Cuneiform is a writing system made by pressing wedge-shaped marks into soft clay tablets. It was used by scribes in ancient Mesopotamia to record information. The marks were made with a stylus and arranged in patterns to represent sounds and words. This system was used for writing laws, trade records, and stories.

Cuneiform was used in regions such as Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, and Assyria, in what is now Iraq and nearby areas. It first appeared around 3400 BCE and continued for thousands of years. The tablets were often baked to preserve the writing. Cuneiform is one of the earliest writing systems in human history.