Cuneiform 101 · Foundations

The first course of the cuneiform school, and of Edubba itself. No prerequisites. By the end you will know how cuneiform works as a writing system, write and recognize a first inventory of signs, and — the promise that matters — read real royal inscriptions written four thousand years ago, in the original.

This course is about cuneiform itself, not yet about one language: the literacy tracks for Sumerian and Akkadian build on it.

Chapters

0. Orientation — what this course is, and how to study
1. Clay and reed — the medium that shaped the script
2. From tokens to signs — where writing came from
3. How signs mean — word-signs, syllables, determinativesa silent sign at the end (in cuneiform, often the front) of a word that classifies it — person, god, place, motion — never pronounced
4. Your first signs — a starter inventory, wedge by wedge
5. Counting like a Sumerian — numbers and the world's first accounts
6. Reading real cuneiform — seals and bricks
7. Of gods and men — man, big man, son; the king disassembled
8. The sign workshop — how scribes built new signs from old
9. The tablet house — scribes and their school
10. One script, many tongues — three millennia of adaptation
11. Decipherment — how the wedges gave up their secret
12. Reference — every sign taught, conventions, further study

Chapters appear here as they are finished; the list above is the course’s committed shape. Corrections are welcome in GitHub Issues.