Cuneiform Tablet (Typical)

The clay tablets of ancient Mesopotamia bearing humanity's first writing/Historical

Cuneiform is one of the earliest known writing systems, developed by the Sumerians around 3400 BC in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). The writing was produced by pressing a reed stylus into soft clay tablets, creating distinctive wedge-shaped marks (cuneus means 'wedge' in Latin). A typical administrative tablet was roughly 5-10 cm across, though tablets ranged from tiny 2 cm tags to large 30 cm literary works. Over 500,000 cuneiform tablets have been excavated, covering everything from temple receipts to the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest known work of literature.