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
Aš (cuneiform) Aš (cuneiform) [[File:B001ellst.png|437px|left|thumb|Cuneiform sign for aš, dil, ina, ṭel, and as [[sumerogram]] AŠ, (sign uses from the "[[Epic of Gilgamesh]]").]] [[File:Louvres-antiquites-moyen-orient-p1020178.jpg|thumb|right|250px|[[Amarna letter 362]]-("Reverse"), [[Rib-Hadda]] to Pharaoh, with usage of cuneiform "aš" in the spelling of "šapāru", "to send in writing)" (two locations in letter, line 18 obverse, line 52 reverse). <br>(high resolution, expandible photo) ]] The [[cuneiform]] Aš sign, is found in both the 14th century BC [[Amarna letters]] and the [[Epic of Gilgamesh]]. In the Epic, it has the following meanings, besides "aš": Some special considerations for a single "cuneiform sign" are as follows. In [[Egyptian hieroglyphs]], the space