Cuneiform writing
Escritura cuneiforme
- Date
- c. 3200 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- Uruk (Warka), Sumer, Iraq
- Credited to
- Sumerians (administrators of the Eanna temple, Uruk IV)
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
System of signs pressed with a stylus into clay that evolved from accounting pictographs into a logo-syllabic system capable of recording speech. It is the earliest known complete writing system and the origin of documented history.
Priority is disputed against Egyptian hieroglyphs: the Abydos labels (tomb U-j) date to c. 3250 BCE, contemporary with Uruk IV. Most scholars consider both systems essentially independent inventions with possible stimulus diffusion. Chinese writing (c. 1250 BCE) and Mesoamerican writing (c. 900-600 BCE) are independent inventions.
What it led to
- Temple and palace bureaucracy able to manage thousands of workers and rations
- Territorial state with archives, censuses and enforceable contracts
- Written literature (Gilgamesh) and faithful transmission of knowledge across generations
- Scribal schools (edubba) and a literate class with power of its own
- Adoption of cuneiform by Akkadians, Elamites, Hittites, Hurrians and Ugaritians as an international diplomatic script
Built on
Made possible
- Accounting ledgers and balancesc. 3100 BCE
- Palace archive and libraryc. 2500 BCE
- Scribal school (edubba) and written curriculumc. 2500 BCE
- Written epic literature (Gilgamesh)c. 2100 BCE
- Written law codec. 2100 BCE
- State courier and relay systemc. 2100 BCE
- Babylonian culinary tablets (Yale Collection)c. 1750 BCE
- Written international peace treaty (Kadesh)1259 BCE
- Old Persian cuneiformc. 520 BCE
- Accounting by entries
- Diplomatic correspondence
- Library and archive
- Akkadian syllabic script