1. Tracing the Development
Cuneiform
Tracing the Development

3. Objectives Define and identify examples of
Pictograph
Ideograph
phonogram
Create written examples to represent objects, ideas, and sounds
Explain how the development of cuneiform affected Sumerian culture

4. Create a Nameplate
Your nameplate will be a way of displaying who you are, without words.
You will still explain it with words.
Check out my examples.

5. Sallée

6. Sallée Sallee is a French word meaning “one who sells salt.”
A “sallee-man” is Moorish pirate (from the city Sallee-Rabat in Morocco).

7. Sallée

8. Sallée
The first syllable of my name sounds like the beginning of the name of the monster from Monsters, Inc.
The end of my name rhymes with “clay.”

9. Create a Nameplate
Draw a nameplate for yourself without using letters or numbers.
Draw two or three simple illustrations.
Your illustrations could represent:
Your name’s pronunciation or meaning, or
Things that are important to you.
Write an explanation describing how you represented your name.

10. What is Cuneiform?
Cuneiform is one of the world’s first written languages.
Cuneiform was created in ancient Sumer and developed over time in roughly four stages.

11. Some Examples of Cuneiform

12. Pictographs
Pictographs are written symbols that represent real objects. They are not exact representations of the objects but are close enough that people can immediately recognize them.

13. Pictographs
The first stage in the development of cuneiform used pictographs. Some of the earliest records, dated to about 3100 BCE appear to be lists that combine letters and numbers, such as “12 cows.”

14. Pictographs
Scribes used sharpened reeds to scratch these symbols into wet clay. When dried, the hardened tablets became permanent written records.

15. Pictographs
Create a new section on your paper titled “Pictographs” and create a 3 x 3 table. The boxes should be big enough to write one word inside.

16. Pictographs star water ox food grain fire head snake day
Match the pictograph with its meaning, by writing in the corresponding box.
star
water ox
food
grain
fire
head
snake
day

17. Pictograph Questions What is a pictograph?
Below your table, answer the following questions
What is a pictograph?
What were the earliest pictographs likely used to record?

18. Pictographs Key Check your answers. water grain star day snake food
head
fire ox

19. Pictograph Answers What is a pictograph?
A written symbol that represents a real object.
What were the earliest pictographs likely used to record?
The number of animals someone owned.

20. Ideographs
Scribes discovered pictographs were too limiting because they could not represent complex concepts.
The second stage in the development of cuneiform involved ideographs.

21. Ideographs
Ideographs are pictographs which represent ideas, instead of just things.

22. Ideographs
One example of an ideograph is “to eat,” which combines a pictograph of a mouth and a pictograph for food.
The ideograph for “to go” is a foot.

23. Ideographs
Create a new section on your paper titled “Ideographs” and create a 3 x 3 table. The boxes should be big enough to write one word inside.

24. Ideographs prayer angry garden love eat long large meal month
Match the ideograph with its meaning by writing it in the corresponding box.
prayer
angry
garden
love
eat
long
large
meal
month

25. Ideograph Question Beneath your table, answer this question.
What is an ideograph?

26. Ideographs Key Check your answers. long eat love month meal angry
large
prayer
garden

27. Ideograph Answers What is an ideograph?
A pictograph that represents an idea instead of a thing.

28. Stylus Writing
This stage in the development is named after the stylus that scribes used.

29. Stylus Writing
The pictographs and ideographs took a long time to write with, so scribes began to create simplified pictures that used only straight lines.

30. Stylus Writing
Scribes used the stylus by pressing the edge down into the clay. They capped the end of the lines by pressing a corner of the stylus’ end to create a triangle-shaped impression.

31. Stylus Writing
Nineteenth-century scholars later named the Sumerian script cuneiform, which means “wedge-shaped writing.”

32. Stylus Writing
Create a new section on your paper titled “Stylus Writing” and create a 3 x 3 table. The boxes should be big enough to draw a small picture inside.

33. Stylus Writing
Match the stylus writing with its cuneiform by drawing the stylus drawing in the corresponding box.

34. Stylus Writing Questions
Below your table, answer the following questions.
What makes the triangles in cuneiform?
What does “cuneiform” mean?

35. Stylus Writing Key
Check your answers.

36. Stylus Writing Answers
What makes the triangles in cuneiform?
The scribes pushed the end of the stylus into the clay
What does “cuneiform” mean?
Wedge-shaped writing

37. Phonograms
A phonogram is a written symbol that stands for a sound.

38. Phonograms
This stage of the development of cuneiform was the most important. It allowed Sumerians to greatly increase the number of words in their written vocabulary.
The symbols were now tied to sounds instead of ideas.

39. Phonograms
Look through these phonograms a little bit.

40. Phonograms

41. Phonograms
Create a new section on your paper titled “Phonograms” and create a 2 x 3 table. The boxes should be big enough to write one word inside.
Number the boxes and answer the following questions in them. 1. 4. 2. 5. 3. 6.

42. Phonograms
What English word does sound like?

43. Phonograms
What English word does sound like?

44. Phonograms
What English word does sound like?

45. Phonograms
What English word does sound like?

46. Phonograms
What English word does sound like?

47. Phonograms
What English word does sound like?

48. Phonogram Questions What is a phonogram? Why are they important?
Underneath your boxes, answer the following questions.
What is a phonogram?
Why are they important?

49. Phonograms Key Beauty Unity Rainy Teeny Beetle Leaky
Check your answers.
Beauty
Unity
Rainy
Teeny
Beetle
Leaky

50. Phonogram Questions What is a phonogram? Why are they important?
A written symbol that represents a sound.
Why are they important?
It is possible to write more words than with any of the three previous stages of development

51. Cuneiform