Cuneiform was one of the earliest types of writing. It started in Mesopotamia, and was used by various cultures including the Assyrians and Babylonians and early Persians.
Writing your name or a message in cuneiform can be a fun way for kids to explore ancient Mesopotamian history. But to write cuneiform you need a certain type of stick with an edge to it. This will be your cuneiform stylus.
STYLUSES
We made our own cuneiform styluses by cutting a stick so it has a flat end, and then carving the end in the shape of a triangle. It's really quite easy...if you can use a knife to whittle off the bark of a stick you can do this.
But if you don't feel like carving, there's another option. Chop sticks (the wooden kind they give you at Chinese restaurants) already come with a flat edge. The end of the chopstick is in the shape of a square, not in the shape of a triangle, but it will still work for many of the cuneiform alphabets as it still gives you that wedge shape. The only shape you can't do is a straight down triangle stamp, which not all cuneiform alphabets use.
A third option for styluses is to buy dowels and then cut them to smaller sizes (crayon size is generally good.)
PREPPING THE CLAY
Next, you flatten out a piece of play dough or air dry clay (which can be bought at Hobby Lobby, Micheal's, and various other hobby stores). If using clay I suggest doing this on a surface like a Plastic baggie (which can also be used to store the clay beforehand), since clay tends to stick to stuff. You can put the clay in the baggie and something like a plate or rolling pin to press it flat. You can also plastic place mat or paper plate, and cover it with plastic wrap to keep it from sticking to whatever you use to press it flat.
WRITING IN CUNEIFORM
Then, using one of the alphabets linked below (under the video) use the method shown in the video to make your cuneiform. Notice how he uses the edge to make wedge shaped impressions. You don't need to "trace" out triangles, but use the natural shape of the stylus to make those for you.
Now, we did our cuneiform with real air dry clay (easy, and you get that feel of real clay, but it's fragile after it dries). I've heard of people using salt dough or play dough too, but my favorite method I've seen (but not yet tried) is cuneiform gingerbread cookies!
Here are some cuneiform alphabets you can try. Note though, that most (maybe all) of these were actually syllabaries (where one symbol often stood for a whole syllable, not just a single sound like in the English alphabet). Also, some of these languages didn't use the same sounds as we do in English. So when you see a cuneiform "alphabet," it is likely an approximation (but that's good enough to help kids explore what it was like to write in cuneiform).
- Ugaritic Alphabet (c. 1300 BC ) More about it.
- The cuneiform is fairly simple to write, but the one I have is not in alphabetical order, and uses some international symbols for sounds. It doesn't contain all the English letters/sounds so you might have kids make up their own cuneiform letters for the letters they didn't have.
- Old Persian Alphabet (c. 550-486 BC).
- This was created by or under Darius I, who is mentioned in the biblical books of Haggai, Zechariah, Ezra, and Nehemiah (for those supplementing with Bible stories, around Chap 21 of SOTW). It is also not too complex to write. It's also not in alphabetical order, and is presented as a syllabary (but a very simple one...if kids wanted to try out the idea of using a syllabary this would be a good one to do that). Again, it doesn't contain all the English letters.
- Babylonian Alphabet and Numbers (c. ?) and More Babylonian Numerals (c. 2000 BC)
- This has all the English letters, even c (which is redundant with k and s), so it's definitely at best an approximation. These are COMPLEX characters to make, but it is nice to have all of it in alphabetical order without having to mess with syllables. It also has numbers 1-20.
- Sumerian Syllabary (c. 2200 BC)
- First phonetic cuneiform, and kinda complex but older students might enjoy looking at it (symbols were by syllables, so "ba, be, bi, bu" would all be separate alphabetic symbols). Some modern scripts, such as Japanese, are structured similarly. There is a simplified sumerian "alphabet" here though.
