“The Origins of Writing in Southern Mesopotamia”

The first evidence of written word was discovered in the Sumerian culture and was created over 5,000 years ago. This time in history has been called the urban revolution because of the enormous changes in how people lived and interacted with one another. Through the development of language and writing, the Mesopotamian civilizations were able to create complex cities and societies, a fundamental step in the progression of mankind. The origins of writing were not in the conventional forms that we as a modern society utilize, but instead were in the form of pictographs and numerals. A pictograph is a “recognizable picture of [a] real object rather than [of] symbols” (Roaf 69). The Sumerians used pictographs to represent and convey thoughts or ideas to one another; this process is integral to the preservation of history and to the art of communication.

The Sumerians first used writing as a practical means of keeping records. The development of writing has been categorized into three stages, with Uruk IV being the first stage. The most primitive illustrations dated from about 3100 B.C. and were small tablets that possessed markings on them. These small tablets wer

The cuneiform system of writing contained more than 700 different signs and was an abstract picture language. The abstract script was in the form of a series of wedges and hooks and the whole symbol would stand for one Sumerian word. When a symbol is represented in such a way this is called ideographic and the word symbols are called ideograms, which means “concept writing”. These ideograms are entire words or concepts represented in the pictorial form. An example of an ideogram would be the picture of a mouth, which would not only mean what it looked like but could also stand for an abstract concept such as the verb “to speak”. Some other examples of simplistic ideograms would be “the head of a bull stands for cattle, an ear of barley for barley” (Roaf 70). The meanings of pictures and symbols could also be interpreted through associations such as “a bowl meant food or bread; a leg meant to stand and to walk” (Roaf 70). When different symbols or ideograms were combined with each other the complexity of the meaning would increase. For example to express the notion “to eat”, the symbols of a head and a bowl would be combined.

In further development scribes were able to take cuneiform script and apply phonetic sounds to certain symbols in order to render human speech into written word. An example of this is evident in the Sumerian word for “arrow”. In Sumerian “arrow” is pronounced “ti” which is also the same as the word for “life”. In this instance the scribes used a picture of an arrow to write both words. “By giving each sound a phonetic symbol, it was possible to spell out any word in the language” (Kramer 132). For 2,500 years after the Third Millennium B.C. the cuneiform system characterized and shaped the ancient Mesopotamian culture and it wasn’t until the Semites conquered southern Mesopotamia that cuneiform developed into a syllabic alphabet.

The Sumerian culture witnessed and partook in the creation of the written form of communication. This amazing feat not only preserved his

Some topics in this essay:
Nippur Sumer’s, Millennium BC, Sumer Elam, Southern Mesopotamia”, Kish” Roaf, Uruk IV, Wealthy Sumerians, Civilization” Mesopotamia, vertical columns, development writing, roaf 70, system writing, , third millennium bc, modern society, roaf 69, kramer 131, written language, third millennium, Third Millennium, uruk iv stage, surface tablet,