Related
K-10 - Public domain medieval manuscript
K-10 - Public domain medieval manuscript
Kety sprzedaz wojtostwa - Public domain medieval manuscript
Capitulacionsori - Public domain medieval manuscript
Cinnamologus - Public domain medieval manuscript
Libro del conocimiento - Public domain medieval manuscript
Enluminure du moyen âge - Public domain medieval manuscript
Odo Cluny-11 - Public domain medieval manuscript
Alban-script - Public domain medieval manuscript
K-10 - Public domain medieval manuscript
Summary
Cuneiform tablets were one of the earliest forms of written communication and used by the ancient Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) between the 4th and 1st millennium BCE. They provide a wealth of information about the ancient Mesopotamian society, including its economy, politics, religion, and culture. Cuneiform tablets were used for a wide range of purposes, including recording financial transactions, legal documents, religious texts, literature, and scientific observations.
The term "cuneiform" comes from the Latin word "cuneus," which means "wedge." Cuneiform tablets were made by pressing a reed stylus into wet clay, forming wedge-shaped marks that represented words and phrases. The clay was then left to dry in the sun, preserving the writing for thousands of years.
Sumer, site of the earliest known civilization, located in the southernmost part of Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in the area that later became Babylonia and is now southern Iraq, from around Baghdad to the Persian Gulf. The people called Sumerians, whose language became the prevailing language of the territory, probably came from around Anatolia, arriving in Sumer about 3300 BCE. By the 3rd millennium BCE the country was the site of at least 12 separate city-states: Kish, Erech (Uruk), Ur, Sippar, Akshak, Larak, Nippur, Adab, Umma, Lagash, Bad-tibira, and Larsa. Each of these states comprised a walled city and its surrounding villages and land, and each worshipped its own deity, whose temple was the central structure of the city. Political power originally belonged to the citizens, but, as rivalry between the various city-states increased, each adopted the institution of kingship. An extant document, The Sumerian King List, records that eight kings reigned before the great Flood.