Tag Archives: Cuneiform

Creation of Written Language

5 Dec
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Cuneiform tablet from Mesopotamia

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Tokens from Mesopotamia

In class this week, you will learn about the development of writing in Sumer, a society in ancient Mesopotamia (pages 101 – 103 in your textbook). Here is a video playlist that supports the reading and the work we will do to answer our supporting question (#2): How did the development of agriculture in Mesopotamia lead to the development of writing?

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Creation of a Written Language – Cuneiform

17 Oct

Theo Van Den Hout, a professor of Hittite and Anatolian Languages, tells us about scribes in Mesopotamia and Anatolia. This short video was made for the Oriental Institute Museum special exhibit “Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East.” In Chapter 3, you learned about scribes, the people who specialized in writing, the stylus, which is the instrument they used to write on clay tablets, and cuneiform, the wedge-shaped writing. Read more about the development of writing and pictograms on the British Museum’s website on Mesopotamia. Why do some historians identify the beginning of history with the beginning of writing? Tell me an interesting fact or two you learned about writing in Mesopotamia from one or more of these videos.

Screenshot from the British Museum Twitter Post (Oct. 15, 2015)

Screenshot from the British Museum Twitter Post (Oct. 15, 2015)

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Cuneiform – Development of Writing

23 Nov

Watch any of the videos in this playlist and comment on something you learned about the development of writing in Mesopotamia. Why do historians identify the beginning of history with the beginning of writing?

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Writing in Mesopotamia – Cuneiform

7 Nov

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Theo Van Den Hout, a professor of Hittite and Anatolian Languages, tells us about scribes in Mesopotamia and Anatolia. This short video was made for the Oriental Institute Museum special exhibit “Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East.” In Chapter 3, you will learn about scribes, the people who specialized in writing, the stylus, which is the instrument they used to write on clay tablets, and cuneiform, the wedge-shaped writing. Tell me what you think about it in the comment section.  Read more about the development of writing and pictograms on the British Museum’s website on Mesopotamia.

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