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Cuneiform Script

“Cuneiform” redirects here. For other uses, see Cuneiform (disambiguation).
Cuneiform
TypeLogographic and syllabic
LanguagesAkkadian, Eblaite, Elamite, Hattic, Hittite, Hurrian, Luwian, Sumerian, Urartian
Time periodca. 30th century BC to 1st century AD
Parent systems(Proto-writing)
Cuneiform
Child systemsOld Persian, Ugaritic
Unicode rangeU+12000 to U+1236E (Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform)
U+12400 to U+12473 (Numbers)
ISO 15924Xsux
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
The cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. Created by the Sumerians from ca. 3000 BC (with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium Uruk IV period[1]), cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs. Over time, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract.

Cuneiforms were written on clay tablets, on which symbols were drawn with a blunt reed called a stylus. The impressions left by the stylus were wedge shaped, thus giving rise to the name cuneiform ("wedge shaped").

The Sumerian script was adapted for the writing of the Akkadian, Elamite, Hittite (and Luwian), Hurrian (and Urartian) languages, and it inspired the Old Persian and Ugaritic national alphabets.

Ancient Mesopotamia
Euphrates Tigris
Cities / Empires
Sumer: Uruk ' Ur ' Eridu
Kish ' Lagash ' Nippur
Akkadian Empire: Akkad
Babylon ' Isin ' Susa
Assyria: Assur Nineveh
Dur-Sharrukin Nimrud
Babylonia Chaldea
Elam Amorites
Hurrians Mitanni
Kassites Urartu
Chronology
Kings of Sumer
Kings of Assyria
Kings of Babylon
Language
Aramaic
Sumerian Akkadian
Elamite Hurrian
Mythology
Enma Elish
Gilgamesh Marduk

History

The cuneiform writing system originated perhaps around 2800 BC in Sumer; its latest surviving use is dated to 75 AD. [2]

The cuneiform script underwent considerable changes over a period of more than two millennia. The image below shows the development of the sign SAG "head" (Borger nr. 184, U+12295 ).

Enlarge picture
Evolution of the cuneiform sign SAG "head", 3000 BC – 1000 BC.


Stage 1 shows the pictogram as it was drawn around 3000 BC. Stage 2 shows the rotated pictogram as written around 2800 BC. Stage 3 shows the abstracted glyph in archaic monumental inscriptions, from ca. 2600 BC, and stage 4 is the sign as written in clay, contemporary to stage 3. Stage 5 represents the late 3rd millennium, and stage 6 represents Old Assyrian ductus of the early 2nd millennium, as adopted into Hittite. Stage 7 is the simplified sign as written by Assyrian scribes in the early 1st millennium, and until the script's extinction.

Pictograms

Originally, pictograms were drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with a pen made from a sharpened reed stylus, or incised in stone. This early style lacked the characteristic wedge-shape of the strokes.

Certain signs to indicate names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc., are known as "determinants", and were the Sumerian signs of the terms in question, added as a guide for the reader. Proper names continued to be usually written in purely "ideographic" fashion.

From about 2900 BC, many pictographs began to lose their original function, and a given sign could have various meanings depending on context. The sign inventory was reduced from some 1,500 signs to some 600 signs, and writing became increasingly phonological. Determinative signs were re-introduced to avoid ambiguity. This process is directly parallel to, and possibly not independent of, the development of Egyptian hieroglyphic orthography.

Archaic cuneiform

Enlarge picture
Sumerian inscription in monumental archaic style, ca. 26th century BCE
Enlarge picture
Letter sent by the high-priest Lu'enna to the king of Lagash (maybe Urukagina), informing him of his son's death in combat, c. 2400 BC, found in Telloh (ancient Girsu).


In the mid-3rd millennium, writing direction was changed to left to right in horizontal rows (rotating all of the pictograms 90°Counter-clockwise in the process), and a new wedge-tipped stylus was used which was pushed into the clay, producing wedge-shaped ("cuneiform") signs; these two developments made writing quicker and easier. By adjusting the relative position of the tablet to the stylus, the writer could use a single tool to make a variety of impressions. The word "cuneiform" comes from the Latin word cuneus, meaning "wedge".

Cuneiform tablets could be fired in kilns to provide a permanent record, or they could be recycled if permanence was not needed. Many of the clay tablets found by archaeologists were preserved because they were baked when attacking armies burned the building in which they were kept.

The script was also widely used on commemorative stelae and carved reliefs to record the achievements of the ruler in whose honour the monument had been erected.

Akkadian cuneiform

Enlarge picture
A list of Sumerian deities, ca. 2400 BC


The archaic cuneiform script was adopted by the Akkadians from ca. 2500 BC, and by 2000 BC, had evolved into Old Assyrian cuneiform, with many modifications to Sumerian orthography. The Semitic equivalents for many signs became distorted or abbreviated to form new "phonetic" values, because the syllabic nature of the script as refined by the Sumerians was unintuitive to Semitic speakers.

At this stage, the former pictograms were reduced to a high level of abstraction, and were composed of only five basic wedge shapes: horizontal, vertical, two diagonals and the Winkelhaken impressed vertically by the tip of the stylus. The signs exemplary of these basic wedges are: Except for the Winkelhaken which is tail-less, the length of the wedges' tails could vary as required for sign composition. Signs tilted by (ca.) 45 degrees are called tenû in Akkadian, thus DIŠ is a vertical wedge and DIŠ tenû a diagonal one. Signs modified with additional wedges are called gunû, and signs crosshatched with additional Winkelhaken are called šešig.

Enlarge picture
Cuneiform tablet from the Kirkor Minassian collection in the US Library of Congress, ca. 24th century.
Enlarge picture
Neo-Assyrian ligature KAxGUR7 (); the KA sign () was a Sumerian compound marker, and appears frequently in ligatures enclosing other signs. GUR7 is itself a ligature of SÍG.AḪ.ME.U, meaning "to pile up; grain-heap" (Akkadian kamāru; karû).
"Typical" signs have usually in the range of about five to ten wedges, while complex ligatures can consist of twenty or more (although it is not always clear if a ligature should be considered a single sign or two collated but still distinct signs); the ligature KAxGUR7 consists of 31 strokes.

Most later adaptations of Sumerian cuneiform preserved at least some aspects of the Sumerian script. Written Akkadian included phonetic symbols from the Sumerian syllabary, together with logograms that were read as whole words. Many signs in the script were polyvalent, having both a syllabic and logographic meaning. The complexity of the system bears a resemblance to classical Japanese, written in a Chinese-derived script, where some of these Sinograms were used as logograms, and others as phonetic characters.

Assyrian cuneiform

This "mixed" method of writing continued through the end of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, although there were periods when "purism" was in fashion and there was a more marked tendency to spell out the words laboriously, in preference to using signs with a phonetic complement. Yet even in those days, the Babylonian syllabary remained a mixture of ideographic and phonetic writing.

Hittite cuneiform is an adaptation of the Old Assyrian cuneiform of ca. 1800 BC to the Hittite language. When the cuneiform script was adapted to writing Hittite, a layer of Akkadian logographic spellings was added to the script, with the result that we no longer know the pronunciations of many Hittite words conventionally written by logograms.

In the Iron Age (ca. 10th to 6th c. BC), Assyrian cuneiform was further simplified. From the 6th century, the Assyrian language was marginalized by Aramaic, written in the Aramaean alphabet, but Neo-Assyrian cuneiform remained in use in literary tradition well into Parthian times. The last known cuneiform inscription, an astronomical text, was written in AD 75.

Derived scripts

The complexity of the system prompted the development of a number of simplified versions of the script. Old Persian was written in a subset of simplified cuneiform characters known today as Old Persian cuneiform. It formed a semi-alphabetic syllabary, using far fewer wedge strokes than Assyrian used, together with a handful of logograms for frequently occurring words like "god" and "king." The Ugaritic language was written using the Ugaritic alphabet, a standard Semitic style alphabet (an abjad) written using the cuneiform method.

Decipherment

Knowledge of cuneiform was lost until 1835 when Henry Rawlinson, a British East India Company army officer, found the Behistun inscriptions in Persia. Carved in the reign of King Darius of Persia (522 BC–486 BC), they consisted of identical texts in the three official languages of the empire: Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite. The Behistun inscription was to the decipherment of cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone was to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Rawlinson correctly deduced that the Old Persian was a phonetic script and he successfully deciphered it. After translating the Persian, Rawlinson and, working independently of him, the Anglo-Irish Egyptologist Edward Hincks, began to decipher the others. (The actual techniques used to decipher the Akkadian language have never been fully published; Hincks described how he sought the proper names already legible in the deciphered Persian while Rawlinson never said anything at all, leading some to speculate that he was secretly copying Hincks.[3]) They were greatly helped by Paul Émile Botta's discovery of the city of Niniveh in 1842. Among the treasures uncovered by Botta were the remains of the great library of Assurbanipal, a royal archive containing tens of thousands of baked clay tablets covered with cuneiform inscriptions.

By 1851, Hincks and Rawlinson could read 200 Babylonian signs. They were soon joined by two other decipherers: young German-born scholar Julius Oppert, and versatile British Orientalist William Henry Fox Talbot. In 1857 the four men met in London and took part in a famous experiment to test the accuracy of their decipherments. Edwin Norris, the secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society, gave each of them a copy of a recently discovered inscription from the reign of the Assyrian emperor Tiglath-Pileser I. A jury of experts was empanelled to examine the resulting translations and assess their accuracy. In all essential points the translations produced by the four scholars were found to be in close agreement with one another. There were of course some slight discrepancies. The inexperienced Talbot had made a number of mistakes, and Oppert's translation contained a few doubtful passages due to his unfamiliarity with the English language. But Hincks' and Rawlinson's versions were virtually identical. The jury declared itself satisfied, and the decipherment of Akkadian cuneiform was adjudged a fait accompli.

In the early days of cuneiform decipherment, the reading of proper names presented the greatest difficulties. However, there is now a better understanding of the principles behind the formation and the pronunciation of the thousands of names found in historical records, business documents, votive inscriptions and literary productions. The primary challenge was posed by the characteristic use of old Sumerian non-phonetic ideograms in other languages that had different pronunciations for the same symbols. Until the exact phonetic reading of many names was determined through parallel passages or explanatory lists, scholars remained in doubt, or had recourse to conjectural or provisional readings. Fortunately, in many cases, there are variant readings, the same name being written phonetically (in whole or in part) in one instance, and ideographically in another.

Transliteration

Cuneiform has a specific format for transliteration. Because of the script's polyvalence, transliteration is not only lossless, but may actually contain more information than the original document. For example, the sign DINGIR in a Hittite text may represent either the Hittite syllable an or may be part of an Akkadian phrase, representing the syllable il, or it may be a Sumerogram, representing the original Sumerian meaning, 'the creator'. In transliteration, a different rendition of the same glyph is chosen depending on its role in the present context.

Therefore, a text containing DINGIR and MU in succession could be construed to represent the words "ana", "ila", god + "a" (the accusative ending), god + water, or a divine name "A" or Water. Someone transcribing the signs would make the decision how the signs should be read and assemble the signs as "ana", "ila", "Ila" ('god"+accusative case), etc. A transliteration of these signs, however, would separate the signs with dashes "il-a", "an-a", "DINGIR-a". This is still easier to read than the original cuneiform, but now the reader is able to trace the sounds back to the original signs and determine if the correct decision was made on how to read them.

There are differing conventions for transliterating Sumerian, Akkadian (Babylonian) and Hittite (and Luwian) cuneiform texts. One convention that sees wide use across the different fields is the use of acute and grave accents as an abbreviation for homophone disambiguation. Thus, u is equivalent to u1, the first glyph expressing phonetic u. An acute accent, ú, is equivalent to the second, u2, and a grave accent ù to the third, u3 glyph in the series (while the sequence of numbering is conventional but essentially arbitrary and subject to the history of decipherment). In Sumerian transliteration, a multiplication sign 'x' is used to indicate ligatures.

Since the Sumerian language has only been widely known and studied by scholars for approximately a century, changes in the accepted reading of Sumerian names have occurred from time to time. Thus the name of a king of Ur, read Ur-Bau at one time, was later read as Ur-Engur, and is now read as Ur-Nammu or Ur-Namma; for Lugal-zaggisi, a king of Uruk, some scholars continued to read Ungal-zaggisi; and so forth. Also, with some names of the older period, there was often uncertainty whether their bearers were Sumerians or Semites. If the former, then their names could be assumed to be read as Sumerian, while, if they were Semites, the signs for writing their names were probably to be read according to their Semitic equivalents, though occasionally Semites might be encountered bearing genuine Sumerian names. There was also doubt whether the signs composing a Semite's name represented a phonetic reading or an ideographic compound. Thus, e.g. when inscriptions of a Semitic ruler of Kish, whose name was written Uru-mu-ush, were first deciphered, there was a disposition to regard this as an ideographic form, and to read phonetically Alu-usharshid ("he founded a city," with the omission of the name of the deity), but scholarly opinion finally accepted Urumu-ush (Urumush) as the correct designation.

Syllabary

The tables below show signs used for simple syllables of the form CV or VC. As used for the Sumerian language, the cuneiform script was in principle capable of distinguishing 14 consonants, transliterated as
b, d, g, ḫ, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, š, t, z
as well as four vowel qualities, a, e, i, u. The Akkadian language needed to distinguish its emphatic series, q, ṣ, ṭ, adopting various "superfluous" Sumerian signs for the purpose (e.g. qe=KIN, qu=KUM, qi=KIN, ṣa=ZA, ṣe=ZÍ, ṭur=DUR etc.) Hittite as it adopted the Akkadian cuneiform further introduced signs for the glide w, e.g. wa=we=PIN, wi5=GEŠTIN) as well as a ligature I.A for ya.

CV:
b-d-g-ḫ-k-l-m-n-p-r-s-š-t-z-
-aa ��, á ��ba ��, bá=PA ��, bà=EŠ ��da ��, dá=TA ��ga ��, gá ��ḫa ��, ḫá=ḪI.A ����, ḫà=U ��, ḫa4=ḪI ��ka ��, ká ��, kà=GA ��la ��, lá=LAL ��, là=NU ��ma ��, má ��na ��, ná ��, nà=AG ��, na4 ("NI.UD") ����pa ��, pá=BA ��ra ��, rá=DU ��sa ��, sá=DI ��, sà=ZA ��, sa4 ("ḪU.NÁ") ����ša ��, šá=NÍG ��, šà ��ta ��, tá=DA ��za ��, zá=NA4 ���?
-ee ��, é ��be=BAD ��, bé=BI ��, bè=NI ��de=DI ��, dé , dè=NE ��ge=GI ��, gé=KID ��, gè=DIŠ ��ḫe=ḪI ��, ḫé=GAN ��ke=KI ��, ké=GI ��le=LI ��, lé=NI ��me ��, mé=MI ��, mè ��/��ne ��, né=NI ��pe=PI ��, pé=BI ��re=RI ��, ré=URU ��se=SI ��, sé=ZI ��še ��, šé , šè ��te ��, té=TÍ ��ze=ZI ��, zé=ZÌ �?
-ii ��, í=IÁ ��bi ��, bí=NE ��, bì=PI ��di ��, dí=TÍ ��gi ��, gí=KID ��, gì=DIŠ ��, gi4 ��, gi5=KI ��ḫi ��, ḫí=GAN ��ki ��, kí=GI ��li ��, lí=NI ��mi ��, mí=MUNUS ��, mì=ME ��ni ��, ní=IM ��pi ��, pí=BI ��, pì=BAD ��ri ��, rí=URU ��si ��, sí=ZI ��ši=IGI ��, ší=SI ��ti ��, tí �� , tì=DIM ��, ti4=DI ��zi ��, zí ��, zì �?
-uu ��, ú ��bu ��, bú=KASKAL ��, bù=PÙ ��du ��, dú=TU ��, dù=GAG ��, du4=TUM ��gu ��, gú ��, gù=KA ��, gu4 ��, gu5=KU ��, gu6=NAG ��, gu7 ��ḫu ��ku ��, kú=GU7 ��, kù ��, ku4 ��lu ��, lú ��mu ��, mú=SAR ��nu ��, nú=NÁ ��pu=BU ��, pú=TÚL ��, pù ��ru �� , rú=GAG ��, rù=AŠ ��su ��, sú=ZU ��, sù=SUD ��, su4 ��šu ��, šú ��, šù=ŠÈ ��, šu4=U ��tu ��, tú=UD ��, tù=DU ��zu ��, zú=KA �?


VC:
-b-d-g-ḫ-k-l-m-n-p-r-s-š-t-z
a-a ��, á ��ab ��, áb ��ad ��, ád ��ag ��, ág ��aḫ ��, áḫ=ŠEŠ ��ak=AG ��al ��, ál=ALAM ��am ��, ám=ÁG ��an ��ap=AB ��ar ��, ár=UB ��as=AZ ��aš ��, áš ��at=AD ��, át=GÍR gunû ��az �?
e-e ��, é ��eb=IB ��, éb=TUM ��ed=Á ��eg=IG ��, ég=E ��eḫ=AḪ ��ek=IG ��el ��, él=IL ��em=IM ��en ��, én, èn=LI ��ep=IB , ép=TUM ��er=IR ��es=GIŠ ��, és=EŠ ��eš ��/��, éš=ŠÈ ��et=Á ��ez=GIŠ ��, éz=EŠ �?
i-i ��, í=IÁ ��ib ��, íb=TUM ��id=Á ��, íd=A.ENGUR ����ig ��, íg=E ��iḫ=AḪ ��ik=IG ��il ��, íl ��im ��, ím=KAŠ4 ��in ��, in4=EN ��, in5=NIN ����ip=IB ��, íp=TUM ��ir ��, íp=A.IGI ����is=GIŠ ��, ís=EŠ ��iš ��, íš=KASKAL ��it=Á ��iz= =GIŠ ��, íz=IŠ �?
u-u ��, ú ��ub ��, úb=ŠÈ ��ud ��, úd=ÁŠ ��ug ��uḫ=AḪ ��, úḫ ��uk=UG ��ul , úl=NU ��um ��, úm=UD ��un ��, ún=U ��up=UB ��, úp=ŠÈ ��ur ��, úr ��us=UZ, ús=UŠ ��uš ��, úš��=BAD ��ut=UD ��, út=ÁŠ ��uz , úz=UŠ ��, ùz �?

Sign inventories

See also list of cuneiform signs.
The Sumerian cuneiform script had of the order of 1,000 unique signs (or about 1,500 if variants are included). This number was reduced to about 600 by the 24th century BC and the beginning of Akkadian records. Not all Sumerian signs are used in Akkadian, and not all Akkadian signs are used in Hittite.

Unicode

Main article: Unicode cuneiform
Unicode (as of version 5.0) assigns to the Cuneiform script the following ranges:
U+12000–U+1236E (879 characters) "Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform"
U+12400–U+12473 (103 characters) "Cuneiform Numbers"


The proposal for Unicode encoding of the script had been submitted by the Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding (ICE) in June 2004. [1] The base character inventory is derived from the list of Ur III signs compiled by the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative of UCLA based on the inventories of Miguel Civil, Rykle Borger (2003), and Robert England. Rather than opting for an ordering by glyph shape and complexity, according to the numbering of an existing catalogue, the Unicode order of glyphs is the Latin alphabet order of their 'main' Sumerian transliteration.

See also

References

Notes

1. ^ There have been attempts to find predecessors to the cuneiform characters in the petroglyphs of Çatalhöyük and Kamyana Mohyla, but they have been rejected in the academic mainstream.
2. ^ Adkins, Lesley (2003). Empires of the Plain. HarperCollins, p. 47. ISBN 0 00 712899 1. 
3. ^ Daniels, Peter; Bright, William (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, p. 146. ISBN 0-19-507993-0. 

External links

Digital encoding and rendering
Fonts
Cuneiform (from the Latin word for "wedge-shaped") can refer to:
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logogram, or logograph, is a single grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme (a meaningful unit of language). This stands in contrast to other writing systems, such as syllabaries, abugidas, abjads, and alphabets, where each symbol (letter) primarily represents a sound
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syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional consonant sound followed by a vowel sound.
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Akkadian}}} 
Writing system: Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform 
Official status
Official language of: initially Akkad (central Mesopotamia); lingua franca of the Middle East and Egypt in the late Bronze and early Iron Ages.
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Eblaite}}}
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: sem
ISO 639-3: xeb

Eblaite is an extinct, perhaps East Semitic language, which was spoken in the 3rd millennium BCE in the ancient city of Ebla, in modern Syria.
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Elamite is an extinct language, which was spoken by the ancient Elamites (also known as Ilamids). Elamite was an official language of the Persian Empire from the sixth to fourth centuries BC.
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Hattic was a language spoken by the Hattians in Asia Minor between the 3rd and the 2nd millennia BC. The heartland of this oldest language of Anatolia, before the arrival of Nesian (i.e., "Hittite") speakers, ranged from Hattusa (which they called "Hattus") northward to Nerik.
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Hittite}}}
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: hit
ISO 639-3: hit

Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on ancient Hattusas (modern Boğazkale) in
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 Hurrian}}}
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: —
ISO 639-3: xhu

Hurrian is a conventional name for the language of the Hurrians (Khurrites), a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had
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Luwian}}}
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: —
ISO 639-3: either:
xlu  — 
hlu  —  Luwian (sometimes spelled Luvian
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Sumerian ( EME.GIR15
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Urartian (also called Chaldean, or Vannic) is the conventional name for the language spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu in the region of Lake Van in modern-day Turkey in the highlands of Armenia.
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and
30th century
←← ↔ →→


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The 1st century was that century that lasted from 1 to 100 according the Gregorian calendar. It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period
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Old Persian Cuneiform

Unicode range U+103A0 – U+103D5
ISO 15924 Xpeo

Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Old Persian cuneiform is the primary script used in Old Persian writings.
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Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The Ugaritic alphabet is a cuneiform abjad (alphabet without vowels), used from around 1500 BC for the Ugaritic language, an extinct Canaanite language discovered in Ugarit, Syria. It has 31 distinct letters.
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Unicode’s Universal Character Set potentially supports over 1 million (1,114,112 = 220 + 216 or 17 × 216, hexadecimal 110000) code points.

As of Unicode 5.0.0, 102,012 (9.
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ISO 15924, Codes for the representation of names of scripts, defines two sets of codes for a number of writing systems (scripts). Each script is given both a four-letter code and a numeric one.
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International Phonetic Alphabet

Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The International
Phonetic Alphabet
History
Nonstandard symbols
Extended IPA
Naming conventions
IPA for English The
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Unicode is an industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in any of the world's writing systems. Developed in tandem with the Universal Character Set standard and published in book form as The Unicode Standard
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writing system is a type of symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language.

General properties

Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that one must usually understand something of the
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Ancient Mesopotamia

Euphrates Tigris
Cities / Empires
Sumer: Uruk ' Ur ' Eridu
Kish ' Lagash ' Nippur
Akkadian Empire: Akkad
Babylon ' Isin ' Susa
Assyria: Assur Nineveh
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and
31st century
←← ↔ →→


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The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BC) is the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, following the Ubaid period. Named after the city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia.
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pictogram (also spelled pictogramme) or pictograph is a symbol representing a concept, object, activity, place or event by illustration. Pictography is a form of writing whereby ideas are transmitted through drawing.
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Clay tablet, copy of a monumental inscription, ca. 2270 BC.]]r76ir47i Small tablets made out of clay were used from 5500 BC hi! ]njasryTărtăria tablets and later from 4th millennium BC onwards as a writing medium in Sumerian, other Mesopotamian, Hittite, and
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Symbols are objects, characters, or other concrete representations of ideas, concepts, or other abstractions. For example, in the United States, Canada and Great Britain, a red octagon is a symbol for the traffic sign meaning "STOP".
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Phragmites

Species: P. australis

Binomial name
Phragmites australis
(Cav.) Trin. ex Steud.
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stylus (plural: styli or styluses) is a writing utensil. The word is also used for a computer accessory (PDAs). It usually refers to a narrow elongated staff, similar to a modern ballpoint pen. Many styluses are heavily curved to be held more easily.
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Akkadian}}} 
Writing system: Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform 
Official status
Official language of: initially Akkad (central Mesopotamia); lingua franca of the Middle East and Egypt in the late Bronze and early Iron Ages.
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