![[Media/Behistun_Inscription_in_Persia_ca._520_BC-_UNESCO_World_Heritage_Site.jpg]] *The Behistun Inscription photographed in 2019.* The language spoken in early Mesopotamian cities like Uruk, Nippur, and Ur was Sumerian. Scholars have used multilingual inscriptions such as the [Behistun Rock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behistun_Inscription) to decipher the language. The rock (like the later [Rosetta Stone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone) used to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics) repeats the same text in Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian. Akkadian and Sumerian coexisted for over a thousand years, which allowed scholars to unlock the meaning of over 200,000 clay tablets that contained administrative records, histories of events, myths, and even school exercises. Cuneiform was also used for Akkadian, Old Persian, Hittite in Anatolia, and Ugaritic in the Levant. The shared use of the writing system by these neighboring cultures facilitated diplomacy and trade. (Note: there is a persistent rumor that Sumerian is a mysterious language that has never been deciphered. This is not true, although it is an isolated language and not part of the Semitic language group, like Akkadian.) ![[Media/BehistunInscriptiondetail.jpg]] A possibly-related but undeciphered writing system emerged about 5,200 years ago in the region of Susa in what are now the Iranian highlands east of Mesopotamia. Named after the proto-Elamite culture of the region, the script found on over 1,600 clay tablets developed during a period when the region was trading with Uruk. Between 1,000 and 1,500 symbols seem to represent words and syllables in a language that gave way to Elamite about five hundred years later. ----- Next: [[4.4 - Egyptian Writing]] Back: [[4.2 - Cuneiform]]