Cuneiform Writing | Importance, Symbols & History

Cuneiform: From trade lists to epic tales of gods

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