The most
widely used and historically significant writing system of
the ancient Middle East was called cuneiform. The term is
from the Latin, meaning "wedge-shaped." The writing
system was in use at least by the end of the 4th millennium
BC, and during the 3rd millennium the pictures that it used
became fairly standardized linear drawings. Because they were
pressed into soft clay tablets with the slanted edge of a
stylus, they came to have a wedge-shaped appearance.
Cuneiform was not a language. It was, like Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Chinese system of ideographs, or ideograms, a picture-writing system that used symbols. As the symbols gained acceptance throughout the Middle East, they could be understood by all ethnic groups even though the groups spoke different languages and dialects.
