Cuneiform writing: Did you mean...?

Script is the written expression of a language. Cuneiform, the first script, was invented in Sumer, Mesopotamia, circa 3600/3500 BCE; hieroglyphics sometime prior to the Early Dynastic Period in Egypt (circa 3150-2613 BCE); and Sanskrit in...

Mesopotamia (from the Greek, meaning "between two rivers") was an ancient region located in the Near East (Middle East) bounded in the northeast by the Zagros Mountains and in the southeast by the Arabian Plateau, corresponding to modern-day...

Writing in ancient Egypt developed sometime prior to the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150-2613 BCE) and came to be recognized as a gift of the god Thoth who empowered humanity through the written word. Writing preserved memory, honored the...

The Sumerian language was spoken in southern Mesopotamia before the 2nd millennium BCE and was the first language to be written in the cuneiform script. It is an isolate language meaning we know of no other languages that relate to it ancestrally...

Watch ancient Sumerians figure out how to use pictures to write sounds for the first time in history. See why the Egyptians disagree with their approach. Meaning writing (logographs) let early writers get civilized and document their thoughts...

Watch this ancient Chinese scribe figure out how to use a fixed set of characters to write limitless words in his language. How? By combining meaning writing (logographs) and sound writing (rebus)! The result is a set of helpful hints...

Writing... awesome technology or unnatural intrusion? Why did humans start writing? What would our world be like without writing? Here begins the tale of Thoth and Thamus, two legendary Egyptians arguing over the value of writing. Will...

Watch prehistoric pictures turn into written words as ancient civilizations around the world learn to write for the very first time! You took Thoth's Pill. Now your journey continues. Leave the cave days behind and take a leap into history...

Mesopotamian science and technology developed during the Uruk period (circa 4000-3100 BCE) and the Early Dynastic period (circa 2900-2350/2334 BCE) of the Sumerian culture of southern Mesopotamia. The foundation of future Mesopotamian advances...

Writing started out as pictures? Yep! Journey to a cave full of pictographs in ancient France and see how it all began. You just took Thoth's Pill. Now watch as early cave paintings turn into pictographs and ideographs. Where will history...