The Thoughts of Wesley son of Cornelius

“The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram. … The region where they lived stretched from Mesha toward Sephar, in the eastern hill country.” (Genesis 10:22, 30 NIV)

Based on their names and the people groups named after them, it is believed that the Shemites, now called Semites, lived in the Mesopotamian region. As the Hamites developed in Canaan and Egypt (see next post), the Shemites were developing in the region between the rivers. Egypt had its hieroglyphics; Mesopotamia had its cuneiform.

The secular history places a people group called the Ubaidians in the Mesopotamian region. The Semitic nomads inhabiting the Syrian Desert and the Arabian Peninsula would eventually infiltrate the Ubaidian settlements. The cross-fertilization of these people would develop into the Sumerians. The Sumerians would hold dominion of this region until the Elamites would migrate out of modern day Iran and destroy Ur around 2000 BC (interestingly, approx. 90 years after Abram and his family left Ur). During their reign, the Sumerians created a writing style called cuneiform.

The earliest examples of writing are marks on small tablets that were attached to shipping containers. Like hieroglyphics, cuneiform characters are pictographic. The first characters can be seen in the second column of the picture to the right. These characters were drawn using a sharp pointed stylus. Over time the characters would be turned sideways to write more quickly and legibly. However, the pointed stylus that was dragged through the clay would leave messy ridges; therefore, the pointed stylus was replaced by a triangular stylus. This stylus was pressed into the clay, giving wedge-shaped (Latin cuneus-iform) impressions.

Also like hieroglyphics, individual cuneiform characters could be a phonogram, logogram, or an ideogram. The Sumerians also used determinative symbols.

Following the Elamite invasion, other groups would make a presence in Mesopotamia. Eventually, the Babylonians and Assyrians would be the most influential. The Babylonians and Assyrians spoke Akkadian. The written Akkadian language borrowed its characters from Sumerian cuneiform. The Sumerian script was also adapted for the writing of the Elamites, Hittites, and Hurrians. The Old Persian and Ugaritic alphabets also borrowed from the Sumerian writings.

To learn about the complexity of the Hittite cuneiform visit http://www.premiumwanadoo.com/cuneiform.languages/index_en.php?page=accueil.

To learn about the details of the Akkadian cuneiform visit
http://www.sron.nl/~jheise/akkadian/.

REF: Kramer, Samuel Noah. Great Ages of Man: Cradle of Civilization. Time: New York, 1967.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform