Cuneiform

Examples of Cuneiform in the following topics:

• Government and Trade in the Achaemenid Empire

  • In addition to describing the genealogy of Cyrus, the declaration in Akkadian cuneiform script on the cylinder is considered by many Biblical scholars as evidence of Cyrus’s policy of repatriation of the Jewish people following their captivity in Babylon.
  • The Behistun Inscription, the text of which Darius wrote, came to have great linguistic significance as a crucial clue in deciphering cuneiform script.
  • The inscription, which is approximately 15 meters high and 25 meters wide, includes three versions of the text in three different cuneiform languages: Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian, which was a version of Akkadian.
  • Researchers were able to compare the scripts and use it to help decipher ancient languages, in this way making the Behistun Inscription as valuable to cuneiform as the Rosetta Stone is to Egyptian hieroglyphs.
  • A section of the Behistun Inscription on a limestone cliff of Mount Behistun in western Iran, which became a key in deciphering cuneiform script.

• The Sumerians

  • Many Sumerian clay tablets written in cuneiform script have been discovered.
  • Initially, pictograms were used, followed by cuneiform, and then ideograms.
  • Sumerians invented or improved a wide range of technology, including the wheel, cuneiform script, arithmetic, geometry, irrigation, saws and other tools, sandals, chariots, harpoons, and beer.

• Hammurabi's Code

  • A basalt stele containing the code in cuneiform script inscribed in the Akkadian language is currently on display in the Louvre, in Paris, France.
  • This basalt stele has the Code of Hammurabi inscribed in cuneiform script in the Akkadian language.

• Ur

  • Cuneiform tablets show that Ur was, during the third millennium BCE, a highly centralized, wealthy, bureaucratic state.

• The Hittites

  • The history of the Hittite civilization is known mostly from cuneiform texts found in the area of their kingdom, and from diplomatic and commercial correspondence found in various archives in Egypt and the Middle East.

• Babylonian Culture

  • Centuries of Babylonian observations of celestial phenomena are recorded in a series of cuneiform tablets known as the "Enūma Anu Enlil;" in fact, the oldest significant astronomical text known to mankind is Tablet 63 of the Enūma Anu Enlil, the Venus tablet of Ammi-saduqa, which lists the first and last visible risings of Venus over a period of about 21 years.

• The Akkadian Empire

  • Cuneiform sources suggest that the Gutians' administration showed little concern for maintaining agriculture, written records, or public safety; they reputedly released all farm animals to roam about Mesopotamia freely, and soon brought about famine and rocketing grain prices.

• Akkadian Government, Culture, and Economy

  • The works of this poetess are significant, because although they start out using the third person, they shift to the first person voice of the poet herself, and they mark a significant development in the use of cuneiform.