Writing System
So what was the ancient Mesopotamian writing system? You may have already heard of it. Today, we call it cuneiform. This word comes to us from the Latin for cuneus, which means 'wedge' and signifies the wedge-like shape of the writing you can see in the picture in this lesson.
Hundreds of cuneiform symbols were used to represent words and syllables. The system also had an alphabet so you could, like we do in English today, spell a word out. However, the writing system was complex and some parts of it are ambiguous to this day. In fact, one symbol could represent everything from a sound or syllable to a concept or object. And cuneiform was not a distinct writing system, per se. There were probably numerous languages that used this writing system. As a result, many cuneiform inscriptions remain undeciphered to this day.
Development
Ancient Mesopotamians invented writing around the fourth millennium BCE. This was made possible perhaps as a result of numerous factors:
A change in the environment that allowed people to settle
The creation of cities, which brought about more complex societies
The economic need to keep track and records of the exchange of goods
But the ancient Mesopotamians didn't create writing out of nowhere. People kept records before the invention of writing. Some would place sticks into the ground to count things like the number of sheep someone owned. Others would rely on clay tokens or small clay marbles for bookkeeping. Over time, in order to keep more specific track of things, markings developed on these tokens as the variety of goods increased.
Then, people began keeping track of things on clay tablets. At first, the symbols and signs were pictographs, or drawings of objects. For example, a donkey would look like a crude image of a donkey. Some of the symbols ancient Mesopotamians used were ideograms. These were symbols that represented associated meanings. For example, a drawing of a foot could mean 'to stand' or 'to walk'.