What do you think?
Rate this book
Cuneiform: Ancient Scripts
Cuneiform script on clay tablets is, as far as we know, the oldest form of writing in the world. The resilience of clay has permitted these records to survive for thousands of years, providing a fascinating glimpse into the political, economic, and religious institutions of the ancient Near Eastern societies that used this writing system.
A concise and accessible introduction to the topic, this book traces the history of cuneiform from its beginnings in the fourth millennium BC to its eventual demise in the face of the ever expanding use of alphabetic Aramaic in the first millennium BC. The authors explain how this pre-alphabetic system worked and how it was possible to use it to record so many different languages. Drawing on examples from the British Museum, which has the largest and most venerable cuneiform collection in the world, this lively volume includes elementary school exercises, revealing private letters, and beautiful calligraphic literature for royal libraries.
A concise and accessible introduction to the topic, this book traces the history of cuneiform from its beginnings in the fourth millennium BC to its eventual demise in the face of the ever expanding use of alphabetic Aramaic in the first millennium BC. The authors explain how this pre-alphabetic system worked and how it was possible to use it to record so many different languages. Drawing on examples from the British Museum, which has the largest and most venerable cuneiform collection in the world, this lively volume includes elementary school exercises, revealing private letters, and beautiful calligraphic literature for royal libraries.
112 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2015
15 people are currently reading
770 people want to read
About the author
Irving Finkel
34 books231 followersIrving Leonard Finkel, Ph.D. (Assyriology, University of Birmingham, 1976; B.A., Ancient
New Eastern Studies, University of Birmingham, 1969), is a British philologist and Assyriologist. He has served as Assistant Keeper in the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities at the British Museum since 1979. As such, he is the curator in charge of cuneiform inscriptions on tablets of clay from ancient Mesopotamia, of which the Middle East Department has the largest collection—some 130,000 pieces—of any modern museum. He also is an author of fiction for children, and in 2007 co-founded The Great Diary Project.
New Eastern Studies, University of Birmingham, 1969), is a British philologist and Assyriologist. He has served as Assistant Keeper in the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities at the British Museum since 1979. As such, he is the curator in charge of cuneiform inscriptions on tablets of clay from ancient Mesopotamia, of which the Middle East Department has the largest collection—some 130,000 pieces—of any modern museum. He also is an author of fiction for children, and in 2007 co-founded The Great Diary Project.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
May 18, 2024
Cuneiform is the oldest form of writing we know. The book starts out by explaining to us that cuneiform is not a language but a way of writing down words. Many ancient cultures used cuneiform to write down their words, meaning cuneiform was used to write down many different types of ancient languages. And many languages still spoken today are related to those ancient languages written down thousands of years ago. This is part of why studying cuneiform writing can be so fascinating and important, so we can learn from our past. But this also makes it more challenging.
The book does stress out though that it generalizes some things that are actually far more nuanced in reality. This is considered necessary to make this book more suited to a casual reader - which is this book’s intended audience – instead of an expert in the field.
This book serves as an easily accessible introduction to this fascinating ancient type of writing to those of us who are not scholars. The book mentions that the ability to read these old cuneiform inscriptions was a hard-earned skill even in ancient times. So reading this book won’t make you an expert in cuneiform. But you will gain some valuable insights about it. Like its seemingly rather mundane origins and some very basic examples of the writing itself. And there’s also a lot of interesting anecdotes to be discovered along the way.
The book does stress out though that it generalizes some things that are actually far more nuanced in reality. This is considered necessary to make this book more suited to a casual reader - which is this book’s intended audience – instead of an expert in the field.
This book serves as an easily accessible introduction to this fascinating ancient type of writing to those of us who are not scholars. The book mentions that the ability to read these old cuneiform inscriptions was a hard-earned skill even in ancient times. So reading this book won’t make you an expert in cuneiform. But you will gain some valuable insights about it. Like its seemingly rather mundane origins and some very basic examples of the writing itself. And there’s also a lot of interesting anecdotes to be discovered along the way.
March 18, 2021
A few years ago, Jonathan Taylor opened the doors of the British Museum's ancient Middle East study rooms to us, a few students with our professor. He distributed thousands-of-years-old tablets between us: smooth pebbles of baked clay the size of mobile phones, on whose sides were painstakingly printed little wedge-shaped marks. He then explained that what we found ourselves holding were from a period in Mesopotamia which had seen the beginnings of the first writing in human history. This was cuneiform script. In fact, in trays and boxes on shelves all around the room were many thousands of these tablets - too many to ever properly examine. On some tablets you could clearly see the marks of a fingernail, where somebody had pressed into the clay a kind of signature. I'm still impressed by the simple act of running my fingers across the wedge marks to feel the physical, almost personal record left by, say, a brewer, from Iraq 5,000 years ago.
October 14, 2020
An excellent introduction into the writing system of cuneiform, that was used in a variety of different languages over a span of millenia. It is quite short but it offers a wide overview over an array of topics. It opened my eyes to a whole new hidden world - I would've never imagined how many relicts of the ancient near eastern culture are preserved in an excellent state and how much information it gives on societies, cultures and lives.
There are several high quality images of old tablets. My favourite one was one coming from a student of cuneiform who learned the script some millenia ago and whose practice tablet was by pure chance preserved. Out of boredom or annoyance he actually made a clearly visible drawing of his teacher next to his exercises, much like we would in nowaday's schools.
There are several high quality images of old tablets. My favourite one was one coming from a student of cuneiform who learned the script some millenia ago and whose practice tablet was by pure chance preserved. Out of boredom or annoyance he actually made a clearly visible drawing of his teacher next to his exercises, much like we would in nowaday's schools.
March 15, 2016
A simple but fascinating introduction to cuneiform. I loved the physical layout and the pictures in this book. Beautiful!
November 8, 2019
This is the kind of book you might find in a museum gift shop. It is short, at only about 100 pages, and half of those are illustrations, so it is very much a brief introduction to the topic. On the other hand, the photographs are gorgeous, detailed, and full color on glossy paper. Most of the items shown are from the British Museum.
The book begins with a section on the development of cuneiform, its amazing longevity across thousands of years, and it adoption for writing by linguistically unrelated languages from Syria to Iran and Anatolia to the Levant. There is even speculation that it influenced the early development of the Minoan scripts. It was originally developed by the Sumerians, whose language seems to have been unrelated to any other, from an earlier purely pictographic writing system approximately 3200 B.C.. The astonishing flexibility of cuneiform is shown by its ability to adapt to language families entirely unrelated to Sumerian, such as Semitic (Akkadian), Vannic (Urartian), Indo-European (Hittite), and other language isolates such as Elamite, Hattic, and Hurrian. The latest cuneiform tablet found so far is from 62 A.D.
It was a complicated writing system, which could take years to master. Depending on the language it was being used for it usually contained 800-1000 signs, some for whole words, some for syllables, and some for determinatives (in English percent and dollar signs are determinatives, indicating that a number is to be treated as fractional or as currency). However, like modern Chinese, not all of the symbols needed to be known to achieve basic literacy. It is estimated that most people could function by knowing only 100-200 of them.
Part of its longevity was due to the simplicity of its materials: river mud and a cut reed. Most of the tablets which have been recovered were intended for temporary record keeping, such as recording the receipt of goods or payment of taxes. More formal uses included magic spells, religious rituals, royal proclamations, and even the earliest known literature. The tale of Gilgamesh is known to us from the cuneiform tablets it was was first recorded on. Also, unlike paper or parchment, these tablets can last thousands of years under the right conditions. Fire, in fact, actually improves them by baking and hardening the clay. This is good because the history of the region is a bloody tale of the rise and fall of dynasties and empires, conquest and slaughter, with cities conquered, burned, and razed over and over.
Writing and empire go hand in hand. Civilization could not grow beyond the village level until there was a way to administer larger political units. With writing and the ability to keep track of people and goods, the span of control of kings greatly increased, and the first empires arose, leading to increased trade, standardized laws, and political and religious unity. The transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers and pastoralists had taken place thousands of years earlier, but it was only with the invention of writing that the first civilizations arose and the long march to the modern world began.
The book begins with a section on the development of cuneiform, its amazing longevity across thousands of years, and it adoption for writing by linguistically unrelated languages from Syria to Iran and Anatolia to the Levant. There is even speculation that it influenced the early development of the Minoan scripts. It was originally developed by the Sumerians, whose language seems to have been unrelated to any other, from an earlier purely pictographic writing system approximately 3200 B.C.. The astonishing flexibility of cuneiform is shown by its ability to adapt to language families entirely unrelated to Sumerian, such as Semitic (Akkadian), Vannic (Urartian), Indo-European (Hittite), and other language isolates such as Elamite, Hattic, and Hurrian. The latest cuneiform tablet found so far is from 62 A.D.
It was a complicated writing system, which could take years to master. Depending on the language it was being used for it usually contained 800-1000 signs, some for whole words, some for syllables, and some for determinatives (in English percent and dollar signs are determinatives, indicating that a number is to be treated as fractional or as currency). However, like modern Chinese, not all of the symbols needed to be known to achieve basic literacy. It is estimated that most people could function by knowing only 100-200 of them.
Part of its longevity was due to the simplicity of its materials: river mud and a cut reed. Most of the tablets which have been recovered were intended for temporary record keeping, such as recording the receipt of goods or payment of taxes. More formal uses included magic spells, religious rituals, royal proclamations, and even the earliest known literature. The tale of Gilgamesh is known to us from the cuneiform tablets it was was first recorded on. Also, unlike paper or parchment, these tablets can last thousands of years under the right conditions. Fire, in fact, actually improves them by baking and hardening the clay. This is good because the history of the region is a bloody tale of the rise and fall of dynasties and empires, conquest and slaughter, with cities conquered, burned, and razed over and over.
Writing and empire go hand in hand. Civilization could not grow beyond the village level until there was a way to administer larger political units. With writing and the ability to keep track of people and goods, the span of control of kings greatly increased, and the first empires arose, leading to increased trade, standardized laws, and political and religious unity. The transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers and pastoralists had taken place thousands of years earlier, but it was only with the invention of writing that the first civilizations arose and the long march to the modern world began.
May 22, 2017
A concise, crisp and very clear introduction to what cuneiform is, when it was used, who used it and how it worked.
I was slightly disappointed that the book didn’t teach me how to read cuneiform but it made it clear why a much bigger book would be required.
This whet my appetite rather then satiated it.
I was slightly disappointed that the book didn’t teach me how to read cuneiform but it made it clear why a much bigger book would be required.
This whet my appetite rather then satiated it.
August 13, 2018
This is a great book that provides a nice overview of the history of the cuneiform script. I learned that the script was used for at least three different languages. Sumerian, Babylonian (a Semitic language), and Akkadian (a Semitic language). The book describes how the script conveyed consonants and vowels and provides a helpful table of signs so you can write your own. While reading this book I had a chance to go see the Assyrian (Akkadian) Bas-Reliefs at the Bowdoin College of Art. These are from Nimrud and were created for king Assurnasirpal 2 who is described in the book as a soldier and scholar, who added extensive labels called "colophons" to his tablets (p. 54). If you are looking for a brief, well-written introduction to the topic this is the place to start.
June 18, 2020
Very readable, good overview of cuneiform.
December 1, 2020
I loved every minute of this. It was very comprehensive for a beginner like me and even funny at times. I recommend it to anyone interested in the topic!
April 14, 2024
Great, small and contained booklet specifically on the subject of cuneiform. Does not overreach with endless amount of extra information it could give on the mesopotamians. Enough to give a well-rounded perception of the script. Pretty images are included. Going to read some of the extra books it recommended on the matter as well. Loved the lectures of Irving finkel so much that I finally decided to tap into some of his writing. The same kind of energy he exudes on stage wasn't in his writing. But maybe that's just the academic professionalism coming through.
January 10, 2024
This fantastic book helps to understand ancient cuneiform writing, how it was created, its evolution, in which languajes it was written, its use and how academics decipherd it. It also has a lot of high quality photos and descriptions of clay tablets from the British Museum's collection. It is short (112 pages) and its confortable and easy to read. I would reccomend it to anyone interested in ancient mesopotamian cultures.
July 18, 2025
To someone with hardly any knowledge of cuneiform before (like me), this is a brilliant, brief introduction. The emphasis is on explaining the use of the script, the culture, what it was for, who used it, etc. I might have wished for a bit more detail on how the script actually worked - but it seems so complicated that I understand why they have chosen not to go more thoroughly into that. So yu won't learn how to read cuneiform from this book - but you might well end up wanting to learn more.
July 4, 2025
Ashurbanipal was crazy for this
June 20, 2025
An interesting overview of the history of cuneiform, explaining what it is, what is was used for, who used it, and even a chart of signs so that you can try writing cuneiform at home!
October 27, 2020
This is a beautiful, informative, and high-quality little book. A great introduction for anyone interested in history or linguistics.
The images were abundant and of outstanding quality. The book was very understandable (no academic jargon). I finished it an afternoon.
If you really like the history of ancient Mesopotamia, you might also check out "Ancient Mesopotamia" by Professor Amanda Podany on Audible. If you're more into linguistics, then there's lecture series called Writing and Civilization delivered by Marc Zender on Amazon Video that was great. I thought they both complimented this book well.
The images were abundant and of outstanding quality. The book was very understandable (no academic jargon). I finished it an afternoon.
If you really like the history of ancient Mesopotamia, you might also check out "Ancient Mesopotamia" by Professor Amanda Podany on Audible. If you're more into linguistics, then there's lecture series called Writing and Civilization delivered by Marc Zender on Amazon Video that was great. I thought they both complimented this book well.
March 16, 2016
Given to me by a good friend. A great primer on Cuneiform's origins and construct, without overdoing it conceptually so that you know where to start when conducting further study of this ancient script.
October 25, 2015
A very well written introduction to cuneiform by two experts from the British Museum. The illustrations are great and complement the text.
January 13, 2022
A slim book and very easy to read. I loved all the pictures and the variety of cuneiform tablets shown. There's even a phonetic guide at the end.
I think the most interesting thing I learned was that cuneiform was used for more than 3,000 years and that other cultures with different languages would come to study cuneiform to attempt to adapt it for their own languages, even though they already had a system of writing. Therefore, cuneiform was not just one language, but a system used by many different cultures. There is a section showing how some tablets had ink words written along the bottom in the "modern" language of the time, either as post-script (after the clay was dried) or as part of an indexing system. It reminded me of how some students still learn Latin today, so they can study and translate classical texts.
I think the most satisfying part I read was when it discussed the library of Nineveh, a huge collection of cuneiform tablets with many updated translations of earlier works and reference materials, like phonetic guides, that really helped open the world of cuneiform to modern researchers. But there was a part that said, at one point during an invasion, the library had been set on FIRE, but the great thing about clay is that the fire actually helped preserve the tablets by baking and hardening them, thereby saving them when everything else was lost.
I liked this novel and I hope to add it to my own collection some day. (This was a library book.)
I think the most interesting thing I learned was that cuneiform was used for more than 3,000 years and that other cultures with different languages would come to study cuneiform to attempt to adapt it for their own languages, even though they already had a system of writing. Therefore, cuneiform was not just one language, but a system used by many different cultures. There is a section showing how some tablets had ink words written along the bottom in the "modern" language of the time, either as post-script (after the clay was dried) or as part of an indexing system. It reminded me of how some students still learn Latin today, so they can study and translate classical texts.
I think the most satisfying part I read was when it discussed the library of Nineveh, a huge collection of cuneiform tablets with many updated translations of earlier works and reference materials, like phonetic guides, that really helped open the world of cuneiform to modern researchers. But there was a part that said, at one point during an invasion, the library had been set on FIRE, but the great thing about clay is that the fire actually helped preserve the tablets by baking and hardening them, thereby saving them when everything else was lost.
I liked this novel and I hope to add it to my own collection some day. (This was a library book.)
January 31, 2019
A decent introduction to the history and social context of Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform (other cuneiform scripts are mentioned but not treated in depth), with the caveat that it was put out by the British Museum and written at a level to appeal to the target audience of the British Museum gift shop—schoolchildren. Though that makes it shallow and occasionally somewhat condescending, Finkel and Taylor do avoid the genre's common tendency to include outright lies, either of the lies-to-children kind or the kind that result from too great a desire to avoid controversy and therefore include only outdated information.
This book won't even begin to teach you how to read cuneiform (a table of syllables is included at the very end, but that's it—cuneiform is logosyllabic), but it will tell you what to expect if you do try to learn it.
This book won't even begin to teach you how to read cuneiform (a table of syllables is included at the very end, but that's it—cuneiform is logosyllabic), but it will tell you what to expect if you do try to learn it.
Read
November 5, 2022"We don't know much about polite conversation in Sumerian (how did you say 'please' or 'thank you'?), but we can swear and insult each other with great vigor."
"[Regarding the library of Sippar's temple of the sungod]. On discover, tablets were still neatly arranged on their shelves, as they had been left when the last librarian finished work 2,500 years ago."
"When Nineveh fell to the Medes in 612 BC, Ashubanipal's tablets were broken and burnt. Ironically, this onlsaught ensured their survival; for a library of clay is the only type where a fire is beneficial, baking the tablets hard rather than destroying them."
"Occassionally, the clay displaced in making one wedge distorts the depression already made by another. . . scribes were trained to write the wedges in each sign in a particular order, as is the case with pen strokes in Chinese writing."
"[Regarding the library of Sippar's temple of the sungod]. On discover, tablets were still neatly arranged on their shelves, as they had been left when the last librarian finished work 2,500 years ago."
"When Nineveh fell to the Medes in 612 BC, Ashubanipal's tablets were broken and burnt. Ironically, this onlsaught ensured their survival; for a library of clay is the only type where a fire is beneficial, baking the tablets hard rather than destroying them."
"Occassionally, the clay displaced in making one wedge distorts the depression already made by another. . . scribes were trained to write the wedges in each sign in a particular order, as is the case with pen strokes in Chinese writing."
October 10, 2019
Really interesting.
I don't know what to say massively, there's not enough here to allow someone to become fluent in reading and writing Cuneiform but there is enough to appreciate it and sow, then fertilise the seeds of interest; plus there's some bits which really show how important language is to our history and cultural development and how old some of the ideas and concepts we still use today are (ever wondered why there's 60 seconds/minutes?).
Plus there's a section that talks about how to write in Cuneiform and I can't wait to play around with that.
I don't know what to say massively, there's not enough here to allow someone to become fluent in reading and writing Cuneiform but there is enough to appreciate it and sow, then fertilise the seeds of interest; plus there's some bits which really show how important language is to our history and cultural development and how old some of the ideas and concepts we still use today are (ever wondered why there's 60 seconds/minutes?).
Plus there's a section that talks about how to write in Cuneiform and I can't wait to play around with that.
January 18, 2020
Neat and short read. What attracted me about Cuneiform was how often Id see it at the museum, indicating that it was a widely used form of writing. It is NOT a language, but was primarily used to capture Sumerian and Akkadian languages (from ancient Iraq) around 3200 BC. At the end of the book is a lead on how to begin writing Cuneiform yourself, with a blunt ended object and some clay. I bought it to give it a go! And also because the idea is wonderful! (If you were obsessed with the film Arrival-as I was, and the story The Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang, you will like this!)
February 14, 2020
A great introduction for anyone who wants to start researching/studying cuneiform - everything is clear, precise, and is an ideal first step to becoming an Assyriologist. Admittedly I bought this book with the intention of learning how to specifically read the symbols, rather than learn about the story behind them and their significance, but with hindsight this book offered just as much interesting information and more.
December 4, 2018
Cuneiform is really fucking cool and this book is pretty cool too. It is short and lacking in substance, but that keeps it from being at all dry, a good place to dip ur proverbial toe in. I keep meaning to read more substantial books on the topic because of the excitement of reading this short one
Would make a great gift for a nerdy kid who seems like they might be into this sort of thing
Would make a great gift for a nerdy kid who seems like they might be into this sort of thing
March 9, 2020
Absolutely lovely and written by an experienced hand with such a command of the subject matter of assyriology and cuneiform writing, you'd expect dryness, but its engaging and anecdotal and, at times, funny. An excellent read for anyone interested in ancient languages or ancient studies. Absolutely lovely.
August 5, 2022
If you ever wonder what was going on 5000 years ago, this is the book for you.
Irving tells you how writing evolved and what they wrote about in this book. It's succinct and an excellent starter.
You may think a popular science book on cuneiform is boring but strangely I was led along like a mystery novel.
This book will give you a link to the past, literally.
Irving tells you how writing evolved and what they wrote about in this book. It's succinct and an excellent starter.
You may think a popular science book on cuneiform is boring but strangely I was led along like a mystery novel.
This book will give you a link to the past, literally.
Read
May 1, 2024Fascinating read!!!!! I read this in hopes of getting a steady technical foundation for eventually reading The Epic of Gilgamesh, but I was delighted to also read about cultural influences in spelling and pronunciation. Very fun!
July 4, 2024
Excellent photos of cuneiform tablets and some useful accompanying commentary. I would have liked a more in depth look at the writing system but this book is intended as a taster for the casual visitor.
July 24, 2025
Freely available online; what a treat; richly illustrated and including a very helpful summary introduction on the geography and timeline of the Mesopotamian area and cultures; worth your time and reading effort.
July 29, 2017
Very interesting account of the first form of writing: cuneiform. Easy to read and put in simple terms, therefore great for anyone with an interest in ancient history.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews