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Featured Article: Cuneiform script

Sumerian inscription in monumental archaic style, c. twenty-sixth century B.C.E.

The cuneiform script (kjuːˈniːəfɔrm) is the earliest known form of written expression. As such, those writings that remain are communications from peoples long gone from the earth. Created by the Sumerians in approximately 3000 B.C.E., cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs. Over time, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract. Cuneiforms were inscribed on clay tablets, on which symbols were drawn with a blunt reed for a stylus. The impressions left by the stylus were wedge shaped, thus giving rise to the name cuneiform ("wedge shaped").