Imagine that you are sitting down, you are one of the few people who can read and write. You are a scribe. Your job is to write and record daily events, interactions between people and other things. This writing is called cuneiform. This was one of the first discovered and came from Mesopotamia. Now you may be wondering, what is cuneiform writing? How else did the Mesopotamians use cuneiform? Who could become a scribe? How? Cuneiform writing is very important in the way it contributes to writing today. It's also full of amazing facts and stories about Mesopotamia. Cuneiform writing was one of the first writings discovered, it began in Mesopotamia around 3500 BCE. 3500 BCE was a very long time, but that's when cuneiform writing with symbols began. Before that it was just pictures that represented words like, water was two wavy lines, then it became three sticks with arrows that each pointed in a certain direction. Then, over time, writing pictures for certain words became difficult. This is when writing with symbols became more common (“The cuneiform writing system in ancient Mesopotamia: emergence and evolution | EDSITEment.”, 2013). Cuneiform writing was written with a stylus, which was a reed stick, they would then write on a wet clay tablet so that the stylus could easily engrave symbols, once they had finished writing, the tablet of clay was exposed to the sun. (“Harry Ransom CenterThe University of Texas at Austin.”, 2013). Cuneiform was very important in Mesopotamia. It was used to record daily events, trade between people, different things about the sky that they observed, as well as literature. They would record all of this and could also transfer different types of information (“Writing.” 2013). Scribes are the middle of paper... other civilizations took their ideas and applied them to our modern records. Scribes were much like our modern authors, but they kept records instead of writing books. The next time you write or even read, think about the origin of writing, such as cuneiform and Mesopotamia. Works Cited "Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin". Harry Ransom Center RSS. Np, and Web. November 7, 2013. “How writing changed the world.” » LiveScience.com. Np, and Web. November 13, 2013. “The cuneiform writing system in ancient Mesopotamia: emergence and evolution | EDITment. » The cuneiform writing system in ancient Mesopotamia: emergence and evolution | EDITment. Np, and Web. November 7, 2013. “The Flow of History.” » FC7: The birth of writing and its impact -. Np, and Web. November 12, 2013. “Writing.” By writing. Np, and Web. November 11. 2013.