What is the oldest known writing system?

Cuneiform is generally regarded as the oldest known writing system. It emerged in southern Mesopotamia, especially in the cities of Sumer, during the late fourth millennium BCE.

The earliest signs were impressed into wet clay with a reed stylus. They began as accounting marks used to record goods, labor, and agricultural transactions. Over time, the signs became more abstract and could represent sounds as well as objects or ideas. The name “cuneiform” comes from the Latin word for wedge, describing the marks’ distinctive shape.

Cuneiform was not a single language. Sumerian, Akkadian, Elamite, Hittite, and other languages were written with related cuneiform traditions. This is why “cuneiform” refers primarily to a writing system and script style rather than to one spoken language.

Egyptian hieroglyphs developed around a similar period, but the earliest known cuneiform records are usually dated slightly earlier. Cuneiform continued to be used for thousands of years before disappearing after the first century CE.