Cuneiform was the writing system ancient Mesopotamian scribes created using wedge-shaped marks.
The word cuneiform comes from Latin cuneus, meaning “wedge,” describing the impressions made by pressing a cut reed stylus into wet clay. The earliest known examples appeared in southern Mesopotamia during the late fourth millennium BCE, initially for accounting and administrative records.
Cuneiform was first developed for Sumerian and was later adapted for languages including Akkadian, Elamite, and Hittite. Over time, its signs could represent words, syllables, or both, making the system more flexible than a simple picture-writing method.
Scribes used clay tablets to record laws, trade, literature, letters, and royal inscriptions. The Epic of Gilgamesh survives in cuneiform copies. Cuneiform is distinct from Egyptian hieroglyphs, which developed in a different cultural tradition and used a different sign system.