Writing began after pottery was invented, during the Neolithic, when clay tokens were used to record specific amounts of livestock or commodities. In recent years a contrarian view has arisen on the tokens being the p… See more

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 … See more

The decipherment of cuneiform began with the decipherment of Old Persian cuneiform in 1836.
The first cuneiform inscriptions published in modern times were copied from the Achaemeni… See more

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 sever… See more

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 Sum… See more