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Learn How Cuneiform Leaves Marks - Practice 1

Ancient Mesopotamian scribes used cuneiform, a writing system with wedge-shaped marks, often pressed into clay with a stylus.

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Ancient Mesopotamian scribes used cuneiform, a writing system with wedge-shaped marks, often pressed into clay with a stylus. It was used for several languages, not one universal spoken language. Paper models below illustrate marks and records; they are not translations of real tablets.

Worked example

A stylus pressed into soft clay can leave a wedge-shaped impression. The marks can carry writing; a shape alone does not translate a tablet.

An imaginary clay tablet has rows of wedge-shaped demonstration impressions. These marks illustrate the physical idea of cuneiform but are not a real inscription, readable sentence or translation.
An imaginary clay tablet has rows of wedge-shaped demonstration impressions. These marks illustrate the physical idea of cuneiform but are not a real inscription, readable sentence or translation.
Question 1 Which tool presses marks into the clay model?
Question 2 What shape gives cuneiform its name?
Question 3 Which material commonly preserved cuneiform writing?
Question 4 Is cuneiform the name of just one spoken language?
Question 5 A model tablet lists grain amounts. What purpose could such a record serve?