Cuneiform, the earliest known writing system, was created by the Sumerians. Cuneiform consisted of hundreds of characters, each expressing a syllable, word, or notion. It began as pictograms, representing objects or concepts, but evolved into a more abstract system of phonetic marks that represent sounds.
Initially, they utilized little clay tokens—simple shapes representing numbers and things. A cone for grain, a sphere for sheep—each sign had importance, and they were housed in clay bullae, sealed envelopes that contained the story of a transaction. But this strategy was cumbersome and limiting. It wasn’t long until a brilliant scribe had a breakthrough idea: why not press the symbols directly onto the clay itself?
This concept took root in Uruk circa 3500-3300 BCE. Using a reed stylus, these scribes began drawing pictographs—simple pictures of what they wished to record—on clay tablets. A graphic of a fish represented “fish”; an image of a jar represented “jar.” They pounded the symbols into the wet clay and let the sun burn them into a lasting record. It seemed as if they had captured the world in a succession of small images, each one representing a phrase or concept.
As time passed, these emblems altered. The once rounded and complex drawings became simpler and more angular, adjusting to the rapid, efficient strokes of the reed stylus. Cuneiform quickly expanded beyond its original purpose as an accounting tool. The Sumerians began to utilize it to chronicle their myths and legends, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, which told of gods and monarchs who went beyond the stars. It evolved into a method of writing down laws and keeping track of royal decrees, as well as telling heroic stories and charting the movements of the stars. It went far beyond Sumer, including new languages like Akkadian, Hittite, and Elamite. Each society added its touch to the old wedges, employing cuneiform to shape their history on the same clay tablets.
As a result, the cuneiform script carried Sumer’s voices for thousands of years, developing with each generation but never losing touch with those early clay traces. For nearly three thousand years, it was the language of monarchs, scribes, and storytellers until other scripts replaced it. By the time Rome rose, cuneiform had fallen quiet, with the last signs going back to 75 AD in Uruk, where it all began.