The Evolution of Writing: Cuneiform's Impact on History The development of writing was to facilitate long distance communication and trade and was the beginning of documented history. The alphabetic script of cuneiform was used all throughout Mesopotamia by different cultures but in their own languages such as the Assyrians the Elamites the Akkadians and the Babylonians Great works of literature which survived to us such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and Enhudana's Hymns to Inanna were composed in th

Behistun Relief, a Cuneiform Rosetta Stone. In the early nineteenth century, archaeologists first began to excavate cuneiform tablets so that scholars could begin to attempt to understand their texts. One important early key to deciphering the script proved to be the discovery of a kind of cuneiform Rosetta Stone, a circa 500 B.C. trilingual inscription at the site of Behistun Pass in Iran. Written in Persian, Akkadian, and an Iranian language known as Elamite, it recorded the feats of the Achae