You can see how words can be written in syllables in the handy chart below, from cuneiform by curators Irving Finkel and Jonathan Taylor of the British Museum.
The two main languages written in cuneiform are Sumerian and Akkadian, although more than a dozen others are recorded, including Hittite, cousin to Latin.
Texts were written by pressing a cut, straight reed into slightly moist clay. The characteristic wedge-shaped strokes that make up the signs give the writing its modern name – cuneiform means ‘wedge-shaped’ (from the Latin cuneus for ‘wedge’).
In this video, Irving Finkel, curator in the Department of the Middle East, teaches us how to write cuneiform using just a lolly (popsicle) stick and some clay. A collection of more than 20,000 clay tablets and fragments inscribed with cuneiform dating to about 2,700 years ago, covering all kinds of topics from magic to medicine, and politics to palaces.
The Flood Tablet. Fragment of a clay tablet with part of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Assyrian, 7th century BC.
