In the country in which we know today as Iraq was where the beginning of writing was created. In Mesopotamia, the ancient Sumerians developed the first writing system, cuneiform. The term cuneiform, which means “wedge-shaped writing” was coined by nineteenth- century scholars and the invention of cuneiform shaped the future for all civilizations. This paper will explore the history of cuneiform, the evolution of writing and never ending impact it had on history.
The writing system that we know today as cuneiform was created by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia around 3500 B.C.E. within the Uruk Period. The region of Sumer is commonly considered the cradle of civilization. Being located in between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, Sumerians were skilled farmers, sailors, and traders. The land was very fertile which led to the flourish of trade. With the increase of trade there was a need to keep track of it all. The economic necessity called for the need to keep track of all agricultural wealth. The start of writing was used to record goods such as jars of oil, bushels of barley, and ...
Writing is perhaps the most important building block of communication - after verbal speech, of course. Writing, like most of human civilization, has its roots in ancient Mesopotamia. The first writing systems began in a style known as cuneiform (Cuneiform, 2013). These wedge-shaped markings have their roots in Sumerian culture and were used predominantly for record keeping and accounting. At the archaeological site of Uruk in what is modern day Iraq, a great wealth of knowledge has been gained from the artifacts located there. Uruk was a ceremonial site and is home to the world’s oldest known documented written documents (Price and Feinman, 2013). The documents discovered list quantities of goods that may have been stored at Uruk, leading archaeologists to believe that writing in this part of the world was developed primarily to keep lists of transactions and stockpiled quantities of goods located at the site.
In chapter one of History begins at Sumer, Kramer states how the “Sumerian school was a direct outgrowth of the invention and development of the cuneiform system” (p.3) Essentially, the Sumerian’s were the first complex society to introduce a form of writing. It is a known fact that in modern America the people do not communicate writing by forms and variations of pictographs, but with an alphabetical system. The alphabet that is used today has evolved from what the ancient Sumerians had invented at the end of the third millennium B.C. However, the alphabet is only a stepping-stone to one of the many connections Kramer states is similar between modern times and the ancient Sumerians. According to History begins at Sumer, their writing system was a bridge to their school system. The original goal of the Sumerian school was to train the scribes. Yet, the Sumerian school was also the center of creative writing. The Sumerian school therefore, in a sense, ...
Cuneiform was the first ever form of writing. The Sumerians were the main inventors of this writing. The symbol as we know them now consist of lines and wedges. One of the
Nineteenth century British explorer Henry Rawlinson was among the first archeologists to draw attention to the importance of cuneiform writing. Arguably, his most valuable discovery was the monument at Bisitun in present-day Iran; Bitisun is a massive memorial to Darius, famed king of ancient Persia. Accor...
professor of philosophy at Marist College in New York. According to Ancient History Encyclopedia, Joshua J. Mark explained the development and history of cuneiform. He stated that cuneiform first developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia in c. 3500-3000 BCE. The name “cuneiform” derived from the Latin word cuneus, which meant “wedge.” Many Mesopotamian civilizations, such as Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Elamites, Hittites, and Assyrians, utilized cuneiform until
Writing really emerged separately in three regions independently of one another. Those regions are Central and South America, Mesopotamia, and Asia. It is generally accepted that writing (Cuneiform) came about in Mesopotamia as a means of documenting transactions and keeping track of merchandises. Let's say, one mark on a clay tablet intended to be one unit of something (bushel of grains, livestock, etc.), two marks intended to be two unit, and so on. From there individuals understood that if you could represent numbers in writing, then you could as well characterize words. In this way, individuals could communicate with each other deprived of having to be physically present. The Mesopotamian form of writing progressed into all western and Middle Eastern writing form used in the present day.
In 1886 an archeologists named Arthur Evans discovered an ancient stone that was engraved with mysterious writings. Through continuous investigation and research Evans made a connection between the mysterious writing system and the Aegean empire of the ancient Minoans. Later Evans discovered another unique form of writing that was very similar to the first one he discovered. Evans called these forms of writing Linear A and Linear B. Linear A and B is a form of writing systems that were used by ancient Crete. Evans named them “Linear” because the writings were formed in a linear structure instead of being a pictograph which was a very popular writing form during that time. Evans also discovered that Linear A was a predecessor of Linear B. The writing forms Linear A and Linear B opened up a new world of discovery for the archeologist of that time period. In return these writings made communications between people easier and became a stepping stone for our world a language today.
That was an act of human creation of the Near Eastern river valleys of Sumer and Egypt. Cuneiform writing in Sumer and the hieroglyphics in Egypt was developed in this time period. Such things as the Code of Hammurabi and the fall of the Assyrian Empire, The Persian wars, assassination of Julius Caesar, it was also the start of the Greco-Roman Age, and the end of the Roman Empire in the West.
Writing is one of the many factors which can lead to an unequal world. Writing was “One of the most important inventions in human history” (Prososki, “Writing”). It was believed to come from the Fertile Crescent called Sumer around 5,000 years ago. Over the years, writing has advanced as people created writing and printing systems, which were able to reach
We chose to do the history of alphabets, focusing on a specific three- those being the Egyptian alphabet, the Ancient Latin alphabet, and the Cyrillic alphabet. We chose to do it as there are plenty of alphabets currently in use in the world that are all extremely different. There have been a total of 59 total alphabets in the world, with 18 currently in use, 9 used to a limited extent and 29 currently unused. We thought it would be very interesting to know of their origins, how they r...
Humans have been using written language to communicate ideas with one another since as early as 3200 BCE in Mesopotamia. Since then, every great civilization has had a written language, each with its own unique characteristics. However, it was the writin...
The first primary civilization was located in Southern Mesopotamia, known as Sumer. The Sumerians invented the first writing known as Cuneiform. We are left with tens of thousands of written records on many aspects of the Sumerians, the most notable of these being the Epic of Gilgamesh. This is an a...
The earliest writing in Mesopotamia was a picture writing invented by the Sumerians who wrote on clay tablets using long reeds. The script the Sumerians invented and handed down to the Semitic peoples who conquered Mesopotamia in later centuries, is called cuneiform, which is derived from two Latin words: cuneus , which means "wedge," and forma , which means "shape." This picture language, similar to but more abstract than Egyptian hieroglyphics, eventually developed into a syllabic alphabet under the Semites (Assyrians and Babylonians) who eventually came to dominate the area.
Chinese is the oldest writing system in the world that has remained relatively constant over history. A logographic language, the written language comprises of very visual symbols that represent various items and concepts without any sort of guide to pronunciation. Chinese is a very visually stunning script that can be affiliated with several writing mediums. The evolution of the Chinese script and some artistic pieces associated with each significant form are to be briefly presented in this paper and the accompanying presentation.
... helped the architecture to have accurate measurements . Another civilization that also developed a system of writing was China. The written language could be easily to read and understand, but when they spoke it it was difficult to understand. This civilization had a big advantage with the system of writing because all parts of china everyone could learn the language even if they already spoke a different language. This helped make a great civilization because it unifies a large and diverse land and this helped to control it easier. One disadvantage it has is that the writing system has a lot of things to memorize. So if you were a wealthy kid and went to a good school you could memorize the major part of the language, but if you were in the lower class and went to a cheap school then you had trouble learning the language because they didn’t teach the whole language