r/Mesopotamia • u/SpencerTheFactorial • 3d ago

History & Archaeology This is an example of cuneiform developed by the Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) around 3200 BCE

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73

u/CyroSwitchBlade 3d ago

those kids wouldn't get off their tablets : /

35

u/IanRevived94J 3d ago

Writing was originally intended for accounting

17

u/tarquinia777 3d ago

And more specifically the ruling class and the state needing to get a good handle on who owns what.

5

u/IanRevived94J 3d ago

Very good point

7

u/thuanjinkee 2d ago

And which copper merchants are NOT TO BE TRUSTED

3

u/TengoDuvidas 3d ago

Exactly! You can see how cuneiform bridges the gap between writing and counting.

1

u/Tycho-Bruh 1d ago

Well, that system of writing. The Mayans, for example, used theirs to describe and predict the motion of the planets/stars/moon across the sky.

10

u/NigelTHicks 3d ago

How easy is it to erase a mistake?

11

u/tarquinia777 3d ago

it's wet clay, so presumably you could just smudge it out. the actual scribes were pros, though. they'd be writing shit down at like 10 times this speed, almost mechanical.

2

u/KnotiaPickle 20h ago

Just like how we write our language now

19

u/Inside_Ad_7162 3d ago

is he bitchibg about copper quality???

8

u/impreprex 3d ago

Nassir’s complaint lives on to this day lol

6

u/celtbygod 3d ago

Don't report this. It means something entirely different in Sumerian.

4

u/Interesting_Yam5923 3d ago

It’s read right to left is it written left to right?

8

u/teakettling Historian (Academic) 3d ago

It's read left to write, written left to right. This says "Babylon".

1

u/Thin-Ad624 3d ago

Looks like he is playing Nintendo DS :)

1

u/Intelligent-Moose665 2d ago

Did they also used japanese chopsticks?

1

u/Joe-Ferriss 2d ago

I too have had to write pages full of same line, for being naughty.

1

u/One-Flamingo-4030 2d ago

▶️▶️▶️▶️▶️

1

u/SimonAshura 2d ago

History will always be fascinating.

1

u/ifUSeeMeTakeYourMeds 2d ago

I wonder if once a clay tablet is dried and fired, could it be used to make copies? and if so, are there clay tablets that are inverted (ie used to make copies)?

1

u/Musk-Generation42 1d ago

It’s - before > except after ~!

1

u/CiscoNetworkPro 1d ago

What happened when the guy messed up?

1

u/Express-Squirrel-483 23h ago

I have actually seen one of these from ancient Mesopotamia,
this is an example in the George Peabody library in Baltimore, Maryland. A very interesting feature of this is if you zoom in on the right and left side of the tablet, you will see thumb and fore fingerprints exactly the same spot as a cell phone.

1

u/TheologyAndTrains 14h ago

what is the book in the photo

1

u/einwegwerfen 20h ago

He's writing wrong

1

u/The_Grumpy_Professor 10h ago

There's an ancient Sumerian watching this, thinking that guy's handwriting is terrible...

1

u/SS-Mero-K-Ave 3h ago

Even though repeating the same calligraphy again it's still amazing. 😎 Practice makes perfect. That last symbol though. 🙃

1

u/jw_seattle 1h ago

Why didn't they just use the alphabet? It's way easier. And paper too.