Los orígenes de la escritura: El cuneiforme

Ever heard of Cuneiform?

One of the earliest recorded forms of writing was called cuneiform and dates back over 3000 years to West Asia. The name ‘cuneiform comes from the Latin “cuneaus” meaning wedge and “forma” meaning form. It is one of the earliest known forms of writing and consisted of wedge –shaped marks impressed into clay tablets with by a blunt instrument (usually a reed which is the stem of a strong water grass).

It was very common in ancient times as a method of recording everything from daily life, to how many sheep someone had to a letter from a king. It was used much in the same way that the ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphics (pictures to tell stories and record information).The earliest known cuneiform clay tablets date back over 300 years and in the beginning was almost exclusively used for record keeping and accounting.

This system of writing was used by many of the ancient civilizations, such as the Sumerians, Persians and Babylonian cultures that spread across West Asia, then called Mesopotamia, now called modern day Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey.

D. Lindsay