Cuneiform Clay Tablet

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Cuneiform on clay tablet.

Cuneiform is the world’s oldest known written language developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC. The inscriptions were made with reed styluses to impress some 900 different logographic, syllabic and taxographic signs into moist clay tablets.

The text dates from the third dynasty of Ur (Ur III, c. 2100-2000 BC). The original text that was impressed on the tablet has, for the most part, been rendered illegible by a seal that was stamped over the surface.

The seal appears to have belonged to Shara-bazige, a scribe who was employed by Ur-Lisi, governor of Umma, a city-state in southern Mesopotamia and a key center during the Ur III period. This particular seal has been identified on several other Ur III texts.