Introduction
Historical Background
Writing was invented in Mesopotamia (the fertile farming area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers) around 3100 B.C.E. The first examples are found at Uruk, one of the major city-states of ancient Sumer in the south of present-day Iraq. These earliest tablets used a combination of pictographs and other symbols to convey meaning.
Cuneiform writing was done on damp clay with a stylus made of a cut reed. Tablets were then fired or dried. Writing was also done on wooden tablets lined with beeswax for everyday use, and on expensive items such as ivory and stone for ceremonial or monumental purposes. Modern scholars have named the writing system after the wedge-shaped indentations made by the stylus -- cuneiform comes from a Latin word meaning "wedge-shaped."
Like most of the world's population throughout much of its history, the average person in ancient Mesopotamia did not know how to read or write. Even so, cuneiform records made up an important part of Mesopotamian life. Scribes, people specially trained in writing and reading cuneiform characters, were hired by temples, government officials, and businessmen to carry out the process of writing and to maintain the records which we still preserve today. Cuneiform writing was used for a wide range of important documents including hymns, temple records, correspondence, business transactions, and legal proceedings.
Although the Sumerians invented cuneiform writing, the system was used to transcribe several of the languages in the multicultural environment of Mesopotamia, and different forms of the script evolved over time. The Akkadians adopted the writing system around 2500 B.C.E., and cuneiform influenced the development of writing systems in many cultures, including Egypt, China, the Aegean islands, and others.
Most of the tablets in this exhibit are shown at several times their actual size. Contrary to popular belief, most cuneiform tablets were very small, only measuring an inch or two in height and width. Their small size made them quite durable and easily transportable.
About the Collection
Special Collections holds eight cuneiform tablets whose exact provenance is unknown. Seven of the tablets were donated to MU Libraries by the now-defunct Ernest McClary Todd Museum, formerly a part of the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. They probably came to the University in the early twentieth century. Tablet 8 was acquired as part of the Pages of the Past, a collection of examples of writing throughout history.
This exhibit is presented as a way to create awareness of these tablets, which are unresearched and unpublished. They are presented here as they were found in Special Collections, along with the information that originally came with them. The staff of Special Collections claims no special knowledge of them beyond the descriptions that accompany them, nor do we claim any linguistic competence in the written languages contained therein.
Corrections or additions to our information or indications to the proper orientation of the tablets as they are displayed here are welcome. High-quality digital images are available to interested researchers; please contact us at SpecialCollections@missouri.edu for more information.
