Early writing tablet recording the allocation of beer, 3100–3000 BC
Sumerian writing is considered to be a great milestone in the development of humanity's ability to not only create historical records but also in creating pieces of literature, both in the form of poetic epics and stories, as well as prayers and laws. Although pictographs, hieroglyphs — were used first, cuneiform and then ideograms (where symbols were made to represent ideas) soon followed. Triangular or wedge-shaped reeds were used to write on moist clay. A large body of hundreds of thousands of texts in Sumerian cuneiform script have survived, such as personal and business letters, receipts, lexical lists, laws, hymns, prayers, stories, and daily records. Full libraries of clay tablets have been found. Monumental inscriptions and texts on different objects, like statues or bricks, are also very common. Many texts survive in multiple copies because they were repeatedly transcribed by scribes in training. Sumerian continued to be the language of religion and law in Mesopotamia long after Semitic speakers had become dominant.
Writing development[]
The Sumerian language is one of the earliest known written languages. Records with unambiguously linguistic content, identifiably Sumerian, are those found at Jemdet Nasr, dating to the 31st or 30th century BCE. From c. 2600 BCE, the logographic symbols were generalized using a wedge-shaped stylus to impress shapes into wet clay. The archaic "wedge-shaped" mode of writing, called cuneiform script was adapted to Akkadian writing from the mid third millennium. Deciphering cuneiform is based on Akkadian glossaries, the “Rosetta Stone” for Sumerian. By the time of the "Sumerian Renaissance" (Ur III) of the 21st century BCE, Sumerian was written in already highly abstract cuneiform glyphs directly succeeded by Old Assyrian cuneiform.
- Proto-literate – c. 3300 to 3000 BCE
- Archaic Sumerian – 31st–26th century BCE
- Old or Classical Sumerian – 26th–23rd century BCE
- Neo-Sumerian – 23rd–21st century BCE
- Late Sumerian – 20th–18th century BCE
- Post-Sumerian – after 1700 BCE
- Proto-literate
The "proto-literate period" of Sumerian writing spans c. 3300 to 3000 BCE. In this period, records are purely logographic, with no linguistic or phonological content. The oldest document of the proto-literate period is the Kish tablet. Falkenstein (1936) lists 939 signs used in the proto-literate period (late Uruk, 34th to 31st centuries BCE).
- Archaic Sumerian
Archaic Sumerian is the earliest stage of inscriptions having linguistic content, beginning with the Jemdet Nasr (Uruk III) period from about the 31st to 30th centuries BCE.
- Neo-Sumerian
By the time of the "Sumerian Renaissance" (Ur III) of the 21st century BCE, Sumerian was written in already highly abstract cuneiform glyphs directly succeeded by Old Assyrian cuneiform.
- Classical Sumerian
The pre-Sargonian period of the 26th to 24th centuries BCE is the "Classical Sumerian" stage of the language. From c. 2600 BCE, the logographic symbols were generalized using a wedge-shaped stylus to impress the shapes into wet clay. This archaic cuneiform ("wedge-shaped") mode of writing co-existed with the pre-cuneiform archaic mode. Deimel (1922) lists 870 signs used in the Early Dynastic IIIa period (26th century). In the same period the large set of logographic signs had been simplified into a logosyllabic script comprising several hundred signs. Rosengarten (1967) lists 468 signs used in Sumerian (pre-Sargonian) Lagash.
- Late Sumerian
Letter sent by the high-priest Lu'enna to the king of Lagash (maybe Urukagina), informing him of his son's death in combat, c. 2400 BCE, found in Telloh (ancient Girsu)
Some versions of the chronology may omit the Late Sumerian phase and regard all texts written after 2000 BCE as Post-Sumerian.[1]
- Post Sumerian
Post-Sumerian refers to when spoken Sumerian had already been extinct and preserved by Babylonians and Assyrians only as a liturgical and classical language for religious, artistic and scholarly purposes.
Types of writing[]
- Poems
A prime example of cuneiform writing would be a lengthy poem that was discovered in the ruins of Uruk. The Epic of Gilgamesh was written in the standard Sumerian cuneiform. It tells of a king from the early Dynastic II period named Gilgamesh or "Bilgamesh" in Sumerian. The story is based around the fictional adventures of Gilgamesh and his companion, Enkidu. It was laid out on several clay tablets and is claimed to be the earliest example of a fictional, written piece of literature discovered so far.