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Mesopotamian Gallery: Writing

Near the end of the 4th millennium B.C. writing was invented in Mesopotamia. The first case on the right shows the development of writing from simple pictures scratched into clay to increasingly abstract signs made up of wedges impressed in the clay with a stylus and known as "cuneiform." The cases to the right describe the complicated training of scribes, the main types of Mesopotamian documents - legal, administrative, literary and historical - that are preserved, and give some details about Mesopotamian mathematics, astronomy, and medicine.

Detailed List of Artifacts on Exhibit

Return to the Museum Floor Plan

Revised: February 19, 2007

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