptions (drawn by the Author, from bricks in the British Museum) 11. British Dictionary definitions for cuneiform Expand Also cuneal. wedge-shaped 2. of, relating to, or denoting the wedge-shaped characters employed in the writing of several ancient languages of Mesopotamia and Persia, esp Sumerian, Babylonian, etc 3.

of or relating to a tablet in which this script is employed 4. of or relating to any of the three tarsal bones noun any one of the three tarsal bones Word Origin C17: probably from Old French cunéiforme, from Latin cuneus wedge Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Word Origin and History for cuneiform Expand adj. 1670s, "wedge shaped," from French cunéiforme (16c.), from Latin cuneus "a wedge, wedge-shaped thing," of unknown origin, + French -forme (see form (n.)).

Applied to characters in ancient Middle Eastern inscriptions made with wedge-shaped writing tools; first used in this sense by German physician and traveller Engelbert Kämpfer (1681-1716); in English from 1818. As a noun from 1862. Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper The Cuneiform Writing System in Ancient Mesopotamia: Emergence and Evolution | EDSITEment The Cuneiform Writing System in Ancient Mesopotamia: Emergence and Evolution Tools The Lesson Introduction The Mesopotamian basin was the birthplace of writing. The Cuneiform writing system developed here was the first form of communication beyond the use of pictograms. The earliest writing systems evolved independently and at roughly the same time in Egypt and Mesopotamia, but current scholarship suggests that Mesopotamia’s writing appeared first. That writing system, invented by the Sumerians, emerged in Mesopotamia around 3500 BCE. At first, this writing was representational: a bull might be represented by a picture of a bull, and a pictograph of barley signified the word barley.

Though writing began as pictures, this system was inconvenient for conveying anything other than simple nouns, and it became increasingly abstract as it evolved to encompass more abstract concepts, eventually taking form in the world’s earliest writing: cuneiform. An increasingly complex civilization encouraged the development of an increasingly sophisticated form of writing. Cuneiform came to function both phonetically (representing a sound) and semantically (representing a meaning such as an object or concept) rather than only representing objects directly as a picture. This lesson plan, intended for use in the teaching of world history in the middle grades, is designed to help students appreciate the parallel development and increasing complexity of writing and civilization in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys in ancient Mesopotamia. You may wish to use this lesson independently as an introduction to Mesopotamian civilization, or as an entry point into the study of Sumerian and Babylonian history and culture. Guiding Questions How did cuneiform writing emerge and evolve in ancient Mesopotamia? How did the cuneiform writing system affect Mesopotamian civilization? Learning Objectives Point to specific artifacts to demonstrate the way the writing system in Mesopotamia was transformed.

Analyze the purposes writing served in Mesopotamia with an emphasis on how those purposes evolved as the civilization changed. Gain a basic understanding of the ways in which the development of systems of writing and the development of civilization are linked. Background The earliest known civilization developed along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now the country of Iraq. The development of successful agriculture, which relied on the region’s fertile soils and an irrigation system that took advantage of its consistent water supply, led to the development of the world’s first cities. The development of stable agriculture through irrigation meant people no longer had to follow changing sources of food. With this stability farmers in the region were able to domesticate animals such as goats, sheep, and cattle. They successfully grew crops of barley and other grains, from which they began to produce dietary staples and other products, such as bread and beer. As their agricultural practices became more successful, farmers were able to create surpluses. In order to ensure the crop yield, a system of canals was dug to divert water for agriculture and lessen the impact of annual floods. With these advances, a significant population of successful farmers, herders, and traders were able to move beyond subsistence agriculture.

A series of successive kingdoms—Sumer, Akkadia (also spelled Accadia), Assyria, Babylonia—built cities with monumental architecture, in which trade and commerce were thriving, and even early forms of plumbing were invented for the ruling class. The development of trade was one of several important factors in Mesopotamia that created a need for writing. The development of complex societies, with social hierarchies, private property, economies that supported tax-funded authorities, and trade, all combined to create a need for written records. The increasingly sophisticated system of writing that developed also helped the civilization develop further, facilitating the management of complex commercial, religious, political, and military systems. The earliest known writing originated with the Sumerians about 5500 years ago. Writing was not invented for telling stories of the great conquests of kings or for important legal documents. Instead, the earliest known writing documented simple commercial transactions. The evolution of writing occurred in stages. In its earliest form, commercial transactions were represented by tokens. A sale of four sheep was represented by four tokens designed to signify sheep. At first such tokens were made of stone. Later, they were created from clay. Tokens were stored as a record of transactions.

In the next stage of development, pictographs (simple pictures of an object) were drawn into wet clay, and these images replaced the tokens. Scribes no longer drew four sheep pictographs to represent four sheep. Instead, the numeral for four was written beside one sheep pictograph. Through this process writing was becoming disentangled from direct depiction. More complicated number systems began to develop. The pictographic symbols were refined into the writing system known as cuneiform. The English word cuneiform comes from the Latin cuneus, meaning “wedge.” Using cuneiform, written symbols could be quickly made by highly trained scribes through the skillful use of the wedge-like end of a reed stylus. Eventually, writing became phonetic as well as representational. Once the writing system had moved from being pictographic to phonetic writing could communicate abstractions more effectively: names, words, and ideas. With cuneiform, writers could tell stories, relate histories, and support the rule of kings. Cuneiform was used to record literature such as the Epic of Gilgamesh—the oldest epic still known. Furthermore, cuneiform was used to communicate and formalize legal systems, most famously Hammurabi’s Code.

Preparation Instructions For additional detailed information on the development of writing in Mesopotamia, read the Introduction to the Cuneiform Collection available through the EDSITEment resource Internet Public Library . Review all websites and materials students will view. Download photographs of artifacts students will be viewing offline. Download and prepare as necessary handouts from the downloadable PDF for this lesson. You may wish to consult the following EDSITEment lessons on ancient writing systems, designed for younger students, which contain elements that could be adapted for middle school: Activity 6. Learning from Artifacts Activity 1. Why the Fertile Crescent? This first activity will introduce students to the part of the world where writing first developed- the area once called Mesopotamia, which was located in what is today the country of Iraq. The earliest cities known today arose in Mesopotamia, an area that is part of what is sometimes called the Fertile Crescent. What clues can we get from the geography of the region to explain why Mesopotamia became the “Cradle of Civilization”? Share with the students the British Museum’s introduction to Mesopotamia: Geography , available through the EDSITEment-reviewed resource The Oriental Institute: The University of Chicago .

Then use the Geography: Explore feature to investigate a variety of maps of the region by choosing them from the pull down menu. View the modern political map of the area with the class. Ask the students: With which of these cities are you familiar? What do you notice about the locations of these modern cities? Next view the Ancient Cities map together. Ask the students: Where were most of the cities located? Why there? How does their location compare with that of the contemporary cities? Next, view the Terrain Map with the students and ask them to answer the following question: Look to the northeast of Mesopotamia. Why is that area not as hospitable to agriculture? The southwest? Finally, view the Natural Resources Map with the class, and ask them to answer these questions: Mesopotamia was agriculturally rich. Why did vibrant trade develop in the larger region shown on the map? One reason is that although the area was rich in agriculture, it was poor in many natural resources? What elements in the terrain also enabled Mesopotamia to develop trade (pay particular attention to the rivers, relatively flat terrain)? Activity 2.

Mesopotamia Timeline In this activity students will be introduced to the time period in which the first writing developed, and the major events which coincided with this development in ancient Mesopotamia. Distribute the Timeline: Mesopotamia 4000-1000 BCE activity which is available as a PDF for this lesson, or you can do this as an online activity . Note that the timeline covers an extended period, not all of which will be covered in detail in this lesson. This activity will give students who have not had readings about the history of the Middle East, and specifically about Mesopotamia, the opportunity to gain some contextual understanding of the development of cuneiform writing. For students who have had the opportunity to learn about Mesopotamia this exercise will remind them of some of the major events in the history of the area. Distribute the Timeline Labels handout, which is available as a PDF for this lesson. If practical you may wish to project the timeline onto a screen or redraw the timeline on the board. As a class, look through the labels. Which do students hypothesize would appear earlier/later on the timeline?

Divide the class into small groups of three or four and assign each group one of the labels. Students can scan through the two summaries of key events in Mesopotamian history that are available on the EDSITEment web resource Metropolitan Museum of Art : Key Events 2000-1000 BCE These timelines of key events can be used by students to determine where each label should be placed and to indicate when certain innovations became important. Note: Cuneiform continued to be used in Mesopotamia well into the first millennium BCE, however, as this lesson is concentrating on the early development of the writing system the timeline in this activity will end before cuneiform writing ceased to be used. Moving in chronological order, place the labels on the timeline. Each group should work together to provide any additional information about the development that was in the event summary. Challenge students to put together a simple narrative of developments in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley based on the events in the timeline. What developments in the civilization would have been facilitated by or even require a system of writing? Activity 3.

Jobs in Mesopotamia In this activity students will begin to think about the development and urbanization of Mesopotamian civilization by thinking about the kinds of occupations that developed over time. Students will also begin to think about the relationship between the evolution of civilization in Mesopotamia and how writing enhanced its development. Students have probably already studied in their classes about the shift of human societies from the nomadic pursuit of game and wild vegetation, to settled cultivation, and eventually towards settled villages, towns, and cities. As societies became, first, more settled as farmers, and then in certain places more urbanized as some populations became townsfolk, what kinds of new tasks and jobs would need to be done? Ask students to return to their timeline worksheets. Based on what students learned from the timeline activity, what do they think are some jobs that probably existed in ancient Mesopotamia: Farmer? Trader? Ruler? Builder? Others? Divide the class into small groups and have each group work together to create a list of jobs they believe might have existed in ancient Mesopotamia. Ask each group to contribute one job to a running list that will be written on the board. You may wish to go around the room two or three times.

You can download a list of some occupations which were part of life in ancient Mesopotamia. This is not a comprehensive list, but it will give your class an idea of what life in ancient Mesopotamia was like. You can use this list as a point of comparison with the list that the class has compiled. Students may be surprised to discover which occupations were and were not part of life in ancient Mesopotamia. Ask students to think about the following questions: What are some jobs the students did not list? What are some jobs students wouldn’t expect to be on the list, such as factory worker? What jobs on the list no longer exist? Which jobs are unfamiliar to students? Were the students surprised to learn some of the listed jobs existed in ancient Mesopotamia? Which occupations do they think were the most common? Why? Which of the jobs on the list are part of an industry, trade, or profession with a need for record keeping? Explain your answers. Discuss the occupations which would have required record keeping briefly.

You may wish to discuss the role of the priestly class in ancient Mesopotamia, as elite, Mesopotamian priests had a far more expanded role in society than students may have experienced with members of the clergy today. The priests of ancient Mesopotamia were part of the ruling class, and much of the tax money that was collected went to the priests and the temples. Next, have students discuss the following questions. You may wish to have them work together in small groups. Would it have been possible to complete the tasks of these occupations without being able to write anything down? How? If there were no written records connected to these occupations how would that have affected the occupation? How might it have made it easier? How might it have made it harder? Do students think that the appearance of these occupations might have affected the development of writing? How? Activity 4. Thinking About Writing In addition to the historical basis for these activities, this lesson is also about the nature of written language, how it evolves and how it serves civilization. Ask the students the purposes of writing in the world today. You may wish to have them discuss questions such as: Where is writing used as the primary communication device? What information does it convey?

When is it used in addition to other forms of communication-like speaking? For what do they use written forms of communication? Next, ask them to imagine that in an instant all knowledge of alphabetic writing disappeared. Only the drawing of simple pictures remained as the means of written communication. Have the class brainstorm: What would be some of the most essential things for which you would need signs? Which objects, concepts and ideas are the ones you would make sure were standardized and learned right away? Review the list of essential signs that the class has compiled. Have students create a few of them and draw them on the board. See if a few volunteers can use these “standardized” signs to put together a message someone else in the class will actually understand. Discuss examples of messages relatively easy to communicate with pictographs and others that would be more difficult. Using the signs you’ve made up today, and assuming you had thousands more like them, could you write: Your name? (Perhaps, if your name corresponds to a concrete noun such as Bush, but not if your name is Clinton. Verbs like: walk, run, fly? Adjectives like: delicious, lovely, awesome? The words: “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Any of the following titles of songs released in 2004? Which ones? A Man and a Woman Through the Wire You Don’t Know My Name Ask students to discuss the following questions: What does picture writing do well? Students may note that pictographs can represent nouns, small numbers, and some prepositions—“Two men on horseback.” What advantages does picture writing have? Students may note that even those without specialized knowledge could potentially understand it. What are its weaknesses? Students should note that pictographic images have a limited ability to communicate such things as abstractions, sounds and certain parts of speech. Can a pictograph convey what the word it is depicting sounds like? Writing in ancient Mesopotamia arose from necessity—specifically, the need to keep records. Gradually, civilization in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley became more urbanized. Eventually, a number of complex systems developed: political, military, religious, legal, and commercial. Writing developed as well, becoming essential to those systems. Did writing enable those complex systems to arise or did complex systems create the need for a more sophisticated system of writing?

Ask students to recall a time they started to do a task and then realized at some point that they should have been writing things down? For example, they might imagine organizing a collection of trading cards by writing down categories. Did writing change the way they approached the task? For example, they might think of deciding to make lists of the cards by category. They could do the task without writing, but writing would better enable them to do it—now the cards are organized by category and there’s a list to check against to identify lost cards. Ask students to think about the following questions as they track the evolution of civilization and writing in ancient Mesopotamia: What kinds of tasks can be accomplished without writing? What kinds of tasks cannot be accomplished without writing? Could a country be ruled, an army trained, a religion organized, laws maintained, buildings built, products marketed, crops raised and sold without writing? How does writing enhance the ability to do those things? Activity 5.

Barley and the Story of Writing In this activity students will be introduced to the world’s first writing system—cuneiform—as they work through the British Museum's Mesopotamia site interactive online activity The Story of Writing , available through the EDSITEment resource The Oriental Institute: The University of Chicago . Introduce the activity by asking students to think about our word “barley.” How many students know what barley is? How is it used? What does it look like in its natural state? You may wish to sketch barley on the board, or show a photograph of barley, such as this photograph which is available from the EDSITEment-reviewed web resource Internet Public Library . Barley was a very important crop in ancient Mesopotamia. A pictograph, a pictorial representation of barley—presumably like the one you’ve drawn on the board -- is one of the signs we find on the oldest examples of writing from the region. The first Mesopotamian written representation of barley was a picture. Ask students to think about and discuss the following questions: What’s the relationship between the way our word “barley” looks and barley itself?

What are the elements of our word for barley -- how do we know that the symbols which make up the word represent the grain? Students should come to the idea that in the written word “barley” it is the phonetic representations of the sounds of the word as we say it that connect the written word to the concept. Barley in Mesopotamia was called “she.” Next, navigate with the class, or have students navigate on their own, through The Story of Writing website. Each page contains information on the history and development of the cuneiform character for the word “barley” over time. Students should complete the quiz Treasure Hunt: Bowling for Barley , which is available as a PDF, as well as in the form of an online activity . Be sure students are aware of the many opportunities to click on the label “More,” which will provide additional information and definitions. Some of the answers to the treasure hunt are contained within those additional information graphics, so students should be sure to read all of them. When students have completed the answers to the treasure hunt have the class discuss the answers to each of the questions, which are available in the teacher’s rubric . Have students answer the following questions in class discussion.

For larger classes you may wish to divide the class into small groups and have each group work on answering one of the following questions, which they should share with the rest of the class. How did writing evolve in ancient Mesopotamia? Students should note here the progression from representational picture, to symbol, to phonetic representation. Why do the students think that the ancient Mesopotamians decided to change the writing system from just pictures (pictographs) to the cuneiform shapes? Students might think some of the following questions in order to help them understand the process: Did the change allow the ancient Mesopotamians to include a greater or a lesser number of ideas and objects in their writing? Did the shift towards cuneiform allow scribes to write more quickly? How did the uses of writing expand over time? Remind students that the earliest written records were made to document buying and selling things like barley or domestic animals. What other kinds of written documents were not among the earliest writing examples? Students should think about the shift from the recording of simple economic transactions to personal letters and stories. What kinds of documents would have been developed later?

How did the change from pictures (direct representation) to cuneiform (abstract representation) affect who could use the system? Students should ponder the idea that an abstract writing system would require learning the system of signs. They should think about our own writing system -- were they able to understand it before someone taught them how to read and write? Once the writing system had changed to cuneiform, who might have learned how to read and write? Who do you think would want the have a record of the buying and selling of barley? You may wish to remind students that these records were similar to receipts. Why do people make and keep receipts? This may help them to think about why people wanted to keep track of the buying and selling of barley. Activity 6. Learning from Artifacts In this activity students will be challenged to make hypotheses about civilization in ancient Mesopotamia. It will be helpful for students to return to the timelines they created in the second activity as a reference point while completing this exercise. To help them understand the task they will be completing in this activity, begin by asking students to look at one contemporary object on which writing is found, such as a penny. They should imagine they are from the distant future.

They know the English language, but they know little else about America in the 21st century. What hypotheses can they make from a penny? The members of this unknown civilization could work metal constructed buildings as shown on the reverse of the coin wore facial hair believed in a Supreme Being … and so forth Cuneiform writing was understood before we knew much about civilization in Ancient Mesopotamia. How did that happen? In what is now Iran, there is an inscription carved high on a rock face with the same message in three different languages. One is in Persian (the language that is still used in Iran today) and another is Assyrian cuneiform from Mesopotamia. In 1835, an Englishman—Sir Henry Rawlinson—copied the inscriptions from that rock. Once he had translated the Persian, he was able to use the Persian as a key to decipher the cuneiform. As a result, people were able, for the first time, to read the writing on clay tablets found in the vicinity of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Ask students to think about the previous lesson in which they learned about how the use of writing might have evolved in Mesopotamia.

The first writing recorded agricultural transactions. What kinds of thoughts, ideas, actions, or things were easiest to put into pictures? What kinds of things did they believe were the most necessary to keep a record of? After thinking about both of these questions ask students to try to imagine why it is that agricultural transactions—the buying and selling of grains or livestock- were among the first written messages on earth. Why was it so important to have a written record of agricultural transactions? Why do you think the first records recorded the sale of grains and livestock? Why not something else? Who would want to have this record? Next, students should think about what kind of an effect this type of record keeping might have on the rest of society. If there is a record of who bought what kind of grain, how much they bought, and from whom, what else becomes possible? Who besides the seller and the buyer might want a record of these transactions? For example, authorities expecting to take a portion of the revenue from taxes might be interested in having a record of the financial transactions which took place. Now instead of trying to guess how much they should tax someone they had a record of how much the transaction was worth.

Having a written record of those transactions would make the collection of taxes both more exact and more efficient. What other records might have been useful for authorities to keep? Might they want to keep track of marriages? Births? Deaths? Land sales? Why? How else might rulers be able to use writing to legitimize and extend their power? You may wish to begin by working through the model below. For beginning students you may wish to design an additional model in order to make the process explicit to your students. Next, divide the class into small groups of two or three and assign each group of students an artifact from ancient Mesopotamia from the list below. Each group will describe its artifact while showing a photograph of the object, such as the images listed below which are available below through the EDSITEment web resources The Metropolitan Museum of Art , The Oriental Institute: The University of Chicago , and Internet Public Library . Then, each group will present its hypotheses about what the object can tell us today about life in ancient Mesopotamia. Presentation to the class will proceed in chronological order, and should try to answer the following questions: What can be learned about civilization in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley at the time of the artifact’s creation?

What in the artifact itself supports their hypothesis? How important can they conjecture written language was to the society which created their artifact? Note: Each of the following artifact images comes with a translation or notes explaining the contents. All of the pages online offer the opportunity to click for additional views of the artifact (usually a larger view) and/or information. The following is a model for the process of this activity with the following artifact: Cuneiform Tablet (account of small cattle, ca. 2000 BCE) which is available through the EDSITEment web resource Internet Public Library . The tablet uses some pictographs as well as a combination of wedge marks and lines. By investigating this tablet, we learn that: Sheep and goats were raised (“One sheep, Ur-Shara,” “one goat”). There was at least one forest in the area (“individual sheep from the Forest of the Great Canal” and the job of “forester” existed) At the time the tablet was written, canals had been built (The name “Great Canal” implies the existence of at least one lesser canal.) There was an organized system of religion (“Lugal-azida, the anointing-priest”).

Fleece was taken from sheep and presumably used (“fleece plucked”). Careful records of livestock were made (“Total: 9 sheep”). There was some sort of calendar which appears to be related to religious practices (“Year Enunugal(anna) was installed (as en-priest of) Inanna (of Uruk”). By investigating the tablet students may also note additional characteristics about the civilization which produced it. For example, the presence of an established calendar indicates the existence of a fairly sophisticated number system and understanding of astronomy. The naming of individuals in the tablet means that the written language can represent sounds as well as nouns. There are no verbs in the tablet, though the word “plucked,” used here as an adjective, is close. You may wish to distribute to each group this graphic organizer for writing down the information they gather. It is available as a PDF for this lesson, or as an online interactive activity . Group presentations should be conducted as if this were a convention of archaeologists trying to piece together a portrait of the evolution of life and writing in ancient Mesopotamia by combining the work of all the groups.

Assign one artifact to from the following list to each group: cuneiform | writing system | Britannica.com writing system Last Updated: 7-13-2011 Cuneiform, system of writing used in the ancient Middle East. The name, a coinage from Latin and Middle French roots meaning “wedge-shaped,” has been the modern designation from the early 18th century onward. Cuneiform was the most widespread and historically significant writing system in the ancient Middle East . Its active history comprised the last three millennia bce, its long development and geographic expansion involved numerous successive cultures and languages, and its overall significance as an international graphic medium of civilization is second only to that of the Phoenician-Greek-Latin alphabet . Cuneiform tablet featuring a tally of sheep and goats, from Tello, southern Iraq. © Gianni Dagli Orti/Corbis Cuneiform - definition of cuneiform by The Free Dictionary Cuneiform - definition of cuneiform by The Free Dictionary 1. Wedge-shaped. 2. a.

Of or relating to any of various related writing systems of the ancient Near East having characters formed by the arrangement of small wedge-shaped elements and used to write Sumerian, Akkadian, Elamite, Hittite, Old Persian, and other languages. b. Relating to, composed in, or using such characters. 3. Anatomy Of, relating to, or being a wedge-shaped bone or cartilage. n. 1. Cuneiform writing. 2. Anatomy A wedge-shaped bone, especially one of three such bones in the tarsus of the foot. [Latin cuneus, wedge + -form .] adj 1. Also: cuneal wedge-shaped 2. (Letters of the Alphabet (Foreign)) of, relating to, or denoting the wedge-shaped characters employed in the writing of several ancient languages of Mesopotamia and Persia, esp Sumerian, Babylonian, etc 3. (Letters of the Alphabet (Foreign)) of or relating to a tablet in which this script is employed 4. (Anatomy) of or relating to any of the three tarsal bones n 5.

(Letters of the Alphabet (Foreign)) cuneiform characters or writing 6. (Anatomy) any one of the three tarsal bones [C17: probably from Old French cunéiforme, from Latin cuneus wedge] cu•ne•i•form (kyuˈni əˌfɔrm, ˈkyu ni ə-) adj. 1. having the form of a wedge; wedge-shaped. 2. composed of slim triangular or wedge-shaped elements, as the characters used in writing by the ancient Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and others. 3. written in cuneiform characters. 4. of or pertaining to any wedge-shaped bone, as certain tarsal bones. n. 5. cuneiform characters or writing. [1670–80; < Latin cune(us) a wedge + -i- + -form ] cuneiform A non-alphabetic system of writing used throughout the ancient world for over 2,000 years. It was probably invented by the Sumerians. A symbol was constructed out of sets of wedge-shaped strokes made in soft clay with pieces of reed.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend: Cuneiform bones - Anatomy and Clinical notes | Kenhub Cuneiform bones Contents Introduction The cuneiform (from the Latin for ‘wedge’) bones are a set of three bones in the medial side of the foot that articulate with the navicular proximally and with the proximal surfaces of metatarsal 1-3 distally. A wedge on the plantar surface of the medial cuneiform bone differentiates it from the other two cuneiform bones and is an important factor in the forming the shape of the transverse arch of the foot. When looking at the proximal surfaces of all three bones we see a concave surface for the navicular to reside in. The navicular possesses three facets for the cuneiform articulation to increase bony conformity. The distal surface creates individual convex surfaces for metatarsals 1-3. Recommended video: Bones of the foot Bones and ligaments of the foot. Medial Cuneiform The medial cuneiform is the largest of the three cuneiform bones. As with the other two cuneiforms, there are many rough areas scattered around the articular surfaces for ligament attachment.

Its large, square medial surface is easily palpable, rough and is subcutaneous in position. It also acts as a site to receive the tendon of tibialis anterior, an important foot arch muscle, on the distal plantar angle of the medial face. The articulation with the navicular is on the proximal side at the piriform facet which is a concavity that is narrowed dorsally and vertically. As for the lateral surface, the proximal dorsal margin is smooth for articulation with the intermediate cuneiform. The distal lateral surface contains a small facet for a shared articulation with the second metatarsal; the intermediate cuneiform being the other bone which articulates with the second metatarsal (1). The rest of this surface is rough for the attachment of ligaments and part of the tendon of the Peroneus longus . On the plantar surface lies the Lisfranc’s ligament that binds the medial cuneiform to the second metatarsal. At the cornerstone of the mid-foot (the combination of all five tarsometatarsal joints) is the second tarsometatarsal joint to which is attached Lisfranc’s ligament, a pivotal ligament for foot stability.

The anterior surface, kidney-shaped and much larger than the posterior, articulates with the first metatarsal bone. The posterior surface is triangular, concave, and articulates with the most medial and largest of the three facets on the anterior surface of the navicular. The dorsal surface is the narrow end of the wedge, and is directed upward and lateralward; it is rough for the attachment of ligaments. Articulations: The medial cuneiform articulates with four bones: the navicular, second cuneiform, and first and second metatarsals. Intermediate Cuneiform The intermediate cuneiform bone is the smallest of the three cuneiform bones. It further differs from the medial cuneiform bone by the fact that it has a greater number of smooth surfaces, with the distal, medial, proximal and lateral surfaces all being cartilage covered articular facets. The triangular plantar and dorsal surfaces are rough to allow for the attachment of the interosseous ligaments. The interosseous ligament marries the non-articular surfaces to the other cuneiforms. There is an articulation with the navicular proximally and with the base of the second metatarsal and the medial cuneiform distally.

The plantar surface is narrow and receives the tibialis posterior tendon (second slip), but it shares this accommodation with the other two cuneiforms. The medial surface is partly articular with the medial cuneiform, and the lateral surface is similarly articular with the lateral cuneiform. The intermediate and medial cuneiform bones are supplied by the dorsal anterior network and by the deep fibular and medial plantar nerves. Articulations: The Intermediate cuneiform articulates with four bones: the navicular, first and third cuneiforms, and second metatarsal. Lateral Cuneiform The lateral cuneiform occupies the center of the front row of the tarsal bones, between the second cuneiform medially, the cuboid laterally, the navicular behind, and the third metatarsal in front. The lateral cuneiform is similar to its intermediate cuneiform brother in that it has a rough rectangular wedge. It also receives a slip of the tendon of the tibialis posterior on the plantar surface, which again enables the bone to play an important role in forming the medial foot arch. Various sources suggest that the flexor hallucis brevis tendon inserts into the intermediate cuneiform.

The distal surface has a triangular facet for insertion of the third metatarsal. Its medial surface contains an indented vertical strip made by the intermediate cuneiform while just distally to this medial surface are two small facets for the lateral side of the second metatarsal base. The lateral surface of the lateral cuneiform contains a triangular or oval insertion point for the cuboid bone . The joint between these bones can become compromised during an inversion trauma of the foot, disrupting the ligaments and producing an everted position on the cuboid or, during progressive laxity of the interosseous ligament, causing a subluxation of the cuboid from the cuboid-lateral cuneiform-navicular joint. The lateral cuneiform is supplied by the dorsal arterial network, and innervated by branches of the deep fibular and lateral plantar nerves. Articulations: The Lateral cuneiform articulates with six bones: the navicular, second cuneiform, cuboid, and second, third, and fourth metatarsals.

Get me the rest of this article for free Create your account and you’ll be able to see the rest of this article, plus videos and a quiz to help you memorize the information, all for free. You’ll also get access to articles, videos, and quizzes about dozens of other anatomy systems. Show references References: Sandstring, S. (ed.) (2008) Grey’s Anatomy, 40th edition, London: Churchill Livingstone, Chapter 84 Ankle and Foot, (page 1438-1439) Anon. Medial Cuneiform . (accessed 28th of January 2015). Sayeed, S.,Khan, F.,Turner, N., Kitaoka, H. (2008). Midfoot Arthritis.The American Journal of Orthopaedics . 37 (5), 251-256. Anon. Midfoot sprain . (accessed 27th of January 2015). Anon. Intermediate Cuneiform . (accessed 23th of January 2015) De Proost, E. The Cuboid Syndrome .

(accessed 31th of January 2015). Khan, K., Brukner, P., Bradshaw, C. (1993). Stress Fracture of the Medial Cuneiform Bone in a Runner. Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine. 3 (1), 262-264. Author and Layout: What Is Cuneiform? Details on Cuneiform and Other Early Writing Systems > Cuneiform Definition Cuneiform or wedge-shaped writing is the name applied to the bulk of the inscriptions in ancient Mesopotamia. Scribes wrote on clay, which was readily available and could be made durable by drying or recycled by re-wetting. Scribes used a reed stylus as a tool to form the characters. It produced a wedge-shaped head with whatever kind of trailing tail might be required to inscribe the picture, sound, or word. Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Ugaritic, and Old Persian are some of the languages that used cuneiform. The elongated and stylized triangles normally point to the right just as the writing goes from the left to the right.

Pronunciation: kyoo-nee'-uh-form Also Known As: Wedge shaped Common Misspellings: cunieform, cuniform Examples: The Latin word for wedge is cuneus (ku-nay-us) from which we get the word cuneiform. NB: Cuneiform does not refer to a specific language, but rather to the way it was written. continue reading below our video Test Your General Science Knowledge Go to Other Ancient / Classical History Glossary pages beginning with the letter Ancient Mesopotamia: Writing Ancient Mesopotamia History >> Ancient Mesopotamia The Sumerians developed the first form of writing. As Sumerian towns grew into cities, the people needed a way to keep track of business transactions, ownership rights, and government records. Around 3300 BC the Sumerians began to use picture symbols marked into clay tablets to keep their records. Sumerian Writing by Unknown Symbols were made with wedge shaped marks on clay tablets Clay Tablets Writing was inscribed on clay tablets. Scribes would take a stylus (a stick made from a reed) and press the lines and symbols into soft, moist clay.

Once they were done, they would let the clay harden and they had a permanent record. Cuneiform The initial writing of the Sumerians utilized simple pictures or pictograms. For example, a drawing of a person's head, meant the word "head". Over time, however, the writing of the Sumerians further developed to include sounds and meanings. Scribes would use the stylus to make wedge shaped marks in the clay. This type of writing is called cuneiform writing, which means "wedge-shaped". Translating Translating Mesopotamian writing is difficult for archeologists today. This is because there were over 700 different symbols and the symbols' meaning and shapes could change between different cities and regions. The symbols often changed over time as well. However, many Sumerian tablets have been deciphered. This is how we know so much about Mesopotamian culture, government, and history. Literature While most of the tablets discovered have been government and financial records, some of the writings are literature. This literature includes mythology of the Mesopotamian gods, tales of their heroes, poetry, and songs. Some of the writings include sayings of wisdom.

The most famous and epic of all the Mesopotamian literature is the story Gilgamesh. Go here to learn more about the Epic Tale of Gilgamesh . Interesting Facts About Sumerian Writing People signed items with personal seals made of stone, metal, or wood. Later Mesopotamian civilizations such as the Assyrians and the Babylonians used Sumerian writing. Cuneiform writing was around for thousands of years until it was replaced by the Phoenician alphabet near the end of the neo-Assyrian Empire. Hieroglyphics was invented in Ancient Egypt about the same time as cuneiform in Mesopotamia, but scientists believe that cuneiform came first. As far as archeologists can tell, the Sumerian language is not related to any other language on Earth. Cuneiform refers to the way a language is written, not necessarily a particular language. It was initially used in Mesopotamia to write Sumerian, but later was used for Akkadian which the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Babylonians, and the Assyrians all spoke. Go here to see how to write like a Babylonian: Take a ten question quiz about this page.

Learn More about Ancient Mesopotamia: Overview Ancient Scripts: Sumerian 3300 BCE to 100 CE Direction Variable The Sumerians were one of the earliest urban societies to emerge in the world, in Southern Mesopotamia more than 5000 years ago. They developed a writing system whose wedge-shaped strokes would influence the style of scripts in the same geographical area for the next 3000 years. Eventually, all of these diverse writing systems, which encompass both logophonetic, consonantal alphabetic, and syllabic systems, became known as cuneiform . It is actually possible to trace the long road of the invention of the Sumerian writing system. For 5000 years before the appearance of writing in Mesopotamia, there were small clay objects in abstract shapes, called clay tokens, that were apparently used for counting agricultural and manufactured goods. As time went by, the ancient Mesopotamians realized that they needed a way to keep all the clay tokens securely together (to prevent loss, theft, etc), so they started putting multiple clay tokens into a large, hollow clay container which they then sealed up.

However, once sealed, the problem of remembering how many tokens were inside the container arose. To solve this problem, the Mesopotamians started impressing pictures of the clay tokens on the surface of the clay container with a stylus. Also, if there were five clay tokens inside, they would impress the picture of the token five times, and so problem of what and how many inside the container was solved. Subsequently, the ancient Mesopotamians stopped using clay tokens altogether, and simply impressed the symbol of the clay tokens on wet clay surfaces. In addition to symbols derived from clay tokens, they also added other symbols that were more pictographic in nature, i.e. they resemble the natural object they represent. Moreover, instead of repeating the same picture over and over again to represent multiple objects of the same type, they used diferent kinds of small marks to "count" the number of objects, thus adding a system for enumerating objects to their incipient system of symbols. Examples of this early system represents some of the earliest texts found in the Sumerian cities of Uruk and Jamdat Nasr around 3300 BCE, such as the one below. You can read more about the previous example at .

The Sumerian writing system during the early periods was constantly in flux. The original direction of writing was from top to bottom, but for reasons unknown, it changed to left-to-right very early on (perhaps around 3000 BCE). This also affected the orientation of the signs by rotating all of them 90° counterclockwise. Another change in this early system involved the "style" of the signs. The early signs were more "linear" in that the strokes making up the signs were lines and curves. But starting after 3000 BCE these strokes started to evolve into wedges, thus changing the visual style of the signs from linear to "cuneiform". By 2800 BCE the writing system started to exhibit use of phonetic elements. As the Sumerian language had a high number of monosyllabic words, there was a high degree of homophony, meaning that there is a large number of words that sound alike or identical. This presented the possibility of rebus writing, where sign for one word is used to represent another word that has a similar or identical sound. One example is ti "arrow", which is similar to til "life".

So, to write "life", the ancient Sumerians wrote the sign for "arrow". Eventually, the logogram for "arrow" became a syllabogram to represent the sound /ti/. Similarly, other logograms also became syllabograms. On the flip side, if different similar-sounding words all have different signs, then there could have been multiple ways of writing the same sound. This is the case with the syllable /gu/, as there are fourteen symbols that all represent the sound /gu/, of which four are shown below. Note: When transcribing Sumerian syllabic signs into English, archaeologists use subscripts to mark different signs that have the same phonetic value. So in the previous example, gu is "flax", gu2 is "neck", gu3 is "voice", and so forth. And as you will see later, when transcribing logograms, capital letters are used, such as MUSHEN for "bird". Another peculiarity of the writing system is polyphony, where many words that have similar meaning but vastly different sounds are written with the same sign.

For example, the word zu "tooth", ka "mouth", and gu "voice" are all written with the sign for gu3 "voice". In addition to use of phonetic signs to spell out new words, new signs were created by adding graphic elements to an existing sign or combining two existing signs. The additional graphic element could be geometric patterns without any meaning, or could be another cuneiform sign. As the system grew more complex, it became hard to tell if a sign was being used as a logogram or a syllabogram (or even which one of the potential sound values the syllabogram can have). To help with the ambiguity, several logograms were overloaded to become "determinatives". They would precede or follow a group of signs that make up a word, and gives a hint to meaning of the word by marking the broad category of objects or ideas the word belongs to. Note: When transcribing a determinative, archaeologists use small, superscript capital letters to write the Sumerian word that the determinative means, such as GISH for "wood".

Another way to disambiguate the reading of a sign is to use "phonetic complements" placed before or after (or both ways) a sign that gives part of the word's pronunciation. For example, the word uga means 'raven' in Sumerian, and there is a logogram UGA for 'raven'. However, the same logogram can also be NAGA ('soap'), ERESH (name of a city), or NISABA (the patron goddess of Eresh). To explicitly spell out the word uga, not one but two phonetic complements were used, one placed before the logogram and one after. And to top it off, they put the determinative for bird, MUSHEN, after the group of signs to make it absolutely clear that this is a raven. Another interesting fact about Sumerian (and later cuneiform systems as well) is that the numeric system is both decimal (base-10) and sexagesimal (base-60). This means that there are unique symbols for each of the bases, as well as combinations and powers of the bases.

So for example, the number nine would be represented by nine copies of the "1" sign, but the number ten would be represented only by the "10" sign. The number sixty would be represented only by the "60" sign, and the number seventy would be the "60" sign followed by the "10" sign. The sexagesimal part of this system survives in the modern era in units of time (seconds and minutes) and of trigonometry (360 degrees). Later Mesopotamian people (Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, etc) adopted this system but modified it so that it became positional (like ours). This reduced the system to only two symbols (the "1" and "10" signs) and the position a sign occur within a number changes its quanity, just like "1" in the number "100" is different from the "1" in the number "10,000" in our modern system. The Sumerian writing system was adopted and modified by other contemporaneous Mesopotamian people such as the Akkadians and the Babylonians.

As a spoken language, Sumerian died out around the 18th century BCE, but continued as a "learned" written language (much like Latin was during the Middle Ages in Europe). In this way, Sumerian was used continually until the 1st century CE, making it one of the longest used writing system in history. Related Links

Question: ‘Cuneiform’ relates to which shape?
Answer: Wedge