Cuneiform

Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system in the world. Developed by the Sumerians of southern Mesopotamia around 3400 BCE, it began as simple pictographic symbols pressed into wet clay with a reed stylus. Over centuries, these pictures evolved into abstract wedge-shaped marks — "cuneiform" comes from the Latin cuneus, meaning "wedge" — capable of representing not just objects but sounds, grammar, and abstract ideas.

At its peak, cuneiform was used to write at least fifteen different languages across the ancient Near East, from Sumerian and Akkadian to Hittite and Old Persian. It recorded everything from royal inscriptions and diplomatic correspondence to mathematical calculations, medical prescriptions, and love poems. The Epic of Gilgamesh, humanity's oldest surviving work of narrative literature, was preserved in cuneiform on clay tablets.

Cuneiform remained in active use for over three thousand years before being gradually replaced by alphabetic scripts. The last known cuneiform inscription dates to 75 CE. The script was deciphered in the 19th century, primarily through the trilingual Behistun inscription in Iran, unlocking an entire world of ancient literature, history, and thought that had been silent for nearly two millennia.