Unusual book about cuneiform writing. Short and illustrated with photographs of cuneiform writing mostly from the British Museum. It turns out that archaeologists have uncovered an extraordinary variety of cuneiform examples, from student exercises to forgeries to official statues, covering about 2000 years. Over that time, the forms and style of the writing changed. Most likely, as with fossil finds, a whole lot of these tablets haven't been examined yet and there is more in the writing on these tablets yet to be discovered. ( )

Accesible richly illustrated summary of the cuneiform writing system(s), taking examples from the British Museum's extensive collections. As well as explaining the writing system itself, it delves into what it tells us of the lives of those who used it and their preoccupations over the 3000 or so years it was in use, and made me want to learn more about their civilisations. ( )