Cuneiform is the world's oldest known writing system, developed in ancient Mesopotamia.
The earliest cuneiform tablets appeared in southern Mesopotamia, especially at Uruk, during the late fourth millennium BCE. The first signs were used mainly to record economic information such as quantities of grain, livestock, and labor. Scribes pressed the angled end of a cut reed into wet clay, creating wedge-shaped marks.
Cuneiform was not one language or a simple alphabet. It was a writing system used for languages including Sumerian and Akkadian, and its signs could represent words, syllables, or other meanings depending on context. Over time, scribes adapted it for administration, literature, law, religion, science, and royal inscriptions.
The system remained in use for more than three thousand years. Famous cuneiform texts include the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Code of Hammurabi. The word comes from Latin cuneus, meaning “wedge.” Cuneiform gradually disappeared after alphabetic and other writing systems became more practical for many purposes.