Cuneiform, the oldest identified writing system, defied deciphering – until 1857. What happened then makes a terrific read, in Joshua Hammer's The Mesopotamian Riddle ...

A collection of artefacts collected 2,500 years ago in modern-day Iraq reveal the forgotten world of Mesopotamia, home to ...

Deciphering some people's writing can be a major challenge ... perform far better at recognizing cuneiform characters—even ones that are rare or that show a lot of variation—compared to ...

The origin of writing is linked to designs ... directly connected to the development of proto-cuneiform in southern Iraq." She added: "They also show how the meaning originally associated with ...

This piece of clay contains some of the earliest writing in the world. It's called 'cuneiform,' which means wedge-shaped. This tablet is a record of the daily beer rations for workers. Beer here ...

found in the ruins of Nimrud (present-day Iraq). These tablets, dating to the 7th century BCE, represent the first material evidence of cuneiform writing on wax. The tablets ...

Cuneiform is one of the earliest forms of written expression and so represents a huge leap forward by human kind. This writing system was in use for more than 30 centuries and was finally replaced ...

Writing and trade are deeply intertwined, and some of the oldest surviving cuneiform writing was used in ancient Mesopotamia to keep records of the buying and selling of goods. In ancient ...