Writings
One thing that makes Mesopotamia central to the idea of civilization as we know now was their creation of writing. It is said to be the first case of human writing and originated as pictures that meant different objects but then became wedged shaped symbols today known as cuneiform. This allowed the people to keep records of things such as sales and purchases and stories such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. Although many people at the time had a basic understanding of this written language, they often could not spare the time from their busy days to master it which was where the specially trained scribes came into play. Since their day wasn’t filled with the working of the land, they were able to devote much of their time to the mastery of this language. Cuneiform was written by using a writing implement known as a stylus, upon a clay tablet. The groups of people that occupied this area after the Sumerians used the same writing system, allowing historians to learn much about these civilizations through the written records they left behind.