Cuneiform Essay

The Sumerians invented a writing system known as cuneiform, meaning “wedge-shaped,” at around 2300 B.C. The cuneiform writing system was made out of pictures and symbols, inscribed by a reed stylus and pressed into clay. The cuneiform is based on a syllabary system, which is a set of written symbols that make up the syllables, thereby forming words. The syllabary system is viewed as pure, analytic, and arbitrary since the symbols do not share graphic resemblances to phonic similarities.This system differs from the abjad writing system, notably the structure for Egyptian hieroglyphs, in which each symbol or glyph stands for a consonant, leaving the reader to supply the appropriate vowel. However, in later centuries, the abjad writing system
By 3200 B.C., cuneiform writing became advanced with the creation of phonograms, which are symbols representing sound. While the Egyptians developed the same system, theirs added logograms -symbols in place of words – and ideograms (symbols conveying a sense) to their script . A modern-day example of hieroglyphic writing would be a text message of an emoji of a happy face placed after an image of food, thus conveying the concept of “I like food,” or “I am happy about food.” Whereas, the Sumerian writing form directly represents specific information such as, “I am going to get groceries at the store this evening” or “the reporter took note of the
The Epic of Gilgamesh is rich in material found in these later texts. One of the parallels between the Old Testament and the Epic can be seen in the flood story, with Uthnapishtim and Noah as the heroes in their separate, but analogous, stories . There is abundant evidence of ancient Greek literature borrowing Near Eastern elements. An example of such appropriation can be found in the semblance between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the legends of Heracles. Both characters are similar in nature - they are both partially divine, skilled hunter-wanderers that have wrestled other godly