c. 3400 BCE — 100 CE · Mesopotamia (modern Iraq)
Sumerian Cuneiform
Humanity's first writing
Wedge-shaped marks pressed into wet clay — the world's oldest script, recording law, poetry, beer recipes, and the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Table of Contents
Begin reading →- 01Sumerian Cuneiform — The First Writing2mKeeper's
- 02Reading the Wedges — Sign-Lists, Determinatives, and the Royal Inscriptions3mKeeper's
- 03Gilgamesh, Hammurabi, and the Standard Babylonian Library4mKeeper's
Primary — authentic public-domain translation · Keeper's — interpretive synthesis authored for this app
Epic of Gilgamesh
The oldest surviving epic, inscribed on 12 tablets — a flood narrative predating Noah by a thousand years.
Code of Hammurabi
282 laws carved on a stele in 1754 BCE — the phrase 'an eye for an eye' begins here.
Mathematics
Sumerians invented the base-60 system that still governs our clocks and circles.
Alphabet · Glyphs
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