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Wikipedia Trails - History of Writing to Babylonian Numerals

Limestone Kish tablet from Sumer with pictographic writing; may be the earliest known writing, 3500 BC. Ashmolean Museum

I started with an idea from my project topic research this week - the origin of writing. True writing (not numbers alone) arose from two independent sources, at least as far as we can tell: Mesoamerica (300 BC), and Sumer, in Mesopotamia (~3100 BC). Other subsequent writing systems, such as those used in Egypt or China, are suspected to have descended in some form from the cuneiform system originally used by the Sumerians, which leads to the topic of Sumerian language...

Sumerian Language
No one knows exactly how Sumerian sounds! There are no known closely related languages and no native speakers, so the entirety of our knowledge regarding their tongue stems from the tablets they left behind. We do know they used a subject-object-verb strucure, and we can make educated guesses regarding many of their grammar rules, but the actual pronunciation remains hypothetical, at best. Their "proto-literate" period produced the first known written language, using logographs to represent not only words but individual syllables, allowing for phonetic communication instead of purely images. Their writing was termed cuneiform, and allowed for a much greater range of information, detail, and atmosphere than mere pictographs could convey. Check out this translation from the reign of Entemena, and imagine how plain this would sound without using adjectives:

I.1–7๐’€ญ๐’‚—๐’†ค ๐’ˆ— ๐’†ณ๐’†ณ๐’Š ๐’€Š๐’€ ๐’€ญ๐’€ญ๐’Œท๐’‰ˆ๐’†ค ๐’…— ๐’„€๐’ˆพ๐’‰Œ๐’‹ซ ๐’€ญ๐’Šฉ๐’Œ†๐’„ˆ๐’‹ข ๐’€ญ๐’‡‹๐’‰ ๐’†  ๐’‚Š๐’‰ˆ๐’‹ฉ
den-lil2 lugal kur-kur-ra ab-ba dingir-dingir-re2-ne-ke4 inim gi-na-ni-ta dnin-ฤir2-su dลกara2-bi ki e-ne-sur
"Enlil, king of all the lands, father of all the gods, by his firm command, fixed the border between Ningirsu and ล ara."
8–12๐’ˆจ๐’ฒ ๐’ˆ—๐’†ง๐’† ๐’†ค ๐’…— ๐’€ญ๐’…—๐’ฒ๐’ˆพ๐’‹ซ ๐’‚  ๐’ƒท ๐’‰๐’Š ๐’† ๐’€ ๐’ˆพ ๐’‰ˆ๐’†•
me-silim lugal kiลกki-ke4 inim diลกtaran-na-ta eลก2 gana2 be2-ra ki-ba na bi2-ru2
"Mesilim, king of Kiลก, at the command of Iลกtaran, measured the field and set up a stele there."
13–17๐’‘ ๐’‰บ๐’‹ผ๐’‹› ๐’„‘๐’†ต๐’† ๐’†ค ๐’‰† ๐’…—๐’ˆ  ๐’‹›๐’€€๐’‹›๐’€€๐’‚  ๐’‚Š๐’€
uลก ensi2 ummaki-ke4 nam inim-ma diri-diri-ลกe3 e-ak
"Ush, ruler of Umma, acted unspeakably."
18–21๐’ˆพ๐’†•๐’€€๐’‰ ๐’‰Œ๐’‰ป ๐’‚” ๐’‰ข๐’“๐’†ท๐’† ๐’‚  ๐’‰Œ๐’บ
na-ru2-a-bi i3-pad edin lagaลกki-ลกe3 i3-ฤen
"He ripped out that stele and marched toward the plain of Lagaลก."
22–27๐’€ญ๐’Šฉ๐’Œ†๐’„ˆ๐’‹ข ๐’Œจ๐’Š• ๐’€ญ๐’‚—๐’†ค๐’‡ฒ๐’†ค ๐’…— ๐’‹›๐’ฒ๐’‰Œ๐’‹ซ ๐’„‘๐’†ต๐’† ๐’• ๐’ฎ๐’„ฉ๐’Š ๐’‚Š๐’•๐’€
dnin-ฤir2-su ur-sag den-lil2-la2-ke4 inim si-sa2-ni-ta ummaki-da dam-แธซa-ra e-da-ak
"Ningirsu, warrior of Enlil, at his just command, made war with Umma."
28–31๐’…— ๐’€ญ๐’‚—๐’†ค๐’‡ฒ๐’‹ซ ๐’Š“ ๐’Œ‹ ๐’ƒฒ ๐’‰ˆ๐’Œ‹ ๐’…–๐’‡ฏ๐’‹บ๐’‰ ๐’‚”๐’ˆพ๐’†  ๐’€๐’‰Œ๐’‘๐’‘
inim den-lil2-la2-ta sa ลกu4 gal bi2-ลกu4 SAแธชAR.DU6.TAKA4-bi eden-na ki ba-ni-us2-us2
"At Enlil's command, he threw his great battle net over it and heaped up burial mounds for it on the plain."
32–38๐’‚๐’€ญ๐’ˆพ๐’บ ๐’‰บ๐’‹ผ๐’‹› ๐’‰ข๐’“๐’†ท๐’†  ๐’‰บ๐’„‘๐’‰‹๐’‚ต ๐’‚—๐’‹ผ๐’ˆจ๐’ˆพ ๐’‰บ๐’‹ผ๐’‹› ๐’‰ข๐’“๐’†ท๐’† ๐’…—๐’†ค
e2-an-na-tum2 ensi2 lagaลกki pa-bil3-ga en-mete-na ensi2 lagaลกki-ka-ke4
"Eannatum, ruler of Lagash, uncle of Entemena, ruler of Lagaลก"
39–42๐’‚—๐’€‰๐’†—๐’‡ท ๐’‰บ๐’‹ผ๐’‹› ๐’„‘๐’†ต๐’† ๐’• ๐’†  ๐’‚Š๐’•๐’‹ฉ
en-a2-kal-le ensi2 ummaki-da ki e-da-sur
"fixed the border with Enakale, ruler of Umma"

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This text was inscribed on a small clay cone c. 2400 BC. It recounts the beginning of a war between the city-states of Lagaลก and Umma during the Early Dynastic III period, one of the earliest border conflicts recorded. Wikipedia.


Cuneiform
Sign for "head" alterations over time. 3000 BC (1) to early 1st century (7).

The cuneiform writing system changed tremendously over time, and existed for about three millennia before it was replaced by a general alphabet scheme during the time of the Romans. The pictographs used early on were quickly replaced (~500 years) with wedge-shaped designs, allowing authors to efficiently produce tablets using only one tool. And another cool thing: Sumerians didn't limit writing to the ruling class. Average citizens and kings alike shared the ability to read and write, and the use of written Sumerian existed until the first century AD, even though the spoken tongue perished around 1800 BC. Finally, the numerals of Sumeria...

Babylonian Numerals
The base-60 numeral system used by the Sumerians was inherited by the Babylonians, and exists today even in our society in the form of minutes, seconds, degrees, and hours. No zeros! They used a blank space rather than give zero a digit or face, which made distinguishing numerical value dependent on context.
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