The Ancients

How to Write Cuneiform

February 8, 2026

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  • Cuneiform, the world's earliest known writing system, emerged around the late 4th millennium BC, initially as pictograms drawn with a point on clay, evolving into wedge-shaped signs impressed by a stylus. 
  • The cuneiform script was adopted by multiple unrelated languages, starting with Sumerian and Akkadian (Babylonian/Assyrian), and later by others like Old Persian, demonstrating its widespread utility across Mesopotamia and beyond. 
  • The enduring legacy of the sexagesimal (base-60) numerical system used in cuneiform is directly inherited in modern timekeeping (60 seconds/minutes) and geometry (360 degrees). 

Segments

Cuneiform’s Earliest Evidence
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(00:03:40)
  • Key Takeaway: Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system, with initial evidence dating to around 4000 BC, possibly earlier.
  • Summary: Cuneiform represents the earliest writing system known to archaeology, with the earliest pieces dating to the end of the 4th millennium BC. The term ’earliest evidence’ is crucial, as it does not preclude the existence of prior, unrecorded writing systems. The speaker suggests the earliest signs might be derivative from something that already existed.
Languages Using Cuneiform
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(00:05:11)
  • Key Takeaway: Sumerian, a language without known relatives, was the first language written in cuneiform, soon followed by the Semitic Akkadian language.
  • Summary: The oldest language recorded using cuneiform was Sumerian, which is unique and lacks linguistic relatives. Akkadian (Babylonian/Assyrian), a Semitic tongue related to modern languages like Arabic and Hebrew, was written using the same script concurrently. Cuneiform later spread to write other unrelated languages, including Old Persian, Elamite, and Ugaritic.
Behistun Inscription Decipherment Key
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(00:09:40)
  • Key Takeaway: The trilingual Behistun inscription, featuring Old Persian cuneiform, was the Rosetta Stone equivalent that unlocked the decipherment of all cuneiform scripts.
  • Summary: The Old Persian cuneiform script on the Behistun inscription was simplified, using only 26 or 28 wedge-based characters like an alphabet. Because the Old Persian language was still known, scholars could read this column first, which provided the key to translating the parallel texts in Babylonian and Elamite cuneiform. This allowed access to the entire cuneiform world.
Clay as the Medium
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(00:15:00)
  • Key Takeaway: Clay was the natural and abundant medium for cuneiform because it allowed for sharp impressions using a stylus and preserved well when dried in the hot sun.
  • Summary: Cuneiform transitioned from drawn pictograms to wedge-shaped signs impressed into clay using a stylus. Clay was abundant in Mesopotamia, unlike wood, and tablets dried quickly in the sun, ensuring long-term survival of records. The speaker predicts that only clay tablets will survive for future generations, unlike modern digital records.
Evolution from Pictograms to Cuneiform
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(00:18:06)
  • Key Takeaway: The script evolved from curvilinear drawings made with a point into standardized, straight-edged wedge shapes, losing its immediate pictographic recognizability over time.
  • Summary: The earliest signs were drawn pictographically on clay, resembling simple drawings a child might make. A major shift occurred when these drawings were stylized into forms made only of straight edges (wedges), marking the appearance of mature cuneiform, likely around the beginning of the third millennium BC. This stylization abstracted the signs from their original pictorial meaning.
Standardization and Control of Script
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(00:44:00)
  • Key Takeaway: The cuneiform repertoire remained remarkably standardized across millennia and regions, suggesting deliberate control by a central authority rather than natural proliferation.
  • Summary: Despite human tendencies toward competition and creating local variations, the cuneiform system did not proliferate into multiple competing systems. This implies that from the beginning, a single, charismatic individual likely supervised and standardized the script’s direction to ensure its utility. This control persisted even as languages evolved and scholarly guilds developed rivalries.
Multivalent Nature of Cuneiform Signs
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(00:51:54)
  • Key Takeaway: Individual cuneiform signs are multivalent, capable of functioning with multiple semantic meanings, phonetic values, or as silent determinatives.
  • Summary: A single cuneiform sign can have several meanings (e.g., the sign for ‘wood’ can also function as the sound ‘itsu’ in Akkadian). Furthermore, signs were used as unpronounced determinatives to clarify the category of the following word, similar to how the dollar sign is read as ‘dollar’ without being spoken. Mastering this system requires extensive reading to understand context and usage patterns.
Endurance and Extinction of Cuneiform
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(00:58:27)
  • Key Takeaway: Cuneiform writing endured for over 5,000 years, with the last dated tablet from the first century AD, eventually becoming extinct as alphabetic Aramaic gained prominence.
  • Summary: The latest dated cuneiform tablet is an astronomical almanac from the first century AD, suggesting the script survived longest in scholarly, rather than administrative, contexts. Its decline was hastened because Aramaic could be written alphabetically with ink on more convenient materials. The final extinction occurred when the last person capable of reading the complex script passed away.