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
Ne (cuneiform) Ne (cuneiform) [[File:B313ellst.png|437px|left|thumb|Cuneiform sign for bil-(=bí), kúm, ne, pil, ṭè, and as [[sumerogram]]s BIL, and NE, (sign uses from the "[[Epic of Gilgamesh]]").]] [[File:BM 29785 EA 9 Reverse.jpg|thumb|right|315px|[[Amarna letter EA 9]]-("Reverse"), [[Tushratta]] to Pharaoh, with usage of cuneiform "bil" in the spelling of "qabû", "to say, tell", Paragraph 1 (tablet obverse). <br>(high resolution, expandible photo, and last line, 3rd sign from left — [[bi (cuneiform)|bi]]), a common multi-use, multi-syllabic sign]] The [[cuneiform]] Ne sign, is found in both the 14th century BC [[Amarna letters]] and the "[[Epic of Gilgamesh]]". In the Amarna letters, it is especially used in the opening,