WRITINGThe creation that started history

THE BEGINNINGS: Writing as we

know it today, began with the use of clay tokens to represent items of value.

HOW DID THEY KEEP THE TOKENS ORGANIZED? They used

large hollow balls of clay as a sort of envelope.

EVENTUALLY THE 3-D TOKENS EVOLVED INTO 2-D PICTOGRAMS.

Early pictograms resembled the objects they represented, but through repeated use over time they began to look simpler. These marks eventually became wedge-shaped and could convey sounds or abstract concepts.

HOW DID PEOPLE WRITE? People wrote on clay tablets

using a sharpened reed. They would simply push into the soft clay.

At first, they wrote vertically. Eventually, they turned their

symbols on their sides and started writing horizontally.

WHAT DID THE 2-D PICTOGRAMS LOOK LIKE?

Tablets were divided into sections.

This one was read from top to bottom and then to the back side, then from left to right.

This one describes the acquisition of 180 iku of land.

It also tells how the iku are separated into 4 fields.

WHAT DID THEY WRITE ON? The clay tablets

could be reused just by scraping it clean.

If they wanted them to be permanent they would bake them in an oven to harden them.

HOW IMPORTANT WAS HANDWRITING?

Just as, if not more, important as it is today.

Messy cuneiform would be impossible to read.

WHAT WAS SCHOOL LIKE? The school was usually a privately

owned home called The Tablet House. The only supplies students needed was

their reed stylus and clay tablets. Students mostly focused on practicing

writing in proper handwriting and learning vocabulary.

Higher level learning involved studying the roots of their own civilization.

HOW DO WE KNOW HOW TO READ CUNEIFORM? In 1835, an English

army officer named Henry Rawlinson found these inscriptions on a cliff in Persia.

On the cliff the same text was written in three languages: Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite.

He translated the Persian and then worked on the Babylonian. In 16 years he was able to read 200 Babylonian symbols.