Cuneiform and the Decipherment – Quick Reference

Not a language; a writing system (like hieroglyphs) invented by the Sumerians. Used across Mesopotamia by many groups
Variants include: Sumero–Akkadian cuneiform, Ugaritic cuneiform, Old Persian cuneiform. Visually similar but not identical across languages.

Usually not a true alphabet; it is a syllabary.
- Signs encode consonant+vowel combinations (e.g., /ba-/, /mu-/, /se-/) rather than single consonants like /b/ or /m/.
- Total signs are hundreds; a few vowel-only signs exist.
Ugaritic cuneiform and Old Persian cuneiform are later simplifications toward alphabet-like systems.
Basic wedge-strokes: horizontal, vertical, downward diagonal, upward diagonal, angular hook (Winkelhaken).
Typical sign uses 5–10 wedge strokes; each syllabic sign is a unique combination of strokes.

Original Sumerian writing system developed around $3300\ \mathrm{B.C.E.}$ ; partly pictographic at first.
Used for inventory and administration; gradually became the true cuneiform form by around $3000\ \mathrm{B.C.E.}$ to $2900\ \mathrm{B.C.E.}$ .
Adoption by Semitic-speaking Akkadians made it more abstract and less pictographic.

Writing medium: clay tablets pressed with a sharpened reed to produce wedge marks (hence "cuneiform">).
Tablets recorded in horizontal lines; read left-to-right.
Tablets could be erased when still wet; baked to preserve when important; extremely durable after baking.
Papyrus was not used in Mesopotamia; tablets were the standard medium.

No public schooling; literacy was low among ordinary people.
Cylinder seals provided a key literacy/administrative function: personal signatures and contracts on clay tablets.
Cylinder seals were portable, status symbols, and widely used across Mesopotamian societies.

Cylinders bore carved motifs and/or writing; rolled over damp clay to leave an impression.
Used in contracts, approvals, and signings; often kept as heirlooms or worn as jewelry.
They are among the most common finds in Mesopotamian archaeology.

Many languages used the same cuneiform script; the dominant surviving texts are in Akkadian ( Babylonian dialect ), with Sumerian texts also present.
Many Sumerian words were inserted into Akkadian sentences (logograms), complicating reading and translation.
Languages of Mesopotamia were Afro-Asiatic (Semitic) and other families; most speakers used Akkadian (Assyrian, Babylonian dialects) or Sumerian.
Akkadian splits into two main dialects: Assyrian and Babylonian.
Syllabaries allow multiple spellings for the same word (e.g., CV, VC, CVC patterns) and sometimes a single-vowel sign.
Example pattern: the infinitive šakānum could be written in several ways (6 listed spellings in typical teaching examples), illustrating spelling variation.

The decipherment problem paralleled the decipherment of hieroglyphs but followed its own path.
Old Persian cuneiform is nearly purely alphabetic (about 51 signs), which helped anchor decipherment.
Mount Behistun (Behistun Inscription) played a crucial role: a trilingual text in Old Persian, Babylonian (Akkadian), and Elamite.
Key figures and milestones:
- Carsten Niebuhr (1767): accurate sketches of Behistun inscriptions.
- Eugène Burnouf: published notes that aided reading the Old Persian portion.
- Henry Rawlinson (early 1840s–1849): copied, transliterated, and translated the Old Persian portion; used his knowledge of Avestan and Vedic languages.
- By 1838 Rawlinson began translating Old Persian; 1847–1849 published his translations.
- The Behistun inscriptions allowed decoding of other languages (Babylonian/Akkadian and Elamite) similarly to how the Rosetta Stone aided decipherment of hieroglyphs.
Royal Asiatic Society meeting in 1857\ : a public comparison of translations by Rawlinson, Hincks, Oppert, and Talbot showed near-identical results on a newly discovered prism (Tiglath-Pileser I), proving the decipherment work.
Outcomes:
- By mid-19th century, a functional decipherment of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform allowed translation of thousands of texts.
- Old Persian, Babylonian (Akkadian), and Elamite texts could be read and compared, enabling broader understanding of Mesopotamian history.

A trilingual inscription (Old Persian, Babylonian, Elamite) on a rock face in western Persia.
The Old Persian portion provided a phonetic framework; Babylonian (Akkadian) and Elamite provided cross-checks.
The inscription helped identify place-names (satrapies) and royal names (e.g., Darius, Xerxes).
The discovery and decipherment process established a method for reading previously unknown cuneiform languages.

There are many genres in Mesopotamian literature: myth, epic, ritual texts, divination, letters, royal inscriptions, annals, treaties, law, hymns, wisdom literature, prophecy, autobiographies, archives, and more.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is not a single, fixed, classical epic; it is a compilation of episodes written at different times by different authors and later stitched together.
The epic is often shown as a hallmark of Mesopotamian literature, but its manuscript tradition is highly varied across tablets.
Related flood/myth cycles: Sumerian Flood story (The Epic of Ziusudra), Atrahasis, and parallels in Genesis.
The idea of the Gilgamesh epic as a single masterwork is tied to later interpretive movements (e.g., Pan-Babylonianism) that argued Near Eastern cultures were uniformly superior to later Israelite/Greek/Roman works.

Sir Henry Rawlinson: key figure in decipherment; often called the "Father of modern Assyriology".
Other contributeors: Eugène Burnouf; Edward Hincks; Botta; Layard; A.L. Oppert; Talbot; Norris.
The Decipherment enabled modern archaeology and historical linguistics in the ancient Near East.

Sumerian origin of writing: $3300\ \mathrm{B.C.E.}$
True cuneiform by: $3000\ \mathrm{B.C.E.}$ – $2900\ \mathrm{B.C.E.}$
Old Persian cuneiform steps toward alphabeticity: 18th–19th centuries CE ( decipherment processes in the 1700s–1800s )
Niebuhr’s Persepolis work: $1767$ CE
Burnouf’s and Rawlinson’s work influencing decipherment: mid- to late-19th century
Royal Asiatic Society decipherment meeting: $1857$ CE

Cuneiform is a writing system used for multiple languages, not a single language.
It began as Sumerian and evolved through Akkadian influence; variants include Ugaritic and Old Persian.
It is typically a syllabary with hundreds of signs, not a simple alphabet.
Tablets and cylinder seals were central to administration, economy, and daily life; most texts are Akkadian, with Sumerian words inserted as logograms.
The Behistun Inscription was pivotal to deciphering cuneiform, analogous to the Rosetta Stone for hieroglyphs.
Gilgamesh is a composite of episodes; Mesopotamian literature spans many genres and reflects a rich, diverse literary culture.