Cuneiform Writing in Sumeria

Cuneiform pictograms were drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with a tool made from a sharpened reed stylus. Then two developments made the process quicker and easier: People wrote from left to right in horizontal rows. The new wedge shaped stylus was used for wedged shaped cuneiform.The word "cuneiform" derives from the Latin word cuneus,which meaning "wedge".Many of the tablets found by archaeologists were preserved because they were baked when enemy armies burned the buildings they were stored in.

The cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of writing.It was created by the Sumerians from in the 34th century BCE.Cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs.Pictograms were originally drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with a tool made from a sharpened reed stylus, or incised in stone. The archaic style was still missing the wedge-shape characteristic of the strokes.From about the year 2900 BC, the pictographs began to lose their original function.Given a sign could have various meanings depending on thee context. The signs were reduced from some 1,500 signs to some 600 signs.Writing became increasingly phonological.This process is directly parallel to, and not independent of the development of Egyptian hieroglyphic orthography.The knowledge of cuneiform was lost until 1835, when Henry Rawlinson the British army officer, found some Behistun inscriptions on a cliff at Behistun in Persia.