Cuneiform

For other uses, see Cuneiform (disambiguation).

Cuneiform
Trilingual cuneiform inscription of Xerxes I at Van Fortress in Turkey, written in Old Persian, Akkadian and Elamite
Type	Logographic and syllabic
Languages	Akkadian, Eblaite, Elamite, Hattic, Hittite, Hurrian, Luwian, Sumerian, Urartian, Old Persian
Created	around 3200 BC
Time period	c. 31st century BC to 1st century AD
Parent systems	(Proto-writing) Cuneiform
Child systems	None; influenced shape of Ugaritic; apparently inspired Old Persian
Direction	Left-to-right
ISO 15924	Xsux, 020
Unicode alias	Cuneiform
Unicode range	U+12000 to U+123FF Cuneiform U+12400 to U+1247F Cuneiform Numbers and Punctuation

Cuneiform or Sumerian cuneiform, one of the earliest systems of writing, was invented by the Sumerians. It is distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made by means of a blunt reed for a stylus. The name cuneiform itself simply means "wedge shaped".

Emerging in Sumer in the late fourth millennium BC (the Uruk IV period) to convey the Sumerian language, which was a language isolate, cuneiform writing began as a system of pictograms, stemming from an earlier system of shaped tokens used for accounting. In the third millennium, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract as the number of characters in use grew smaller (Hittite cuneiform). The system consists of a combination of logophonetic, consonantal alphabetic and syllabic signs.

The original Sumerian script was adapted for the writing of the Semitic Akkadian (Assyrian/Babylonian), Eblaite and Amorite languages, the language isolates Elamite, Hattic, Hurrian and Urartian, as well as Indo-European languages Hittite and Luwian; it inspired the later Semitic Ugaritic alphabet as well as Old Persian cuneiform. Cuneiform writing was gradually replaced by the Phoenician alphabet during the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–612 BC). By the second century AD, the script had become extinct, its last traces being found in Assyria and Babylonia, and all knowledge of how to read it was lost until it began to be deciphered in the 19th century.

Geoffrey Sampson stated that Egyptian hieroglyphs "came into existence a little after Sumerian script, and, probably [were], invented under the influence of the latter", and that it is "probable that the general idea of expressing words of a language in writing was brought to Egypt from Sumerian Mesopotamia". There are many instances of Egypt-Mesopotamia relations at the time of the invention of writing, and standard reconstructions of the development of writing generally place the development of the Sumerian proto-cuneiform script before the development of Egyptian hieroglyphs, with the suggestion the former influenced the latter.

Between half a million and two million cuneiform tablets are estimated to have been excavated in modern times, of which only approximately 30,000–100,000 have been read or published. The British Museum holds the largest collection (c. 130,000), followed by the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin, the Louvre, the Istanbul Archaeology Museums, the National Museum of Iraq, the Yale Babylonian Collection (c. 40,000) and Penn Museum. Most of these have "lain in these collections for a century without being translated, studied or published", as there are only a few hundred qualified cuneiformists in the world.

History

Table illustrating the progressive simplification of cuneiform signs

An ancient Mesopotamian poem gives the first known story of the invention of writing:

Because the messager's mouth was heavy and he couldn't repeat (the message), the Lord of Kulaba patted some clay and put words on it, like a tablet. Until then, there had been no putting words on clay.

— Sumerian epic poem Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta. Circa 1800 BC.

The cuneiform writing system was in use for more than three millennia, through several stages of development, from the 31st century BC down to the second century AD. Ultimately, it was completely replaced by alphabetic writing (in the general sense) in the course of the Roman era, and there are no cuneiform systems in current use. It had to be deciphered as a completely unknown writing system in 19th-century Assyriology. Successful completion of its deciphering is dated to 1857.

The cuneiform script underwent considerable changes over a period of more than two millennia. The image below shows the development of the sign SAĜ "head" (Borger nr. 184, U+12295 𒊕). Stages: shows the pictogram as it was drawn around 3000 BC shows the rotated pictogram as written from c. 2800 BC – c. 2600 BC shows the abstracted glyph in archaic monumental inscriptions, from c. 2600 BC is the sign as written in clay, contemporary to stage 3 represents the late 3rd millennium represents Old Assyrian ductus of the early 2nd millennium, as adopted into Hittite is the simplified sign as written by Assyrian scribes in the early 1st millennium and until the script's extinction.

Pictographic and proto-cuneiform characters

See also: Kish tablet

Tablet with proto-cuneiform pictographic characters (end of 4th millennium BC), Uruk III.

The cuneiform script was developed from pictographic proto-writing in the late 4th millennium BC, stemming from the near eastern token system used for accounting. These tokens were in use from the 9th millennium BC and remained in occasional use even late in the 2nd millennium BC. It has been suggested that the token shapes were the original basis for some of the Sumerian pictographs.

The Kish tablet, a limestone tablet from Kish with pictographic, early cuneiform, writing, 3500 BC. Possibly the earliest known example of writing. Ashmolean Museum.

Mesopotamia's "proto-literate" period spans roughly the 35th to 32nd centuries. The first documents unequivocally written in Sumerian date to the 31st century BC at Jemdet Nasr.

Originally, pictographs were either drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with a sharpened reed stylus or incised in stone. This early style lacked the characteristic wedge shape of the strokes.

Certain signs to indicate names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc., are known as determinatives and were the Sumerian signs of the terms in question, added as a guide for the reader. Proper names continued to be usually written in purely "logographic" fashion.

The earliest known Sumerian king whose name appears on contemporary cuneiform tablets is Enmebaragesi of Kish. Surviving records only very gradually become less fragmentary and more complete for the following reigns, but by the end of the pre-Sargonic period, it had become standard practice for each major city-state to date documents by year-names commemorating the exploits of its lugal (king).

From about 2900 BC, many pictographs began to lose their original function, and a given sign could have various meanings depending on context. The sign inventory was reduced from some 1,500 signs to some 600 signs, and writing became increasingly phonological. Determinative signs were re-introduced to avoid ambiguity. Cuneiform writing proper thus arises from the more primitive system of pictographs at about that time (Early Bronze Age II).

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  Precuneiform tablet, end of the 4th millennium.

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  Proto-cuneiform tablet, Jemdet Nasr period, c.3100-2900.

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  Proto-cuneiform tablet, Jemdet Nasr period, c.3100-2900. A dog on a leash is visible in the background of the lower panel.

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  The Blau Monuments combine proto-cuneiform characters and illustrations, 3100-2700 BC. British Museum.

Archaic cuneiform

Further information: Liste der archaischen Keilschriftzeichen and Early Dynastic Cuneiform

In the mid-3rd millennium BC, a new wedge-tipped stylus was introduced which was pushed into the clay, producing wedge-shaped ("cuneiform") signs; the development made writing quicker and easier. By adjusting the relative position of the tablet to the stylus, the writer could use a single tool to make a variety of impressions. The direction of writing remained to be from top-to-bottom and right-to-left, until the mid-2nd millennium BC.

Sumerian inscription in monumental archaic style, c. 26th century BC

Cuneiform tablets could be fired in kilns to bake them hard, and so provide a permanent record, or they could be left moist and recycled, if permanence was not needed. Many of the clay tablets found by archaeologists have been preserved by chance, baked when attacking armies burned the buildings in which they were kept.

The script was also widely used on commemorative stelae and carved reliefs to record the achievements of the ruler in whose honour the monument had been erected.

The spoken language included many homophones and near-homophones, and in the beginning similar-sounding words such as "life" [til] and "arrow" [ti] were written with the same symbol. After the Semites conquered Southern Mesopotamia, some signs gradually changed from being pictograms to syllabograms, most likely to make things clearer in writing. In that way the sign for the word "arrow" would become the sign for the sound "ti". Words that sounded alike would have different signs; for instance the syllable "gu" had fourteen different symbols. When the words had similar meaning but very different sounds they were written with the same symbol. For instance "tooth" [zu], "mouth" [ka] and "voice" [gu] were all written with the symbol for "voice". To be more accurate, scribes started adding to signs or combining two signs to define the meaning. They used either geometrical patterns or another cuneiform sign. As time went by, the cuneiform got very complex and the distinction between a pictogram and syllabogram became vague. Several symbols had too many meanings to permit clarity. Therefore, symbols were put together to indicate both the sound and the meaning of a compound. The word "Raven" [UGA] had the same logogram as the word "soap" [NAGA], name of a city [EREŠ] and the patron goddess of Eresh [NISABA]. Two phonetic complements were used to define the word [u] in front of the symbol and [gu] behind. Finally the symbol for "bird" [MUŠEN] was added to ensure proper interpretation.

Written Sumerian was used as a scribal language until the first century AD. The spoken language died out around the 18th century BC.

Akkadian cuneiform

Seal of Akkadian Empire ruler Naram-Sin (reversed for readability), circa 2250 BC. The name of Naram-Sin (Akkadian: 𒀭𒈾𒊏𒄠𒀭𒂗𒍪: ^DNa-ra-am ^DSîn), appears vertically in the right column. British Museum.

The archaic cuneiform script was adopted by the Akkadian Empire from the 23rd century BC (short chronology), and by the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (20th century BC), it had evolved into Old Assyrian cuneiform, with many modifications to Sumerian orthography. The Semitic languages employed equivalents for many signs that were distorted or abbreviated to represent new values because the syllabic nature of the script as refined by the Sumerians was not intuitive to Semitic speakers. At this stage, the former pictograms were reduced to a high level of abstraction, and were composed of only five basic wedge shapes: horizontal, vertical, two diagonals and the Winkelhaken impressed vertically by the tip of the stylus. The signs exemplary of these basic wedges are

• AŠ (B001, U+12038) 𒀸: horizontal;
• DIŠ (B748, U+12079) 𒁹: vertical;
• GE₂₃, DIŠ tenû (B575, U+12039) 𒀹: downward diagonal;
• GE₂₂ (B647, U+1203A) 𒀺: upward diagonal;
• U (B661, U+1230B) 𒌋: the Winkelhaken.

Except for the Winkelhaken which has no tail, the length of the wedges' tails could vary as required for sign composition.

Signs tilted by about 45 degrees are called tenû in Akkadian, thus DIŠ is a vertical wedge and DIŠ tenû a diagonal one. If a sign is modified with additional wedges, this is called gunû or "gunification"; if signs are crosshatched with additional Winkelhaken, they are called šešig; if signs are modified by the removal of a wedge or wedges, they are called nutillu.

Cuneiform tablet from the Kirkor Minassian collection in the US Library of Congress, c. 24th century BC

"Typical" signs have about five to ten wedges, while complex ligatures can consist of twenty or more (although it is not always clear if a ligature should be considered a single sign or two collated, but distinct signs); the ligature KAxGUR₇ consists of 31 strokes.

Most later adaptations of Sumerian cuneiform preserved at least some aspects of the Sumerian script. Written Akkadian included phonetic symbols from the Sumerian syllabary, together with logograms that were read as whole words. Many signs in the script were polyvalent, having both a syllabic and logographic meaning. The complexity of the system bears a resemblance to Old Japanese, written in a Chinese-derived script, where some of these Sinograms were used as logograms and others as phonetic characters.

Assyrian cuneiform

Neo-Assyrian ligature KAxGUR₇ (𒅬); the KA sign (𒅗) was a Sumerian compound marker, and appears frequently in ligatures enclosing other signs. GUR₇ is itself a ligature of SÍG.AḪ.ME.U, meaning "to pile up; grain-heap" (Akkadian kamāru; karû).

This "mixed" method of writing continued through the end of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, although there were periods when "purism" was in fashion and there was a more marked tendency to spell out the words laboriously, in preference to using signs with a phonetic complement. Yet even in those days, the Babylonian syllabary remained a mixture of logographic and phonemic writing.

Hittite cuneiform is an adaptation of the Old Assyrian cuneiform of c. 1800 BC to the Hittite language. When the cuneiform script was adapted to writing Hittite, a layer of Akkadian logographic spellings was added to the script, thus the pronunciations of many Hittite words which were conventionally written by logograms are now unknown.

In the Iron Age (c. 10th to 6th centuries BC), Assyrian cuneiform was further simplified. From the 6th century, the Akkadian language was marginalized by Aramaic, written in the Aramaean alphabet, but Neo-Assyrian cuneiform remained in use in literary tradition well into times of Parthian Empire (250 BC – AD 226). The last known cuneiform inscription, an astronomical text, was written in 75 AD.

Derived scripts

DNa inscription (part II) of Darius the Great (circa 490 BC), in the newly created Old Persian cuneiform.

Main article: Old Persian cuneiform

The complexity of the system prompted the development of a number of simplified versions of the script. Old Persian was written in a subset of simplified cuneiform characters known today as Old Persian cuneiform, developed by Darius the Great in the 5th century BC. It formed a semi-alphabetic syllabary, using far fewer wedge strokes than Assyrian used, together with a handful of logograms for frequently occurring words like "god" and "king". This nearly alphabetical form of the cuneiform script (36 phonetic characters and 8 logograms), was specially designed and used by the early Achaemenid rulers from the 6th century BC.

		k-	x-	g-	c-	ç-	j-	t-	θ-	d-	p-	f-	b-	n-	m-	y-	v-	r-	l-	s-	z-	š-	h-
-(a)	𐎠	𐎣	𐎧	𐎥	𐎨	𐏂	𐎩	𐎫	𐎰	𐎭	𐎱	𐎳	𐎲	𐎴	𐎶	𐎹	𐎺	𐎼	𐎾	𐎿	𐏀	𐏁	𐏃
-i	𐎡	—		—			𐎪			𐎮					𐎷		𐎻
-u	𐎢	𐎤		𐎦			—	𐎬		𐎯				𐎵	𐎸		—	𐎽

Ugaritic was written using the Ugaritic alphabet, a standard Semitic style alphabet (an abjad) written using the cuneiform method.

Decipherment

For centuries, travellers to Persepolis, located in Iran, had noticed carved cuneiform inscriptions and were intrigued. Attempts at deciphering these Old Persian writings date back to Arabo-Persian historians of the medieval Islamic world, though these early attempts at decipherment were largely unsuccessful.

In the 15th century, the Venetian Giosafat Barbaro explored ancient ruins in the Middle East and came back with news of a very odd writing he had found carved on the stones in the temples of Shiraz and on many clay tablets.

Standard reconstruction of the development of writing, with position of cuneiform. There is a possibility that the Egyptian script was invented independently from the Mesopotamian script.

Antonio de Gouvea, a professor of theology, noted in 1602 the strange writing he had had occasion to observe during his travels a year earlier in Persia which took in visits to ruins. In 1625, the Roman traveler Pietro Della Valle, who had sojourned in Mesopotamia between 1616 and 1621, brought to Europe copies of characters he had seen in Persepolis and inscribed bricks from Ur and the ruins of Babylon. The copies he made, the first that reached circulation within Europe, were not quite accurate but Della Valle understood that the writing had to be read from left to right, following the direction of wedges, but did not attempt to decipher the scripts.

Englishman Sir Thomas Herbert, in the 1638 edition of his travel book Some Yeares Travels into Africa & Asia the Great. … , reported seeing at Persepolis carved on the wall "a dozen lines of strange characters…consisting of figures, obelisk, triangular, and pyramidal" and thought they resembled Greek. In the 1677 edition he reproduced some and thought they were 'legible and intelligible' and therefore decipherable. He also guessed, correctly, that they represented not letters or hieroglyphics but words and syllables, and were to be read from left to right. Herbert is rarely mentioned in standard histories of the decipherment of cuneiform.

Carsten Niebuhr brought the first reasonably complete and accurate copies of the inscriptions at Persepolis to Europe in 1767. Bishop Friedrich Münter of Copenhagen discovered that the words in the Persian inscriptions were divided from one another by an oblique wedge and that the monuments must belong to the age of Cyrus and his successors. One word, which occurs without any variation towards the beginning of each inscription, he correctly inferred to signify "king". By 1802 Georg Friedrich Grotefend had determined that two kings' names mentioned were Darius and Xerxes (but in their native Old Persian forms, which were unknown at the time and therefore had to be conjectured), and had been able to assign correct alphabetic values to the cuneiform characters which composed the two names. Although Grotefend's Memoir was presented to the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities on September 4, 1802, the Academy refused to publish it; it was subsequently published in Heeren's work in 1815, but was overlooked by most researchers at the time.

In 1836, the eminent French scholar Eugène Burnouf discovered that the first of the inscriptions published by Niebuhr contained a list of the satrapies of Darius. With this clue in his hand, he identified and published an alphabet of thirty letters, most of which he had correctly deciphered.

A month earlier, a friend and pupil of Burnouf's, Professor Christian Lassen of Bonn, had also published his own work on The Old Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions of Persepolis. He and Burnouf had been in frequent correspondence, and his claim to have independently detected the names of the satrapies, and thereby to have fixed the values of the Persian characters, was consequently fiercely attacked. According to Sayce, whatever his obligations to Burnouf may have been, Lassen's

...contributions to the decipherment of the inscriptions were numerous and important. He succeeded in fixing the true values of nearly all the letters in the Persian alphabet, in translating the texts, and in proving that the language of them was not Zend, but stood to both Zend and Sanskrit in the relation of a sister.

— Sayce

Meanwhile, in 1835 Henry Rawlinson, a British East India Company army officer, visited the Behistun Inscriptions in Persia. Carved in the reign of King Darius of Persia (522–486 BC), they consisted of identical texts in the three official languages of the empire: Old Persian, Assyrian and Elamite. The Behistun inscription was to the decipherment of cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone was to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Rawlinson correctly deduced that the Old Persian was a phonetic script and he successfully deciphered it. In 1837 he finished his copy of the Behistun inscription, and sent a translation of its opening paragraphs to the Royal Asiatic Society. Before his article could be published, however, the works of Lassen and Burnouf reached him, necessitating a revision of his article and the postponement of its publication. Then came other causes of delay. In 1847 the first part of the Rawlinson's Memoir was published; the second part did not appear until 1849. The task of deciphering the Persian cuneiform texts was virtually accomplished.

After translating the Persian, Rawlinson and, working independently of him, the Irish Assyriologist Edward Hincks, began to decipher the others. (The actual techniques used to decipher the Akkadian language have never been fully published; Hincks described how he sought the proper names already legible in the deciphered Persian while Rawlinson never said anything at all, leading some to speculate that he was secretly copying Hincks.) They were greatly helped by the excavations of the French naturalist Paul Émile Botta and English traveler and diplomat Austen Henry Layard of the city of Nineveh from 1842. Among the treasures uncovered by Layard and his successor Hormuzd Rassam were, in 1849 and 1851, the remains of two libraries, now mixed up, usually called the Library of Ashurbanipal, a royal archive containing tens of thousands of baked clay tablets covered with cuneiform inscriptions.

By 1851, Hincks and Rawlinson could read 200 Babylonian signs. They were soon joined by two other decipherers: young German-born scholar Julius Oppert, and versatile British Orientalist William Henry Fox Talbot. In 1857 the four men met in London and took part in a famous experiment to test the accuracy of their decipherments. Edwin Norris, the secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society, gave each of them a copy of a recently discovered inscription from the reign of the Assyrian emperor Tiglath-Pileser I. A jury of experts was empanelled to examine the resulting translations and assess their accuracy. In all essential points the translations produced by the four scholars were found to be in close agreement with one another. There were of course some slight discrepancies. The inexperienced Talbot had made a number of mistakes, and Oppert's translation contained a few doubtful passages which the jury politely ascribed to his unfamiliarity with the English language. But Hincks' and Rawlinson's versions corresponded remarkably closely in many respects. The jury declared itself satisfied, and the decipherment of Akkadian cuneiform was adjudged a fait accompli.

Proper names

In the early days of cuneiform decipherment, the reading of proper names presented the greatest difficulties. However, there is now a better understanding of the principles behind the formation and the pronunciation of the thousands of names found in historical records, business documents, votive inscriptions, literary productions and legal documents. The primary challenge was posed by the characteristic use of old Sumerian non-phonetic logograms in other languages that had different pronunciations for the same symbols. Until the exact phonetic reading of many names was determined through parallel passages or explanatory lists, scholars remained in doubt, or had recourse to conjectural or provisional readings. However, in many cases, there are variant readings, the same name being written phonetically (in whole or in part) in one instance and logographically in another.

Transliteration

Extract from the Cyrus Cylinder (lines 15–21), giving the genealogy of Cyrus the Great and an account of his capture of Babylon in 539 BC

Cuneiform has a specific format for transliteration. Because of the script's polyvalence, transliteration requires certain choices of the transliterating scholar, who must decide in the case of each sign which of its several possible meanings is intended in the original document. For example, the sign DINGIR in a Hittite text may represent either the Hittite syllable an or may be part of an Akkadian phrase, representing the syllable il, it may be a Sumerogram, representing the original Sumerian meaning, 'god' or the determinative for a deity. In transliteration, a different rendition of the same glyph is chosen depending on its role in the present context.

Therefore, a text containing DINGIR and MU in succession could be construed to represent the words "ana", "ila", god + "a" (the accusative case ending), god + water, or a divine name "A" or Water. Someone transcribing the signs would make the decision how the signs should be read and assemble the signs as "ana", "ila", "Ila" ("god"+accusative case), etc. A transliteration of these signs, however, would separate the signs with dashes "il-a", "an-a", "DINGIR-a" or "^Da". This is still easier to read than the original cuneiform, but now the reader is able to trace the sounds back to the original signs and determine if the correct decision was made on how to read them. A transliterated document thus presents the reading preferred by the transliterating scholar as well as an opportunity to reconstruct the original text.

There are differing conventions for transliterating Sumerian, Akkadian (Babylonian) and Hittite (and Luwian) cuneiform texts. One convention that sees wide use across the different fields is the use of acute and grave accents as an abbreviation for homophone disambiguation. Thus, u is equivalent to u₁, the first glyph expressing phonetic u. An acute accent, ú, is equivalent to the second, u₂, and a grave accent ù to the third, u₃ glyph in the series (while the sequence of numbering is conventional but essentially arbitrary and subject to the history of decipherment). In Sumerian transliteration, a multiplication sign 'x' is used to indicate typographic ligatures. As shown above, signs as such are represented in capital letters, while the specific reading selected in the transliteration is represented in small letters. Thus, capital letters can be used to indicate a so-called Diri compound – a sign sequence that has, in combination, a reading different from the sum of the individual constituent signs (for example, the compound IGI.A – "water" + "eye" – has the reading imhur, meaning "foam"). In a Diri compound, the individual signs are separated with dots in transliteration. Capital letters may also be used to indicate a Sumerogram (for example, KÙ.BABBAR – Sumerian for "silver" – being used with the intended Akkadian reading kaspum, "silver"), an Akkadogram, or simply a sign sequence of whose reading the editor is uncertain. Naturally, the "real" reading, if it is clear, will be presented in small letters in the transliteration: IGI.A will be rendered as imhur₄.

Since the Sumerian language has only been widely known and studied by scholars for approximately a century, changes in the accepted reading of Sumerian names have occurred from time to time. Thus the name of a king of Ur, read Ur-Bau at one time, was later read as Ur-Engur, and is now read as Ur-Nammu or Ur-Namma; for Lugal-zage-si, a king of Uruk, some scholars continued to read Ungal-zaggisi; and so forth. Also, with some names of the older period, there was often uncertainty whether their bearers were Sumerians or Semites. If the former, then their names could be assumed to be read as Sumerian, while, if they were Semites, the signs for writing their names were probably to be read according to their Semitic equivalents, though occasionally Semites might be encountered bearing genuine Sumerian names. There was also doubt whether the signs composing a Semite's name represented a phonetic reading or a logographic compound. Thus, e.g. when inscriptions of a Semitic ruler of Kish, whose name was written Uru-mu-ush, were first deciphered, that name was first taken to be logographic because uru mu-ush could be read as "he founded a city" in Sumerian, and scholars accordingly retranslated it back to the original Semitic as Alu-usharshid. It was later recognized that the URU sign can also be read as rí and that the name is that of the Akkadian king Rimush.

Syllabary

The tables below show signs used for simple syllables of the form CV or VC. As used for the Sumerian language, the cuneiform script was in principle capable of distinguishing at least 16 consonants, transliterated as

b, d, g, g̃, ḫ, k, l, m, n, p, r, ř, s, š, t, z

as well as four vowel qualities, a, e, i, u. The Akkadian language had no use for g̃ or ř but needed to distinguish its emphatic series, q, ṣ, ṭ, adopting various "superfluous" Sumerian signs for the purpose (e.g. qe=KIN, qu=KUM, qi=KIN, ṣa=ZA, ṣe=ZÍ, ṭur=DUR etc.) Hittite, as it adopted the Akkadian cuneiform, further introduced signs such as wi₅=GEŠTIN.

	-a	-e	-i	-u
	a 𒀀, á 𒀉	e 𒂊, é 𒂍	i 𒄿, í=IÁ 𒐊	u 𒌋, ú 𒌑, ù 𒅇
b-	ba 𒁀, bá=PA 𒉺, bà=EŠ 𒂠	be=BAD 𒁁, bé=BI 𒁉, bè=NI 𒉌	bi 𒁉, bí=NE 𒉈, bì=PI 𒉿	bu 𒁍, bú=KASKAL 𒆜, bù=PÙ 𒅤
d-	da 𒁕, dá=TA 𒋫	de=DI 𒁲, dé , dè=NE 𒉈	di 𒁲, dí=TÍ 𒄭	du 𒁺, dú=TU 𒌅, dù=GAG 𒆕, du4=TUM 𒌈
g-	ga 𒂵, gá 𒂷	ge=GI 𒄀, gé=KID 𒆤, gè=DIŠ 𒁹	gi 𒄀, gí=KID 𒆤, gì=DIŠ 𒁹, gi4 𒄄, gi5=KI 𒆠	gu 𒄖, gú 𒄘, gù=KA 𒅗, gu4 𒄞, gu5=KU 𒆪, gu6=NAG 𒅘, gu7 𒅥
ḫ-	ḫa 𒄩, ḫá=ḪI.A 𒄭𒀀, ḫà=U 𒌋, ḫa4=ḪI 𒄭	ḫe=ḪI 𒄭, ḫé=GAN 𒃶	ḫi 𒄭, ḫí=GAN 𒃶	ḫu 𒄷
k-	ka 𒅗, ká 𒆍, kà=GA 𒂵	ke=KI 𒆠, ké=GI 𒄀	ki 𒆠, kí=GI 𒄀	ku 𒆪, kú=GU7 𒅥, kù 𒆬, ku4 𒆭
l-	la 𒆷, lá=LAL 𒇲, là=NU 𒉡	le=LI 𒇷, lé=NI 𒉌	li 𒇷, lí=NI 𒉌	lu 𒇻, lú 𒇽
m-	ma 𒈠, má 𒈣	me 𒈨, mé=MI 𒈪, mè 𒀞/𒅠	mi 𒈪, mí=MUNUS 𒊩, mì=ME 𒈨	mu 𒈬, mú=SAR 𒊬
n-	na 𒈾, ná 𒈿, nà=AG 𒀝, na4 ("NI.UD") 𒉌𒌓	ne 𒉈, né=NI 𒉌	ni 𒉌, ní=IM 𒉎	nu 𒉡, nú=NÁ 𒈿
p-	pa 𒉺, pá=BA 𒐀	pe=PI 𒉿, pé=BI 𒁉	pi 𒉿, pí=BI 𒁉, pì=BAD 𒁁	pu=BU 𒁍, pú=TÚL 𒇥, pù 𒅤
r-	ra 𒊏, rá=DU 𒁺	re=RI 𒊑, ré=URU 𒌷	ri 𒊑, rí=URU 𒌷	ru 𒊒, rú=GAG 𒆕, rù=AŠ 𒀸
s-	sa 𒊓, sá=DI 𒁲, sà=ZA 𒍝, sa4 ("ḪU.NÁ") 𒄷𒈾	se=SI 𒋛, sé=ZI 𒍣	si 𒋛, sí=ZI 𒍣	su 𒋢, sú=ZU 𒍪, sù=SUD 𒋤, su4 𒋜
š-	ša 𒊭, šá=NÍG 𒐼, šà 𒊮	še 𒊺, šé, šè 𒂠	ši=IGI 𒅆, ší=SI 𒋛	šu 𒋗, šú 𒋙, šù=ŠÈ 𒂠, šu4=U 𒌋
t-	ta 𒋫, tá=DA 𒁕	te 𒋼, té=TÍ 𒊹	ti 𒋾, tí 𒊹, tì=DIM 𒁴, ti4=DI 𒁲	tu 𒌅, tú=UD 𒌓, tù=DU 𒁺
z-	za 𒍝, zá=NA4 𒉌𒌓	ze=ZI 𒍣, zé=ZÌ 𒍢	zi 𒍣, zí 𒍢, zì 𒍥	zu 𒍪, zú=KA 𒅗
g̃-	g̃á=GÁ 𒂷	g̃e26=GÁ 𒂷	g̃i6=MI 𒈪	g̃u10=MU 𒈬
ř-	řá=DU 𒁺	ře6=DU 𒁺

	a-	e-	i-	u-
	a 𒀀, á 𒀉	e 𒂊, é 𒂍	i 𒄿, í=IÁ 𒐊	u 𒌋, ú 𒌑, ù 𒅇
-b	ab 𒀊, áb 𒀖	eb=IB 𒅁, éb=TUM 𒌈	ib 𒅁, íb=TUM 𒌈	ub 𒌒, úb=ŠÈ 𒂠
-d	ad 𒀜, ád 𒄉	ed=Á 𒀉	id=Á 𒀉, íd=A.ENGUR 𒀀𒇉	ud 𒌓, úd=ÁŠ 𒀾
-g	ag 𒀝, ág 𒉘	eg=IG 𒅅, ég=E 𒂊	ig 𒅅, íg=E 𒂊	ug 𒊌
-ḫ	aḫ 𒄴, áḫ=ŠEŠ 𒋀	eḫ=AḪ 𒄴	iḫ=AḪ 𒄴	uḫ=AḪ 𒄴, úḫ 𒌔
-k	ak=AG 𒀝	ek=IG 𒅅	ik=IG 𒅅	uk=UG 𒊌
-l	al 𒀠, ál=ALAM 𒀩	el 𒂖, él=IL 𒅋	il 𒅋, íl 𒅍	ul 𒌌, úl=NU 𒉡
-m	am 𒄠/𒂔, ám=ÁG 𒉘	em=IM 𒅎	im 𒅎, ím=KAŠ4 𒁽	um 𒌝, úm=UD 𒌓
-n	an 𒀭	en 𒂗, én, èn=LI 𒇷	in 𒅔, in4=EN 𒂗, in5=NIN 𒊩𒌆	un 𒌦, ún=U 𒌋
-p	ap=AB 𒀊	ep=IB, ép=TUM 𒌈	ip=IB 𒅁, íp=TUM 𒌈	up=UB 𒌒, úp=ŠÈ 𒂠
-r	ar 𒅈, ár=UB 𒌒	er=IR 𒅕	ir 𒅕, íp=A.IGI 𒀀𒅆	ur 𒌨, úr 𒌫
-s	as=AZ 𒊍	es=GIŠ 𒄑, és=EŠ 𒂠	is=GIŠ 𒄑, ís=EŠ 𒂠	us=UZ, ús=UŠ 𒍑
-š	aš 𒀸, áš 𒀾	eš 𒌍/𒐁, éš=ŠÈ 𒂠	iš 𒅖, íš=KASKAL 𒆜	uš 𒍑, úš𒍗=BAD 𒁁
-t	at=AD 𒀜, át=GÍR gunû 𒄉	et=Á 𒀉	it=Á 𒀉	ut=UD 𒌓, út=ÁŠ 𒀾
-z	az 𒊍	ez=GIŠ 𒄑, éz=EŠ 𒂠	iz= GIŠ 𒄑, íz=IŠ 𒅖	uz=ŠE&HU 𒊺𒄷 úz=UŠ 𒍑, ùz 𒍚
-g̃	ág̃=ÁG 𒉘	èg̃=ÁG 𒉘	ìg̃=ÁG 𒉘	ùg̃=UN 𒌦

Sign inventories

See also: List of cuneiform signs

Cuneiform writing in Ur, southern Iraq

The Sumerian cuneiform script had on the order of 1,000 distinct signs (or about 1,500 if variants are included). This number was reduced to about 600 by the 24th century BC and the beginning of Akkadian records. Not all Sumerian signs are used in Akkadian texts, and not all Akkadian signs are used in Hittite.

Falkenstein (1936) lists 939 signs used in the earliest period (late Uruk, 34th to 31st centuries). With an emphasis on Sumerian forms, Deimel (1922) lists 870 signs used in the Early Dynastic II period (28th century, "LAK") and for the Early Dynastic IIIa period (26th century, "ŠL"). Rosengarten (1967) lists 468 signs used in Sumerian (pre-Sargonian). Lagash and Mittermayer ("aBZL", 2006) list 480 Sumerian forms, written in Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian times. Regarding Akkadian forms, the standard handbook for many years was Borger ("ABZ", 1981) with 598 signs used in Assyrian/Babylonian writing, recently superseded by Borger ("MesZL", 2004) with an expansion to 907 signs, an extension of their Sumerian readings and a new numbering scheme.

Signs used in Hittite cuneiform are listed by Forrer (1922), Friedrich (1960) and the HZL (Rüster and Neu 1989). The HZL lists a total of 375 signs, many with variants (for example, 12 variants are given for number 123 EGIR).

Numerals

Main article: Babylonian numerals

The Sumerians used a numerical system based on 1, 10, and 60. The way of writing a number like 70 would be the sign for 60 and the sign for 10 right after. This way of counting is still used today for measuring time as 60 seconds per minute and 60 minutes per hour.

Usage

Cuneiform script was used in many ways in ancient Mesopotamia. It was used to record laws, like the Code of Hammurabi. It was also used for recording maps, compiling medical manuals, and documenting religious stories and beliefs, among other uses. Studies by Assyriologists like Claus Wilcke and Dominique Charpin suggest that cuneiform literacy was not reserved solely for the elite but was common for average citizens.

According to the Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture, cuneiform script was used at a variety of literacy levels: average citizens needed only a basic, functional knowledge of cuneiform script to write personal letters and business documents. More highly literate citizens put the script to more technical use, listing medicines and diagnoses and writing mathematical equations. Scholars held the highest literacy level of cuneiform and mostly focused on writing as a complex skill and an art form.

Unicode

Main articles: Cuneiform (Unicode block), Cuneiform Numbers and Punctuation (Unicode block), and Early Dynastic Cuneiform (Unicode block)

As of version 8.0, the following ranges are assigned to the Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform script in the Unicode Standard:

U+12000–U+123FF (922 assigned characters) "Cuneiform"

U+12400–U+1247F (116 assigned characters) "Cuneiform Numbers and Punctuation"

U+12480–U+1254F (196 assigned characters) "Early Dynastic Cuneiform"

The final proposal for Unicode encoding of the script was submitted by two cuneiform scholars working with an experienced Unicode proposal writer in June 2004. The base character inventory is derived from the list of Ur III signs compiled by the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative of UCLA based on the inventories of Miguel Civil, Rykle Borger (2003) and Robert Englund. Rather than opting for a direct ordering by glyph shape and complexity, according to the numbering of an existing catalogue, the Unicode order of glyphs was based on the Latin alphabetic order of their "last" Sumerian transliteration as a practical approximation.

List of major cuneiform tablet discoveries

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Location	Number of tablets	Initial discovery	Language
Persepolis, Iran	Large	1472
Kuyunkjik hill on Tigris River, Outside of Mosul, now in Iraq	NA	1840–1842
Khorsabad hill on Tigris River, Outside of Mosul, now in Iraq	Significant	1843
Library of Ashurbanipal	20,000–24,000	1849	Akkadian
Nippur	60,000	1851
Girsu	40,000–50,000	1877
Dūr-Katlimmu	500	1879
Sippar	Tens of thousands	1880	Babylonian
Amarna letters	382	1887	Akkadian
Nuzi	10,000–20,000	1896
Assur	16,000	1898	Akkadian
Hattusa	30,000	1906	Hittite
Drehem	100,000		Sumerian
Kanesh	23,000	1925	Akkadian
Ugarit texts	1,500	1929	Ugaritic
Persepolis, Iran	15,000–18,000	1933	Elamite
Persepolis, Iran		1933	Old Persian
Mari, Syria	20,000–25,000	1933	Akkadian
Alalakh	300	1937
Abu Salabikh	500	1963
Ebla tablets	c.5,000	1974	Sumerian and Eblaite
Tablet V of the Epic of Gilgamesh	1	2011	Old Babylonian

See also

• Babylonokia: a 21st-century cuneiform artwork
• Elamite cuneiform
• Hittite cuneiform
• Journal of Cuneiform Studies
• List of cuneiform signs
• List of museums of ancient Near Eastern art
• Old Persian cuneiform
• Ugaritic alphabet
• Urartian cuneiform

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