The Sumerians developed the writing system known as cuneiform in southern Mesopotamia.
The earliest known cuneiform tablets appeared in the late 4th millennium BCE, especially at the southern Mesopotamian city of Uruk. Early signs were largely used for accounting, such as recording grain, livestock, labor, and deliveries.
Writers pressed a cut reed stylus into soft clay, creating wedge-shaped marks. Over time, the system became capable of representing grammar, names, laws, literature, and scholarly information. Cuneiform was a writing system rather than a language, so later peoples, including Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians, also used it.
Sumerian literature includes the Epic of Gilgamesh tradition, although surviving versions were written in later periods and languages as well. Cuneiform tablets provide some of the earliest direct written evidence for cities and administration.