Cuneiform - Latin: wedge form. A system of writing developed
in ancient Mesopotamia, and used by the Sumerian and later
civilizations. Some ancient texts date as far back as
3000 BCE. Sumerians wrote cuneiform impressions on clay
tablets, with a reed stylus. They then dried these tablets in the sun
to obtain the resulting durable text. Cuneiform writing is
pictographic, in other words the characters in the text represent
actual worldly objects which symbolized the ideas the writer wished to
convey. Cuneiform writing is believed not to have a phonetic, i.e.,
based on sound, component as most modern languages do. definition
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