Editing Cuneiform (section)

{{Short description|Writing system of the ancient Near East}}
{{Other uses}}
{{cleanup lang|date=March 2024}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2021}}
{{Infobox writing system
| altname     = 
| type        = [[Logographic]]
| typedesc    = and [[syllabary]]
| languages   = [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]], [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]], [[Eblaite language|Eblaite]], [[Elamite language|Elamite]], [[Hittite language|Hittite]], [[Hurrian language|Hurrian]], [[Luwian language|Luwian]], [[Urartian language|Urartian]], [[Palaic language|Palaic]], [[Aramaic]], [[Old Persian]], [[Ugaritic]]
| direction   = left-to-right
| region      = [[Sumer]]
| time        = {{circa|2900 BC}} – 100 AD
| fam1        = [[Proto-cuneiform]] ([[Proto-writing]])
| children    = None; influenced the [[Letterform|shape]] of [[Ugaritic alphabet|Ugaritic]] and {{nowrap|[[Old Persian cuneiform|Old Persian]] [[glyph]]s}}
| unicode     = {{plainlist|
*[https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U12000.pdf U+12000 to U+123FF] Cuneiform
*[https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U12400.pdf U+12400 to U+1247F] Cuneiform Numbers and Punctuation}}
| iso15924    = Xsux
| sample      = Xerxes_Cuneiform_Van.JPG
| imagesize   = 
| caption     = A trilingual cuneiform [[Xerxes I inscription at Van|inscription of Xerxes I at Van Fortress]] in Turkey, an [[Achaemenid royal inscriptions|Achaemenid royal inscription]] written in [[Old Persian cuneiform|Old Persian]], [[Elamite cuneiform|Elamite]] and [[#Akkadian_cuneiform|Babylonian]] forms of cuneiform
}}
{{contains special characters|cuneiform}}

'''Cuneiform'''{{NoteTag|{{IPAc-en|k|juː|ˈ|n|iː|.|ᵻ|f|ɔːr|m}} {{respell|kew|NEE|ih|form}}, {{IPAc-en|k|juː|ˈ|n|eɪ|.|ᵻ|f|ɔːr|m}}<ref name="oxford_dictionaries">{{cite web |url=https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cuneiform |title=Definition of cuneiform in English |website=Oxford Dictionaries |access-date=July 30, 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160925193132/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cuneiform |archive-date=September 25, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media |date=June 4, 2014 |title=Cuneiform: Irving Finkel & Jonathan Taylor bring ancient inscriptions to life |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OC_kpFyfT0 |access-date=July 30, 2017 |publisher=The British Museum |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151017195607/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OC_kpFyfT0 |archive-date=October 17, 2015}}</ref> {{respell|kew|NAY|ih|form}}, or {{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|juː|n|ᵻ|f|ɔːr|m}}<ref name="oxford_dictionaries" /> {{respell|KEW|nih|form}}}} is a [[Logogram|logo]]-[[Syllabary|syllabic]] [[writing system]] that was used to write several languages of the [[Ancient Near East]].<ref>{{cite thesis|last=Jagersma|first=Abraham Hendrik|date=2010|title=A descriptive grammar of Sumerian|url=https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/16107/Binnenwerk-jagersma.pdf?sequence=2|location=Leiden|publisher=Faculty of the Humanities, Leiden University|page=15|quote=In its fully developed form, the Sumerian script is based on a mixture of logographic and phonographic writing. There are basically two types of signs: word signs, or logograms, and sound signs, or phonograms.}}</ref> The script was in active use from the early [[Bronze Age]] until the beginning of the [[Common Era]].<ref name="auto1">{{cite web|url=https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/hitol/10|title=Hittite Online|author=Sara E. Kimball|author2=Jonathan Slocum|website=The University of Texas at Austin Linguistics Research Center|series=Early Indo-European OnLine|at=2 The Cuneiform Syllabary |quote=Hittite is written in a form of the cuneiform syllabary, a writing system in use in Sumerian city-states in Mesopotamia by roughly 3100 B.C.E. and used to write a number of languages in the ancient Near East until the first century B.C.E. |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231107170048/https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/hitol/10 |archive-date= Nov 7, 2023 }}</ref> Cuneiform scripts are marked by and named for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions ([[Latin]]: {{wikt-lang|la|cuneus}}) which form their [[Grapheme|signs]]. Cuneiform is the [[History of writing#Inventions of writing|earliest known writing system]]<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last1=Olson |first1=David R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8TyOC9nqEokC&pg=PA59 |title=The Cambridge Handbook of Literacy |last2=Torrance |first2=Nancy |date=16 February 2009 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-86220-2 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The origins of writing |url=https://www.bl.uk/history-of-writing/articles/where-did-writing-begin |access-date=2022-05-10 |website=www.bl.uk |archive-date=March 11, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220311085214/https://www.bl.uk/history-of-writing/articles/where-did-writing-begin |url-status=dead }}</ref> and was originally developed to write the [[Sumerian language]] of southern [[Mesopotamia]] (modern [[Iraq]]).

Over the course of its history, cuneiform was adapted to write a number of languages in addition to Sumerian. [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] texts are attested from the 24th century BC onward and make up the bulk of the cuneiform record.<ref name="auto1" /><ref>{{cite book|last=Huehnergard|first=John|author-link=John Huehnergard|date=2004|chapter=Akkadian and Eblaite|title=The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages|chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/6933497|location=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=218|isbn=978-0-521-56256-0|quote=Connected Akkadian texts appear c. 2350 and continue more or less uninterrupted for the next two and a half millennia...}}</ref> Akkadian cuneiform was itself adapted to write the [[Hittite language]] in the early [[second millennium BC]].<ref name="auto1" /><ref>{{cite book|last=Archi|first=Alfonso|date=2015|chapter=How the Anitta text reached Hattusa|title=Saeculum: Gedenkschrift für Heinrich Otten anlässlich seines 100. Geburtstags|chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/41457402|location=Wiesbaden|publisher=Harrassowitz|isbn=978-3-447-10365-7|quote=The existence of the Anitta text demonstrates that there was not a sudden and total interruption in writing but a phase of adaptation to a new writing.}}</ref> The other languages with significant cuneiform [[Text corpus|corpora]] are [[Eblaite language|Eblaite]], [[Elamite language|Elamite]], [[Hurrian language|Hurrian]], [[Luwian language|Luwian]], and [[Urartian language|Urartian]]. The [[Old Persian cuneiform|Old Persian]] and [[Ugaritic alphabet]]s feature cuneiform-style signs; however, they are unrelated to the cuneiform logo-syllabary proper. The latest known cuneiform tablet, an astronomical almanac from Uruk, dates to AD 79/80.<ref name="Hunger2014" />

Cuneiform was rediscovered in modern times in the early 17th century with the publication of the trilingual [[Achaemenid royal inscriptions]] at [[Persepolis]]; these were first [[Decipherment of cuneiform|deciphered]] in the early 19th century. The modern study of cuneiform belongs to the ambiguously named<ref>{{cite book | last=Hommel | first=Fritz|authorlink=Fritz Hommel | title=The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as Illustrated by the Monuments | publisher=Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge | year=1897 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_MgNAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA29 | pages=29|quote= It is necessary here to remark, that the application of the term "Assyriology," as it is now generally used, to the study of the cuneiform inscriptions, is not quite correct; indeed it is actually misleading.}} <br>{{cite book | last=Meade | first= Carroll Wade | title=Road to Babylon: Development of U.S. Assyriology | publisher=Brill | year=1974 | isbn=978-90-04-03858-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iuAUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1 | pages=1–2|quote= The term Assyriology is derived from these people, but it is very misleading.}} <br>{{cite book | last=Daneshmand | first=Parsa | title=Perspectives on the History of Ancient Near Eastern Studies | chapter=Chapter 14 Assyriology in Iran? | publisher=Penn State University Press | date=2020-07-31 | doi=10.1515/9781646020898-015|url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781646020898-015/pdf|page=266| isbn=9781646020898 | s2cid=236813488 |quote= The term "Assyriology" is itself problematic because it covers a broad range of topics.}}<br>{{cite book | last=Charpin | first=Dominique | title=Comment peut-on être assyriologue ? | chapter=Comment peut-on être assyriologue ? : Leçon inaugurale prononcée le jeudi 2 octobre 2014 | website=OpenEdition Books | series=Leçons inaugurales | date=2018-11-06 | publisher=Collège de France | isbn=9782722604230 | url= https://books.openedition.org/cdf/4176 | quote= Dès lors, le terme assyriologue est devenu ambigu : dans son acception large, il désigne toute personne qui étudie des textes notés dans l'écriture cunéiforme.}}</ref> field of [[Assyriology]], as the earliest excavations of cuneiform libraries – in the mid-19th century – were in the area of ancient [[Assyria]].<ref name=":12" /> An estimated half a million tablets are held in museums across the world, but comparatively few of these are [[Publication|published]]. The largest collections belong to the [[British Museum]] ({{abbr|approx.|approximately}}&nbsp;130,000 tablets), the [[Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin]], the [[Louvre]], the [[Istanbul Archaeology Museums]], the [[National Museum of Iraq]], the [[Yale Babylonian Collection]] ({{abbr|approx.|approximately}}&nbsp;40,000 tablets), and the [[University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology|Penn Museum]].<ref name="BAR"/><ref>{{cite book|first=Michael P.|last=Streck|chapter=Großes Fach Altorientalistik. Der Umfang des keilschriftlichen Textkorpus|title=Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orientgesellschaft 142|date=2010|pages=57–58|url=https://www.orient-gesellschaft.de/repositorium/MDOG/MDOG_142.pdf}}</ref>