Cuneiform Writing and Mesopotamia’s Scientific Legacy

A scribe pressed a reed into wet clay and had to finish before it dried. Hardened, that tablet lasted thousands of years. Those tablets also carry the first maths, star records and epics.

This lesson follows cuneiform from its start to its science. It ends with a contrast to the still-unread Indus script.

1How did writing begin?

Writing grew out of counting. Before tablets, people used clay tokens. Flat tablets slowly replaced the tokens. Signs were pressed in with a stylus.

Writing is first recorded at Uruk, at the end of the 4th millennium BC. Proto-cuneiform emerged about 3350-3200 BC. It is the first known stage of the script.

City life gave the reason. Many people, goods and deals needed a record. Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system. It was first made to write Sumerian.

• Tokens became flat tablets.
• Uruk, end of the 4th millennium BC.
• Proto-cuneiform: 3350-3200 BC.

2How did cuneiform work?

The word comes from the Latin cuneus, meaning “wedge”. Each sign is a group of wedge-shaped marks. A scribe made them by pressing a stylus into wet clay.

The script is logo-syllabic. Some signs stand for a word. Others stand for a syllable. A cuneiform sign usually stood for a syllable, not a single letter.

Many languages used it. Akkadian texts appear from the 24th century BC. They make up most of the cuneiform record. Elamite, Hurrian, Luwian and Urartian also used it.

The script stayed in use for about three thousand years. That is far longer than most writing systems.

• Cuneus = wedge.
• Logo-syllabic: words and syllables.
• Akkadian from the 24th century BC.

3What did scribes write besides records?

They wrote stories. One Sumerian tale, Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, explains writing itself. A messenger could not recall all of Enmerkar’s words. So the king invented writing on tablets.

Then came the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Standard Babylonian version has twelve tablets. Sîn-lēqi-unninni edited it, sometime between the 13th and 10th centuries BCE. The poem follows Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and his friend Enkidu.

• Enmerkar tale: writing invented to carry a message.
• Gilgamesh: twelve tablets, Standard Babylonian version.

4What maths did Mesopotamia leave us?

Mesopotamians counted in base 60. This system began with the Sumerians. We still use a form of it for time, angles and map coordinates.

Most recovered maths tablets date from 1800 to 1600 BC. They cover fractions, algebra, and quadratic and cubic equations. They also cover the Pythagorean theorem.

Plimpton 322 is a Babylonian tablet from about 1800 BC. It holds a table linked to Pythagorean triples. YBC 7289 is a student’s tablet from 1800-1600 BC. It shows a square and its diagonals. The diagonal reads 1;24,51,10 in base 60. That is about 1.414213, very close to the square root of 2.

Money problems appear too. A tablet from about 2000 BC asks about interest of 1/60 per month. It asks for the doubling time. The answer is 5 years. That interest was simple, not compound.

• Base 60: still behind our minutes and degrees.
• Plimpton 322: about 1800 BC, Pythagorean triples.
• YBC 7289: square root of 2 to about six digits.
• Interest problem: 5 years to double, simple interest.

5How did Mesopotamians watch the sky?

They read the sky for omens. A series of tablets called Enuma Anu Enlil lists sky signs. Eclipses were seen as the most dangerous omens.

Other texts were more like catalogues. MUL.APIN lists stars and constellations. It also gives schemes for when planets rise and set. The astrolabes list thirty-six stars linked to the months.

• Enuma Anu Enlil: sky omens.
• MUL.APIN: stars and constellations.
• Eclipses: the gravest omens.

6What was Ashurbanipal’s library?

Ashurbanipal ruled Assyria from 668 to 627 BCE. His library at Nineveh held more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments. They made up perhaps 10,000 texts. The Epic of Gilgamesh was among them. The tablets held texts of all kinds, in various languages.

Hormuzd Rassam found the library in Ashurbanipal’s palace. Sadly, no record was kept of the finds. The tablets were mixed up after reaching Europe.

Later rulers also cared about the past. Nabonidus, the last independent king of Babylon, is called the first archaeologist by some scholars.

• Ashurbanipal: 668-627 BCE, Nineveh.
• 30,000+ tablets and fragments, about 10,000 texts.
• Found by Hormuzd Rassam.

7What are the exam traps?

• Cuneiform is deciphered. The Indus script is still undeciphered.
• Cuneiform was pressed into clay, not carved in stone or written on papyrus.
• A cuneiform sign was usually a syllable, not a letter.
• The Indus script seems to run in boustrophedon style, line by line.