Cuneiform Spreads

Cuneiform did not stay Sumerian for long. It was so useful that neighboring peoples borrowed the script to write their own, very different languages. The Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians all adapted these wedge-shaped signs, even though their speech sounded nothing like Sumerian.

For roughly three thousand years, cuneiform was the writing system of the Near East — the longest-running script the region ever knew.

Cuneiform was the oldest known writing, but it sits on a separate line from our alphabet — our letters trace back instead to Egyptian-inspired signs. Still, writing's impact cannot be overstated: before it, knowledge died with the people who held it in their memories.