cuneiform

According to Dr. Irving Finkel, Curator and Assyriologist, the earliest evidence for writing was in southern Mesopotamia around 3200–3350 BC during the late Uruk period. These first clay texts didn’t record literature, religion, or philosophy. Instead, they served practical economic purposes such as documenting commodities. Many of these commodities would consist of items such as livestock, beer, and labor obligations. These early clay tablets contain pictographic symbols. Over time, these pictographs evolved into increasingly abstract wedge-shaped impressions made with a reed stylus. This particular development produced what scholars call cuneiform, taken from the Latin cuneus, meaning "wedge." At first, writing was used as a practical tool primarily for administration, accounting, and economic management rather than storytelling or religion. Mesopotamia, History