Cuneiform, Sumero-Akkadian

Cuneiform is one of the earliest known systems of writing, emerging in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) around the 30th century BCE. The name cuneiform comes from the Latin word cuneus, meaning "wedge", owing to the wedge-shaped marks on early cuneiform tablets. Cuneiform was used to write a number of languages, including Sumerian, Akkadian, Eblaite, Elamite, Hattic, Hurrian, Luwian, Old Persian, and Urartian. More than half a million cuneiform tablets have been recovered to date, many of which are inscribed with literature, including works of epic poetry and religious texts. While cuneiform writing was replaced by alphabetic writing systems in most parts of the world by the end of the 1st millennium BCE, it continued to be used in Mesopotamia until the 1st century CE.