Cuneiform script is the earliest known writing system in the world. Cuneiform writing emerged in the Sumerian civilization of southern Iraq around the 34th century BC during the middle Uruk period, beginning as a pictographic system of writing. Cuneiform was the most widespread and historically significant writing system in the Ancient Near East. The original Sumerian script was adapted for the writing of the Akkadian, Eblaite, Elamite, Hittite, Luwian, Hattic, Hurrian, and Urartian languages, and it inspired the Ugaritic and Old Persian alphabets. Cuneiform writing was gradually replaced by the Aramaic alphabet during the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and by the second century of the Common Era, the script had become extinct.... More • http://en.wikipedia. ... /Cuneiform View • Books • Images • Videos • Search Related • Inventions • Texts • Akkadians • Archaeology • Assyrians • Babylonians • Bronze Age • Hittites • Iron Age • Linguistics • Mesopotamia • Middle East • Persians • Scripts • Sumerians • 3rd Millennium BC • 4th Millennium BC • All Events