Cuneiform Cuneiform Cuneiform or Sumerian cuneiform, one of the earliest systems of writing, was invented by the Sumerians. It is distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made by means of a blunt reed for a stylus. The name "cuneiform" itself simply means "wedge shaped". Emerging in Sumer in the late fourth millennium BC (the Uruk IV period) to convey the Sumerian language, which was a language isolate, cuneiform writing began as a system of pictograms, stemming from an earlier system of shaped tokens used for accounting. In the third millennium, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract as
Ir (cuneiform) Ir (cuneiform) The cuneiform ir (more common usage), or er sign is a sign used in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Amarna letters. It is in a small group that have smaller, 3-verticals, as well as 2- and 1-vertical strokes, sitting on a lower horizontal cuneiform stroke. The sign is similar to the "sa (cuneiform)" sign, but sa's upper horizontal stroke is shorter than the lower anchored horizontal stroke. In the Amarna letters, it can also be confused with specific usages of ú-(the alphabetic u (by usage), Ú-1st prime–Ù-2nd prime is a complex, two-part large cuneiform sign, ="and", "but",