#history
The Written Script.
The earliest writing we know of, dates back to around 3000 BC and was probably invented by the Sumerians.
The Sumerians lived as centralised communities in what is now Southern Iraq.
The earliest tablets with written inscriptions represent work of administrators, perhaps of large temple institutions, and record allocation of rations or movement and storage of goods.
Temple officials needed to keep records of grain, sheep, and cattle entering or leaving their stores and farms, as it would have been impossible to rely on memory.
An alternative method was required and the very earliest texts were pictures of items scribes needed to record (pictographs).
During its 3000 year history, cuneiform was used to write around 15 different languages including Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Elamite, Hittite, Urartian and Old Persian.
Writing, the recording of a spoken language, emerged from earlier recording systems in fourth Millennium BC.
The first written language in Mesopotamia is called Sumerian. Most of the early tablets come from Uruk, in southern Mesopotamia, and it may have been here that this form of writing was invented.
These texts were drawn on damp clay tablets using a pointed tool. Scribes would have realised it was quicker and easier to produce representations of things as animals, rather than draw naturalistic impressions of them. They began to draw marks in clay to make up signs, which were standardised so they could be recognized by more people.
From these beginnings, cuneiform signs were put together and developed to represent sounds, so they could be used to record spoken language.
Once this was achieved, ideas and concepts could be expressed and communicated in writing.
Cuneiform is one of oldest forms of writing known. It means “wedge-shaped,” because people wrote it using a reed stylus cut to make a wedge-shaped mark on a clay tablet.
Letters enclosed in clay envelopes, as well as works of literature, such as Epic of Gilgamesh have been discovered.
Historical accounts have also come to light, of huge libraries such as the one that belonged to the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal.
The collection of cuneiform tablets is among the most important in the world. It contains nearly 130,000 texts and fragments and is perhaps the largest collection outside of Iraq.
The significance of these tablets was immediately realised by the archaeologist who discovered the library, Austin Henry Layard.
He wrote :
“They furnish us with materials for the complete decipherment of the cuneiform character, for restoring language and history of Assyria, and for inquiring into customs, sciences, and . . . literature, of its people.”
Decipherment of the cuneiform began in the 18th Century as European scholars searched for proof of places and events recorded in the Bible.
Travellers, antiquaries, and archaeologists visited the ancient sites where they uncovered great cities such as Nineveh. They brought back a range of artifacts, including thousands of clay tablets covered in cuneiform.
Scholars began the incredibly difficult job of trying to decipher these strange signs representing languages no one had heard of, for thousands of years. Cuneiform signs representing the different languages were slowly deciphered.
Confirmation of their success came in 1857. The Royal Asiatic Society sent copies of a newly found clay record of military and hunting achievements of King Tiglath-pileser I to four scholars: Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, Edward Hincks, Julius Oppert, and William H. Fox Talbot. They each worked independently and returned translations that broadly agreed with each other. This was accepted as proof that cuneiform had been successfully deciphered, but there are still elements that we don’t completely understand and studies continue to this day.
(adapted)
