Editing Cuneiform (section)

===Sumerian pictographs (c. 3300 BC)<span class="anchor" id="Pictograms"></span>===
{{see also|Proto-cuneiform}}
[[File:P1150884 Louvre Uruk III tablette écriture précunéiforme AO19936 rwk.jpg|thumb|A tablet with proto-cuneiform pictographic characters, end of 4th millennium BC, [[Uruk period|Uruk III]]. This is thought to be a list of slaves' names, the hand in the upper left corner representing the owner.<ref name=":12" />]]
The cuneiform script was developed from [[Pictogram|pictographic]] [[proto-writing]] in the late 4th millennium BC, stemming from the near eastern token system used for accounting. The meaning and usage of these tokens is still a matter of debate.<ref>Overmann, Karenleigh A. ''The Material Origin of Numbers: Insights from the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East'', Piscataway, New Jersey, US: Gorgias Press, 2019</ref> These tokens were in use from the 9th millennium&nbsp;BC and remained in occasional use into the late 2nd millennium BC.<ref>Denise Schmandt-Besserat, "An Archaic Recording System and the Origin of Writing." Syro Mesopotamian Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1–32, 1977</ref> Early tokens with pictographic shapes of animals, associated with numbers, were discovered in [[Tell Brak]], and date to the mid-4th millennium BC.<ref name="auto3">{{cite book |last1=Walker |first1=C. |title=Reading The Past Cuneiform |date=1987 |publisher=British Museum |pages=[https://archive.org/details/Walker.C.ReadingThePastCuneiform/page/n15 7]-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/Walker.C.ReadingThePastCuneiform |language=en}}</ref> It has been suggested that the token shapes were the original basis for some of the Sumerian pictographs.<ref>Denise Schmandt-Besserat, An Archaic Recording System in the Uruk-Jemdet Nasr Period, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 83, no. 1, pp. 19–48, (Jan. 1979)</ref>

Mesopotamia's "proto-literate" period spans roughly the 35th to 32nd centuries BC. The first unequivocal written documents start with the Uruk IV period, from c. 3300&nbsp;BC, followed by tablets found in Uruk III, [[Jemdet Nasr]], Early Dynastic I [[Ur]] and [[Susa]] (in [[Proto-Elamite]]) dating to the period until c.&nbsp;2900&nbsp;BC.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Walker |first1=C. |title=Reading The Past Cuneiform |date=1987 |publisher=British Museum |page=[https://archive.org/details/Walker.C.ReadingThePastCuneiform/page/n23 9] |url=https://archive.org/details/Walker.C.ReadingThePastCuneiform |language=en}}</ref>

Originally, pictographs were either drawn on [[clay]] tablets in vertical columns with a sharpened [[Phragmites|reed]] [[stylus]] or incised in stone. This early style lacked the characteristic wedge shape of the strokes.<ref name="auto3" /> Most [[Proto-Cuneiform]] records from this period were of an accounting nature.<ref>[https://cdli.ucla.edu/staff/englund/publications/englund2004a.pdf] Robert K. Englund, "Proto-Cuneiform Account-Books and Journals", in Michael
Hudson and Cornelia Wunsch,  eds.,  Creating Economic Order:  Record-keeping,
Standardization and the Development of Accounting in the Ancient Near East (CDL
Press: Bethesda, Maryland, USA) pp. 23–46, 2004</ref> The proto-cuneiform sign list has grown, as new texts are discovered, and shrunk, as variant signs are combined. The current sign list is 705 elements long with 42 being numeric and four considered pre-proto-Elamite.<ref>Green, M. and H. J. Nissen (1987). Zeichenliste der Archaischen Texte aus Uruk. ATU 2. Berlin</ref><ref>Englund, R. K. (1998). "Texts from the Late Uruk Period". In: Mesopotamien: Späturuk-Zeit und Frühdy-
nastische Zeit (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 160/1). Ed. by P. Attinger and M. Wäfler. Fribourg, Switzerland / Göttingen, 15–217</ref><ref>[https://cdli.ucla.edu/file/publications/cdlb2021_006.pdf] Born, L., & Kelley, K. (2021). A Quantitative Analysis of Proto-Cuneiform Sign Use in Archaic Tribute. Cuneiform Digital Library Bulletin, 006</ref>

Certain signs to indicate names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc., are known as [[determinative]]s and were the Sumerian signs of the terms in question, added as a guide for the reader. Proper names continued to be usually written in purely "logographic" fashion.
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