Writing began after pottery was invented, during the Neolithic, when clay tokens were used to record specific amounts of livestock or commodities. In recent years a contrarian view has arisen … 展开

The decipherment of cuneiform began with the decipherment of Old Persian cuneiform in 1836.
The first cuneiform … 展开

The Sumerian cuneiform script had on the order of 1,000 distinct signs, or about 1,500 if variants are included. This number was reduced to about 600 by the 24th century BC and the … 展开

As of version 15.1, the following ranges are assigned to the Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform script in the Unicode Standard:
• U+12000–U+123FF (922 assigned characters) 展开

Between half a million and two million cuneiform tablets are estimated to have been excavated in modern times, of which only approximately 30,000 –100,000 have been read or published. The British Museum holds the largest collection (approx. 130,000 … 展开

Cuneiform has a specific format for transliteration. Because of the script's polyvalence, transliteration requires certain choices of the … 展开

Cuneiform script was used in many ways in ancient Mesopotamia. Besides the well-known clay tablets and stone inscriptions, cuneiform was also written on wax boards, of which one example from the 8th century BC was found at Nimrud. The wax contained toxic amounts … 展开