Cuneiform: The Earliest Form of Writing from Ancient Mesopotamia
69,465
Published 2021-05-31
Cuneiform was used by all of the great Mesopotamian civilisations until alphabetic scripts became more popular in around 100 BCE. Some of these cultures were; the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Elamites, Hatti, Hittites, Assyrians and the Hurrians. Cuneiform has been found on clay tablets (often referred to ad cuneiform tablets), in a number of different languages including Babylonian cuneiform and Sumerian cuneiform. The earliest form of cuneiform is known as proto-cuneiform. This early script was pictorial, since the tablets addressed tangible things like how much cattle were traded, a battle, the amount of grain collected as taxes, a flood or a king. The development in cuneiform script meant that emotions, intent, and intangible ideas could be better expressed, and in general, the texts were more detailed and clearer.
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— CHAPTERS —
0:00 Introduction
0:40 What is Cuneiform?
2:25 Development of Cuneiform
3:49 Literature Originally Written in Cuneiform
5:39 Outro
— WANT TO KNOW MORE? —
Cuneiform www.worldhistory.org/cuneiform/
Sumerian Language www.worldhistory.org/Sumerian_Language/
Mesopotamia www.worldhistory.org/Mesopotamia/
Cuneiform Lexical Lists www.worldhistory.org/article/900/cuneiform-lexical…
Gilgamesh www.worldhistory.org/gilgamesh/
Enheduanna www.worldhistory.org/Enheduanna/
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You can find all attribution and credits for images, animations, graphics and music here - worldhistory.typehut.com/cuneiform-the-earliest-fo…
The music used in this recording is the intellectual copyright of Michael Levy, a prolific composer for the recreated lyres of antiquity, and used with the creator's permission. Michael Levy's music is available to stream at all the major digital music platforms. Find out more on:
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All Comments (21)
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Do you know of any myths that have been transmitted across cultures and time? Let us know!
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Excellent, concise and informative video. Thank you.
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Gosh, I’m learning so much from your excellent work, huge thanks!!!!!
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interesting video indeed! i will be browsing your playlists later xD
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Truly very interesting. Thank you for your content...
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Very nice and informative as usual!
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Excellent introduction to cuneiform, Kelly. Thanks.
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Great video, thank you so much
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loved the video, learned a lot, and thumbs up. However I have a question about the "bible being previously thought as the oldest book". How can anyone have ever have thought this considering all the countless ancient Greek writers like Socrates and Plato and ancient Greek playwrites like Menander?
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F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C. As a LOVER of Words and Language I found this fascinating. As a Modern Calligraphy and Graffiti artist I found it IMPRESSIVE and INSPIRING. Thank You.
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Awesome video!!!!
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Awesome video.
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That was a good and very interesting video, things written 5000 years ago that’s wild to think about, what would THEY write about us in 5000 years ?? Thank you
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One of the earliest known forms of written expression is cuneiform. Complete writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, systems of ideographic form like Chinese or early mnemonic symbols. Egyptian hieroglyphs were the writing system used in Ancient Egypt. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with a total of some 1,000 distinct characters. Harappan script is a corpus of symbols produced by the Indus Valley Civilization, that may be a preciser to Sanskrit: The Rig Veda is thought to be written around 1500 BC, making it 3500 years old. The cuneiform texts you refer to in this video are 5000 years old. So, the definition of writing system seems a bit arbitrary. I am certain that China would object.
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Thanks for this. Cuneiform was also used by the Persians during the achamenian period...and some survives in Bombay even today, brought by the Parsis in the 7th century.
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Thanks so much for this crisply informative vid.
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Excellent, are there still languages in the world descended from the languages of Ancient Mesopotamia?
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Love to look at those tablet, amazing type of writing. Is there a Champollion of the cuneiform world? Do we know the proportion of the population able to write/ read the language? Do we know how it sounds? And most importantly, is the choice of T-Shirt specific of the video theme 👌? Great video
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Nice video
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"...until written scripts became popular in about 100 b.c.e." This dating is known to be off, now. There is a new BBC video about the discovery of an early bronze age, Canaanite tusk comb, dated to approximately 1700 BC in the video description, which carries an inscription of a complete sentence using an alphabet. The cuneiform is still older than known alphabets, though.
