The Sumerians were the first people to develop a system of arithmetic.
Adding subtracting and multiplying were important skills when handling goods such as sacks of grain or heads of cattle in quantities.
The Sumerians also developed an efficient system of weights and measures and their supreme invention – that of writing – arose from the practical need to keep records of goods for the purposes of trade, or tax collection.Those records began in the simplest way with picture images of the item - an ox head for example – and a number of dots to indicate the quantity.
Symbols were drawn on a soft clay tablet using a sharpened reed. The tablet was then baked in a kiln to harden it.
Originally list of items were arranged in vertical columns starting from the top right hand side.
Around the 3000 BC, however, scribes found that they could write better by turning the tablets and writing from left to right, in horizontal rows.
At the same times, the original pointed stylus was abandoned in favor of one with a wedge shaped tip.
Scratching with a point was prone to leave untidy ridges: the new wedge shaped stylus could be pressed into clay to leave a crisper impression.
Stylized images, composed entirely of cuneiform, or ‘wedge-shaped’, marks made up the writing system used in Mesopotamia.
Sumerians: Words and figures
