Blackwell Reference Online

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The oldest and most widespread writing system in the ancient Middle East which was in active use for a variety of languages for three millenniums bce . The name is a modern coinage first introduced as litterae cuneatae , from Lat. cuneus ‘wedge’, by Thomas Hyde, a professor of Hebrew and Arabic at the University of Oxford, in his book on Persia, published 1700. It refers to the wedge-shaped strokes of which cuneiform signs consist. Cuneiform writing owes this characteristic feature of its outer form to the physical medium on which it evolved, namely clay. The writing tool was a pointed stylus cut from reed which left wedges of various orientations when impressed upon wet clay ( figure 27 ). Figure 27 Standard writing position of stylus and tablet. Right: the wedge made, oriented in standard reading position Source: Powell 1981 Near the end of the fourth millennium bce the Sumerians who inhabited southern Mesopotamia had developed a civilization with food production above subsistence level. In addition to major inventions such as the wheel and the plough they also developed a system of recording. Starting out as representations of natural objects, the earliest signs were pictures, then pictograms ( figure 28 ). Stylization set in early, leading to a complete loss of the pictorial appearance of cuneiform signs ( figure 29 ). This was an immediate result of the practice of ... log in or subscribe to read full text