It’s not a language. It’s not an alphabet, either, exactly. But if you want to read the original Epic of Gilgamesh, or study the trade records of the ancient Sumerians, cuneiform is the only game in ...

CHICAGO — Writing, wheeled carts, the 60-minute hour, sailboats and seed plows are among the things a people called the Sumerians invented in the fabled Fertile Crescent about 5,000 years ago. They ...

The Sumerian King List begins with the very origin of kingship, which is seen as a divine institution: “the kingship had descended from heaven.” The rulers in the earliest dynasties are represented as ...

The history of writing is for sale on the Internet, and it’s cheap. The opening bid for a cuneiform cone that allegedly hails from 2000 B.C.E. starts at $1. A square tablet recording a sale that took ...

When people living in southern Mesopotamia (now southern Iraq) toward the end of the 4th millennium BC created documents by inscribing cuneiform characters on clay tablets, they took the first step in ...

A museum worker wearing gloves holds up a cuneiform clay tablet, one of a collection of over 100, on display at a museum in Jerusalem. EPA/Jim Hollander Cuneiform made headlines recently with the ...

Since acquiring the tablet in 1882, the British Museum made a significant breakthrough when it found a piece that had been ...

Miguel Civil, a scholar and researcher at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, was a leading expert on the Sumerian language, the earliest known written language. “No one has known Sumerian ...

The ancient Sumerians invented cuneiform, shown here on a clay tablet documenting barley rations issued monthly to adults and children. The language may have died out as a result of a 200-year drought ...

Ancient Babylonian world map from a clay tablet, nearly 3,000 years old, reveals a version of the Noah's Ark story and mythical lands.

The fermented cereal beverage enjoyed by Sumerians, so-called Sumerian beer, may have been alcohol-free, suggests a recent review of ancient Sumerian practices. While ancient writings and vessel ...