How many words do you read in a day? With text everywhere, it’s easy to take writing for granted. But did you know that the world’s earliest known writing system first appeared in Mesopotamia, what we know as southern Iraq, around 3200 BC? It’s called cuneiform, Latin for “wedge-shaped,” because a reed stylus was used to impress wedges into wet clay tablets to record temple holdings and transactions, such as the number of animals in a herd, for example. Within a few hundred years, cuneiform writing spread throughout southern Iraq.
No longer just for record-keeping but for correspondence in business and political communications, including hymns that celebrated the gods. From these developments came scribes trained in the art of reading and writing, many of who worked for temples and palaces. Cuneiform texts—a reliable “written” history of ancient peoples for us to study and understand.
No longer just for record-keeping but for correspondence in business and political communications, including hymns that celebrated the gods. From these developments came scribes trained in the art of reading and writing, many of who worked for temples and palaces. Cuneiform texts—a reliable “written” history of ancient peoples for us to study and understand.
Share
More Book Minute Features
October 14, 2019
Eisenhower's Inaugural Verses
President Dwight Eisenhower was born on this day in 1890. Shortly before his first inauguration in 1953, the president-elect asked Billy Graham to sug...
October 07, 2019
Fanny Crosby: Prolific Blind Hymn Writer
Fanny Crosby, though blind from a very young age, became a prolific hymn writer.
Fanny Crosby was 15 when she was enrolled at the newly founded New Y...
September 30, 2019
Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address
The Battle of Gettysburg in July, 1863, was an attack by Confederate troops on the North — on their own soil! General Lee’s plan was to win, thereby d...