Cuneiform

Writing began after pottery was invented, during the Neolithic when clay tokens were used to record specific amounts of livestock or commodities. An ancient Mesopotamian poem gives the first known story of the invention of writing: The cuneiform writing system was in use for more than three millennia, through several stages of development, from the 31st century BC down to the second century AD. The latest firmly dateable tablet, from Uruk, dates to 79/80 AD. Ultimately, it was completely replaced by alphabetic writing, in the general sense, in the course of the Roman era, and there are no cuneiform systems in current use. It had to be deciphered as a completely unknown writing system in 19th-century Assyriology. It was successfully deciphered by 1857. In recent years a contrarian view has arisen on the tokens being the precursor of writing. Sumerian pictographs (c. 3300 BC) . This is thought to be a list of slaves' names, the hand in the upper left corner representing the owner. These tokens were in use from the 9th millennium BC and remained in occasional use into the late 2nd millennium BC. Early tokens with pictographic shapes of animals, associated with numbers, were discovered in Tell Brak, and date to the mid-4th millennium BC. It has been suggested that the token shapes were the original basis for some of the Sumerian pictographs. Mesopotamia's "proto-literate" period spans roughly the 35th to 32nd centuries BC. The first unequivocal written documents start with the Uruk IV period, from c. 3300 BC, followed by tablets found in Uruk III, Jemdet Nasr, Early Dynastic I Ur and Susa (in Proto-Elamite) dating to the period until c. 2900 BC. Originally, pictographs were either drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with a sharpened reed stylus or incised in stone. This early style lacked the characteristic wedge shape of the strokes. The proto-cuneiform sign list has grown, as new texts are discovered, and shrunk, as variant signs are combined. The current sign list is 705 elements long with 42 being numeric and four considered pre-proto-Elamite. Certain signs to indicate names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc., are known as determinatives 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 "logographic" fashion. Archaic cuneiform (c. 2900 BC) The first inscribed tablets were purely pictographic, which makes it technically difficult to determine which language they represent. Different languages have been proposed, though usually Sumerian is assumed. Later tablets dating after start to use syllabic elements, which clearly show a language structure typical of the agglutinative Sumerian language. The first tablets using syllabic elements date to the Early Dynastic I–II periods , and they are agreed to be clearly in Sumerian. About 2800 BC some pictographic elements started to be used for their phonetic syllabic value, permitting the recording of abstract ideas and personal names. 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. Cuneiform writing proper thus arises from the more primitive system of pictographs at about this time, which historians label the Early Bronze Age II epoch. The earliest known Sumerian king whose name appears on contemporary cuneiform tablets is Enmebaragesi of Kish (fl. ). Surviving records became less fragmentary for following reigns, and by the arrival of Sargon it had become standard practice for each major city-state to date documents by year-names, commemorating the exploits of its king. File:Precuneiform tablet-AO 29561-IMG 9151-gradient.jpg|A proto-cuneiform tablet, end of the 4th millennium BC File:Archaic cuneiform tablet E.A. Hoffman.jpg|A proto-cuneiform tablet, Jemdet Nasr period, File:Cuneiform tablet- administrative account of barley distribution with cylinder seal impression of a male figure, hunting dogs, and boars MET DT847.jpg|A proto-cuneiform tablet, Jemdet Nasr period, c. 3100–2900 BC. A dog on a leash is visible in the background of the lower panel. File:Blau Monument British Museum 86260.jpg|The Blau Monuments combine proto-cuneiform characters and illustrations, 3100–2700 BC. British Museum. Cuneiforms and hieroglyphs Geoffrey Sampson stated that Egyptian hieroglyphs "came into existence a little after Sumerian script, and, probably, [were] invented under the influence of the latter", There are many instances of Egypt-Mesopotamia relations at the time of the invention of writing, and standard reconstructions of the development of writing generally place the development of the Sumerian proto-cuneiform script before the development of Egyptian hieroglyphs, with the suggestion the former influenced the latter. Given the lack of direct evidence for the transfer of writing, "no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt". Syllabograms were used in Sumerian writing especially to express grammatical elements, and their use was further developed and modified in the writing of the Akkadian language to express its sounds. Elamite cuneiform Elamite cuneiform was a simplified form of the Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform, used to write the Elamite language in the area that corresponds to modern Iran between the 3rd millennium and 4th century BC. Elamite cuneiform at times competed with other local scripts, Proto-Elamite and Linear Elamite. The earliest known Elamite cuneiform text is a treaty between Akkadians and the Elamites that dates back to 2200 BC. Some believe it might have been in use since 2500 BC. The tablets are poorly preserved, so only limited parts can be read, but it is understood that the text is a treaty between the Akkad king Nāramsîn and Elamite ruler Hita, as indicated by frequent references like "Nāramsîn's friend is my friend, Nāramsîn's enemy is my enemy". Hittite cuneiform Hittite cuneiform is an adaptation of Old Assyrian cuneiform to write the Hittite language that emerged c. 1800 BC and was used between the 17th–13th centuries BC. More or less the same Assyrian system was used by the scribes of the Hittite Empire for two other Anatolian languages (a now extinct branch of Indo-European), namely Luwian (alongside the native Anatolian hieroglyphics) and Palaic, as well as for the language isolate Hattic language. When the cuneiform script was adapted to writing Hittite, a layer of Akkadian logographic spellings, also known as Akkadograms, was added to the script, in addition to the Sumerian logograms, or Sumerograms, which were already inherent in the Akkadian writing system and which Hittite also kept. Thus the pronunciations of many Hittite words which were conventionally written by logograms are now unknown. Hurrian and Urartian cuneiform The Hurrian language (attested 2300–1000 BC) and Urartian language (attested in the 9th–6th centuries BC) were also written in adapted versions of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform. Although the two languages are related, their writing systems seem to have been developed separately. For Hurrian, there were even different systems in different polities (in Mitanni, in Mari, in the Hittite Empire). The Hurrian orthographies were generally characterised by more extensive use of syllabograms and more limited use of logograms than Akkadian. Urartian, in comparison, retained a more significant role for logograms. File:Rassam cylinder with translation of the First Assyrian Conquest of Egypt, 643 BCE.jpg|The Rassam cylinder with translation of a segment about the Assyrian conquest of Egypt by Ashurbanipal against "Black Pharaoh" Taharqa, 643 BC Babylonian cuneiform was simplified along similar lines during that period, albeit to a lesser extent and in a slightly different way. From the 6th century, the Akkadian language was marginalized by Aramaic, written in the Aramaic alphabet, but Akkadian cuneiform remained in use in the literary tradition well into the times of the Parthian Empire in Assyria and Babylonia (250 BC226 AD). The Graeco-Babyloniaca tablets show that both Sumerian and Akkadian were understood in the 1st century BC or later. The last known cuneiform inscription, an astronomical text, was written in 75 AD. The philosopher Iamblichus reportedly had a teacher captured in 116 AD during Trajan's Parthian campaign who could write in cuneiform. The ability to read cuneiform may have persisted until the third century AD. 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" (), "king" () or "country" (). This almost purely alphabetical form of the cuneiform script (36 phonetic characters and 8 logograms), was specially designed and used by the early Achaemenid rulers from the 6th century BC down to the 4th century BC. Because of its simplicity and logical structure, the Old Persian cuneiform script was the first to be deciphered by modern scholars, starting with the accomplishments of Georg Friedrich Grotefend in 1802. Various ancient bilingual or trilingual inscriptions then permitted to decipher the other, much more complicated and more ancient scripts, as far back as to the 3rd millennium Sumerian script. Ugaritic Ugaritic was written using the Ugaritic alphabet, a standard Semitic style alphabet (an abjad) written using the cuneiform method. ==Archaeology==

Between 500,000 as there are only a few hundred qualified cuneiformists in the world. ==Decipherment==

The decipherment of cuneiform began with the decipherment of Old Persian cuneiform in 1836. The first cuneiform inscriptions published in modern times were copied from the Achaemenid royal inscriptions in the ruins of Persepolis, with the first complete and accurate copy being published in 1778 by Carsten Niebuhr. Niebuhr's publication was used by Grotefend in 1802 to make the first breakthrough – the realization that Niebuhr had published three different languages side by side and the recognition of the word "king". The rediscovery and publication of cuneiform took place in the early 17th century, and early conclusions were drawn such as the writing direction and that the Achaemenid royal inscriptions are three different languages, with two different scripts. In 1620, García de Silva Figueroa dated the inscriptions of Persepolis to the Achaemenid period, identified them as Old Persian, and concluded that the ruins were the ancient residence of Persepolis. In 1621, Pietro Della Valle specified the direction of writing from left to right. In 1762, Jean-Jacques Barthélemy found that an inscription in Persepolis resembled that found on a brick in Babylon. Carsten Niebuhr made the first copies of the inscriptions of Persepolis in 1778 and settled on three different types of writing, which subsequently became known as Niebuhr I, II and III. He was the first to discover the sign for a word division in one of the inscriptions. Oluf Gerhard Tychsen was the first to list 24 phonetic or alphabetic values for the characters in 1798. Actual decipherment did not take place until the beginning of the 19th century, initiated by Georg Friedrich Grotefend in his study of Old Persian cuneiform. He was followed by Antoine-Jean Saint-Martin in 1822 and Rasmus Christian Rask in 1823, who was the first to decipher the name Achaemenides and the consonants m and n. Eugène Burnouf identified the names of various satrapies and the consonants k and z in 1833–1835. Christian Lassen contributed significantly to the grammatical understanding of the Old Persian language and the use of vowels. The decipherers used the short trilingual inscriptions from Persepolis and the inscriptions from Ganjnāme for their work. File:Niebuhr inscription 1 with word for King.jpg|Niebuhr inscription 1, with the suggested words for "King" () highlighted, repeated three times. Inscription now known to mean "Darius the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, who built this Palace". File:Niebuhr inscription 2 with word for King.jpg|Niebuhr inscription 2, with the suggested words for "King" () highlighted, repeated four times. Inscription now known to mean "Xerxes the Great King, King of Kings, son of Darius the King, an Achaemenian". In a final step, the decipherment of the trilingual Behistun Inscription was completed by Henry Rawlinson and Edward Hincks. Edward Hincks discovered that Old Persian is partly a syllabary. ==Transliteration==

(lines 15–21), giving the genealogy of Cyrus the Great and an account of his capture of Babylon in 539 BC ", for "Lord" or "Master": the evolution from the pictograph of a throne , followed by rotation and then simplification, down to . Cuneiform has a specific format for transliteration. Because of the script's polyvalence, transliteration requires certain choices of the transliterating scholar, who must decide in the case of each sign which of its several possible meanings is intended in the original document. For example, the sign dingir (𒀭) in a Hittite text may represent either the Hittite syllable an or may be part of an Akkadian phrase, representing the syllable il, it may be a Sumerogram, representing the original Sumerian meaning, 'god' or the determinative for a deity. In transliteration, a different rendition of the same glyph is chosen depending on its role in the present context. Therefore, a text containing DINGIR (𒀭) and A (𒀀) in succession could be construed to represent the Akkadian words "ana", "ila", god + "a" (the accusative case 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 would separate the signs with dashes "il-a", "an-a", "DINGIR-a" or "Da". 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. A transliterated document thus presents the reading preferred by the transliterating scholar as well as an opportunity to reconstruct the original text. There are differing conventions for transliterating different languages written with Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform. The following conventions see wide use across the different fields: • To disambiguate between homophones, i.e. between signs pronounced identically, the letters that express the pronunciation of a sign are supplemented with subscript numbers. For example, u1 stands for the glyph 𒌋, u2 stands for 𒌑, and u3 stands for 𒅇, all thought to have been pronounced /u/. No. 1 is usually treated as the default interpretation and not indicated explicitly, so u is equivalent to u1. For the numbers 2 and 3, accent diacritics are often used as well: an acute accent stands for no. 2 and a grave accent for no. 3. Thus, u is equivalent to u1 (𒌋), ú is equivalent to u2 (𒌑) and ù to u3 (𒅇). The sequence of numbering is conventional but essentially arbitrary and a consequence of the history of decipherment. • As shown above, signs as such are represented in capital letters. The specific reading selected in the transliteration is represented in small letters. Thus, capital letters can be used to indicate a so-called Diri compound, in which a sequence of signs does not stand for a combination of their usual readings, as in the spelling 𒅆𒀀 IGI.A for the word imhur 'foam' given above. Capital letters may also be used to indicate a Sumerogram, for example, KÙ.BABBAR 𒆬𒌓 – Sumerian for "silver" – being used with the intended Akkadian reading kaspum, "silver", or simply a sign sequence of whose reading the editor is uncertain. Naturally, the "real" reading, if it is clear, will be presented in small letters in the transliteration: IGI.A will be rendered as imhur4. An Akkadogram in Hittite is indicated by capital letters as well, but they are italicised: e.g. ME-E transcribes the sign sequence 𒈨𒂊 when the intended reading is Hittite wātar "water", based on Akkadian mê "water (accusative-genitive case)". • Another convention is that determinatives are written in superscript: thus, the sequence 𒀕𒆠 (the name of the city Uruk) is transliterated as unugki to show that the second sign, KI, meaning "earth", isn't intended to be pronounced, but only specifies the type of meaning the former sign has. In this case, that it is a place name. A few common determinatives are transliterated with abbreviations: for example, d represents the sign 𒀭 DINGIR when it serves as an indicator that one or more following signs form the name of a deity, as seen in the transliteration of 𒀭𒂗𒆤 as den-líl "Enlil". 𒁹 DIŠ 'one' and 𒊩 MUNUS 'woman' as prefixed determinatives for male and female personal names, uncommon in Sumerian, but subsequently used for some other languages, are often rendered with the abbreviations m and f for "masculine" and "feminine". • In Sumerian transliteration, a multiplication sign ('×') is used to indicate typographic ligatures. For example, the sign 𒅻 NUNDUM, which stands for the word nundum "lip", can also be designated as KA×NUN, which indicates that it is a compound of the signs 𒅗 KA "mouth" and 𒉣 NUN "prince". 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, 𒌨𒀭𒇉, read Ur-Bau at one time, was later read as Ur-Engur, and is now read as Ur-Nammu or Ur-Namma; for Lugal-zage-si (𒈗𒍠𒄀𒋛), a king of Uruk, some scholars continued to read Ungal-zaggisi; and so forth. 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. 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 doubt whether the signs composing a Semite's name represented a phonetic reading or a logographic compound. Thus, e.g. when inscriptions of a Semitic ruler of Kish, whose name was written 𒌷𒈬𒍑, Uru-mu-ush, were first deciphered, that name was first taken to be logographic because uru mu-ush could be read as "he founded a city" in Sumerian, and scholars accordingly retranslated it back to the original Semitic as Alu-usharshid. It was later recognized that the URU sign (𒌷) can also be read as rí and that the name is that of the Akkadian king Rimush. ==Sign inventories==

, southern Iraq The Sumerian cuneiform script had on the order of 1,000 distinct 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 texts, and not all Akkadian signs are used in Hittite. A. Falkenstein (1936) lists 939 signs used in the earliest period, late Uruk, 34th to 31st centuries. (See #Bibliography for the works mentioned in this paragraph.) With an emphasis on Sumerian forms, Deimel (1922) lists 870 signs used in the Early Dynastic II period (28th century, Liste der archaischen Keilschriftzeichen or "LAK") and for the Early Dynastic IIIa period (26th century, Šumerisches Lexikon or "ŠL"). Rosengarten (1967) lists 468 signs used in Sumerian (pre-Sargonian) Lagash. Mittermayer and Attinger (2006, Altbabylonische Zeichenliste der Sumerisch-Literarischen Texte or "aBZL") list 480 Sumerian forms, written in Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian times. Regarding Akkadian forms, the standard handbook for many years was Borger (1981, Assyrisch-Babylonische Zeichenliste or "ABZ") with 598 signs used in Assyrian and Babylonian writing, recently superseded by Borger (2004, Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon or "MesZL") with an expansion to 907 signs, an extension of their Sumerian readings and a new numbering scheme. The introduction of a cursive script in the Old Babylonian period coincided with the expansion of literacy beyond institutional settings, leading to greater variation in writing styles. This shift may have influenced the increasing number of documented signs, as reflected in later sign lists. As writing adapted to new contexts—whether for administrative, literary, or private use—the need for expanded and specialized sign inventories became more apparent. Signs used in Hittite cuneiform are listed by Forrer (1922), Friedrich (1960) and Rüster and Neu (1989, Hethitisches Zeichenlexikon or "HZL"). The HZL lists a total of 375 signs, many with variants (for example, 12 variants are given for number 123 EGIR). Syllabary The tables below contain the transliteration schemes of Sumero-Akkadian syllabograms. Numerals The Sumerians used a base-60 numerical system. A number, such as "70", would be represented with the digit for "60" (𒁹) and the digit for "10" (𒌋): 𒁹𒌋. It's important to mention that the number for "60" is the same as the number for "1"; the reason this number isn't read as "11" is because of the order of the numbers: 60 then 10, not 10 then 60. == Usage ==

Cuneiform script was used in many ways in ancient Mesopotamia. Besides the well-known clay tablets and stone inscriptions, cuneiform was also written on wax boards. One example from the 8th century BC was found at Nimrud. The wax contained toxic amounts of arsenic. It was used to record laws, like the Code of Hammurabi. It was also used for recording maps, compiling medical manuals, and documenting religious stories and beliefs, among other uses. In particular it is thought to have been used to prepare surveying data and draft inscriptions for Kassite stone kudurru. Studies by Assyriologists like Claus Wilcke and Dominique Charpin suggest that cuneiform literacy was not reserved solely for the elite but was common for average citizens. According to the Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture, cuneiform script was used at a variety of literacy levels: average citizens needed only a basic, functional knowledge of cuneiform script to write personal letters and business documents. Citizens with a higher degree of literacy put the script to more technical use, listing medicines and diagnoses and writing mathematical equations. Scholars held the highest literacy level of cuneiform and mostly focused on writing as a complex skill and an art form. Modern usage Cuneiform is occasionally used nowadays as inspiration for logos. Ama-gi.svg|Cuneiform ama-gi, literally "return to the mother", loosely translated as "liberty", is the logo of Liberty Fund. File:GigaMesh Logo.png|The central element of the GigaMesh Software Framework logo is the sign 𒆜 (kaskal) meaning "street" or "road junction". ==Unicode==

As of version 16.0, the following ranges are assigned to the Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform script in the Unicode Standard: • U+12000–U+123FF (922 assigned characters) Cuneiform • U+12400–U+1247F (116 assigned characters) Cuneiform Numbers and Punctuation • U+12480–U+1254F (196 assigned characters) Early Dynastic Cuneiform • In proposal phase Proto-cuneiform The latest proposal, L2/25-221, is nearing adoption. The final proposal for Unicode encoding of the script was submitted by two cuneiform scholars working with an experienced Unicode proposal writer in June 2004. 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 Englund. Rather than opting for a direct ordering by glyph shape and complexity, according to the numbering of an existing catalog, the Unicode order of glyphs was based on the Latin alphabetic order of their "last" Sumerian transliteration as a practical approximation. Once in Unicode, glyphs can be automatically processed into segmented transliterations. ==Corpus==

d cuneiform inscriptions. Cuneiform Inscriptions Geographical Site Index v1.5, November 2022, from Uppsala University. Numerous efforts have been made since the 19th century to create a corpus of known cuneiform inscriptions. In the 21st century, the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative and Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus are two of the most significant projects. List of major cuneiform tablet discoveries ==See also==