Words Pressed in Clay
1Long before paper, the people of Sumer wrote on clay. Archaeologists have dug up many thousands of clay tablets from Mesopotamian cities such as Ur, Lagash and Nippur. Clay that was dried in the sun or baked can last for thousands of years, so these tablets let historians read what Sumerians themselves recorded.
2The oldest known writing in Sumer comes from the city of Uruk, from about 3200 BCE. At first, signs were simple pictures of things, such as a head of grain, a sheep or a jar of oil, along with marks for numbers. Temple workers used these signs to keep track of goods that came in and went out. Over hundreds of years, scribes began pressing the end of a cut reed into wet clay, which made wedge-shaped signs called cuneiform. Many signs also came to stand for sounds, so writers could spell out names and ideas, not only count objects.
3Becoming a scribe took years of training. Most students were boys from well-off families, and they studied at a school the Sumerians called the edubba, or "tablet house." Students copied signs and word lists again and again, and teachers corrected their mistakes. Trained scribes worked for temples, palaces and merchants. Most other people could not read or write.
4Each city-state, such as Ur, Lagash or Umma, ruled itself, and written records show how often they clashed. Lagash and Umma were neighbors that fought on and off for generations, from about 2500 to 2350 BCE, over farmland and canal water along their border. Rulers of Lagash recorded their side of the conflict on carved stone and clay. Far fewer records give Umma's side. The Lagash records describe Umma as the city that broke the border agreements.
5Clay tablets and art also help historians follow the wheel. Sumerians used a potter's wheel, a flat spinning disk that let a potter shape round pots quickly. By about 3000 BCE, they also put solid wooden wheels on carts and wagons pulled by donkeys or oxen. Sumerian art, such as a decorated box found at Ur, shows wheeled wagons used in war.