Scholars consider cuneiform the first writing system, and humans used its wedge-shaped characters to inscribe ancient languages such as Sumerian on clay tablets beginning around 3400 BC.

It is in this context that proto-cuneiform appeared: an archaic form of writing made up of hundreds of pictographic signs, more than half of which remain undeciphered to this day. Like cylinder ...

This is a Sumerian cuneiform clay tablet from the Ur III period, c.2100 B.C. This was the heyday of the Sumerian civilisation which occupied much of modern day Iraq. Sumerian was a non-Semitic ...

This piece of clay contains some of the earliest writing in the world. It's called 'cuneiform,' which means wedge-shaped. This tablet is a record of the daily beer rations for workers. Beer here ...