Chicago Syllabary

625 BC - 539 BC
Clay
Original Site Unknown
20.8 cm x 14.5 cm x 4.0 cm
A2480

Oriental Institute Museum

Chicago Syllabary

Scribes in the Neo-Babylonian period had to know how to read and write the Sumerian language, even though it was no longer spoken at that time. To help them to remember, scribes produced tablets such as this one. This tablet contains a list of cuneiform signs, each with its Sumerian pronunciation and Akkadian translation.



Multimedia

An Early Clay Tablet
See how this early clay tablet used pictures to communicate.

Suggested Readings

Claiborne, Robert. The Birth of Writing. The Emergence of Man series. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1974.

Kramer, Samuel Noah. The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.

Walker, C.B.F. Cuneiform: Reading the Past. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.