Cuneiform
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I mentioned Scribes when I was talking about who’s who in Governmental Society and how they wrote records and other important things. But you may be wondering what did they write in? Well they wrote in cuneiform. Cuneiform is a special type of writing used by the Sumerians. Cuneiform similar to hieroglyphics with picture that meant some sort of object such as a cattle. Sumerians sometimes used it for trade or to count their livestock. The most important person who used Cuneiform was the Scribe. They used Cuneiform like the regular Sumerians they used it for Trade Records communicating with other people from the village. Cuneiform is kind of hard to draw but I can describe it. A picture like a single line with multiple lines coming out of the side of it kind of like a pine cone is an Ear of Barley. Or an under curved line with a curved line on top means the Sun on a Horizon. It is hard for people these days to understand but easy for the Sumerians back then because writing was the way of life for the Sumerians.
Code of hammurabi
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Mesopotamians like Americans had laws. It wasn’t similar to the Constitution of the United States or the Bill of Rights it had an different name and lots of differences between the laws. It was called the Code of Hammurabi. The Code of Hammurabi is a system of law created by King Hammurabi to which the Sumerians followed. The Code of Hammurabi or COH for short had 282 laws in all! Hammurabi was the King of Mesopotamia who ruled from 1792 BCE-1750 BCE. He wrote the law in Akkadian (just one of the many language the Sumerians spoke) so that any literate person could read it. Some of the laws are if a slave says to his master: "You are not my master," if they convict him his master shall cut off his ear. Another law that was written is if a doctor operates a patient and the patient dies, the doctor's hand will be cut off. The laws are violent but kind of understandable considering the act was terrible so another terrible act has to come back to the person who committed the act. Just like these days to a criminal who commits a terrible crime. The Code of Hammurabi was the most important advancement in writing in Mesopotamia.