Tristan Hughes

In fact, there's a whole series of jars.

It's amazing, though, that that kind of idea of 60 can originate with some of the earliest cuneiform tablets that survive in these commerce transactions, you know, for the trade routes of Mesopotamia at that time.

Yes, early 3rd millennium BC.

And so, well, Irving, should we move on then from this?

So we kind of covered that early story of cuneiform with pictograms.

So from there, the evolution of cuneiform

It's not like at one moment it goes from pictures to what we're more associated with today.

It's quite a long evolution of cuneiform into perhaps the most detailed creation of it in the first millennium BC.

I guess, going back to what we were talking about on an overarching point, with the evolution of those signs, looking at a pictogram or one from the Sumerian times and then one from, let's say, Ashurbanipal's library in the 1st century BC, you wouldn't be able to realize… Except in some cases.

Ah, so almost like a translation of the word in the cuneiform, right?

Yes.

This is a mad principle.

Irving, I must admit, especially for audio, it's a complex topic, isn't it, Gunev?

I've been trying to explain the many different pieces of this writing system.

And as you said, it takes a long, long time to master.

So I'm very grateful for you to still delve into the weeds about it.

But let's bring us back up from the detail now.

How long does cuneiform endure for as a writing system?

I mean, if we started more than 5,000 years ago, how long does it continue for these various Mesopotamian societies?

I think one of my favourite artefacts, Irving, the colliding of the Greek world but also Mesopotamian Babylon, is one of the cuneiform tablets, one of the astronomical diary entries that you have on display at the British Museum, which has that very pithy line, the king died.