Development of Sumerian Cuneiform

Logographic form

Archaeologists believe that Sumerian writing arose out of pieces of clay that were used for purposes of record keeping. The Sumerians were a commercial people and logographic markings have been found on clay envelopes containing clay shapes e.g animal forms. It is thought that this was a form of book keeping. Sumerian logographic markings consisted of about 1200 different characters representing numerals, names and objects.

Cuneiform

Sumerian writing was a picture writing system that used symbols. When the Sumerians started using pointed instruments to make symbols, the shape of their writing changed. This type of writing was called cuneiform. Cuneiform was a word writing system because the forms represented whole words. Cuneiform therefore was not a language but a picture writing system that used symbols. These symbols came to be known and accepted even by ethnic groups that spoke different languages and dialects.

Development of the phonographic principle

Cuneiform expanded outside Mesopotamia and was adopted by the Akkadians,
the Babylonians and the Assyrians. Eventually, cuneiform became an almost universal form of written communication in the Middle East. Though the Sumerian writing remained largle logographic, the people who borrowed cuneiform adopted it into a partially syllabic form whereby a particular mark could represent a syllable or a whole word. Thus, they greatly expanded and developed the idea of sound-symbol correspondence in their adopted script. However, the Assyrian and Babylonian empires fell and cuneiform came to be used less and less as it could not compete with the alphabetic systems being developed by the Mediterranean peoples e.g. the Greeks.

History of the holiday

But have you ever wondered about the origin of the holiday? How did its name come about? What exactly is celebrated on this day? Where did the tradition of dressing up as monsters, scaring each other and making sinister pumpkin lanterns come from?

This mysterious holiday originated about two thousand years ago with the ancient Celtic tribes. Halloween combines two traditions – the Celtic custom of worshipping evil spirits and the Christian tradition of singing all saints.

At that time, the Celts living in the territory of modern Great Britain and Northern Ireland divided the year into two parts – summer and winter, and October 31 was considered the last day of the harvest and outgoing day of the year – the “day of late summer”.

The New Year’s Eve celebrations heralded a change of seasons. It is believed that on this night the inhabitants of the Otherworld visited the world of the living. It was a time when the gates to other worlds were opened. A time of transition from summer to winter, a time when all living things die. The Celts called this night Samain.

In order not to become a victim of otherworldly powers, people performed rituals to comfort the dead. People gathered at a sacrificial fire at night, and dressed in the skins of killed animals, told legends of deceased ancestors.

Halloween and the Middle Ages. The roots of tradition

This tradition was passed on from generation to generation until the local population was subjected to the Christian influence of the Romans. Pagan rites were mixed with the rites of the Christian faith and already in VIII century A.D. the Christian Church, wishing to distract the English people from pagan customs, abolished Siman and invented another holiday – All Saints’ Day. This holiday is celebrated on November 1.

Previously All Hallows Even was called Allhallowmas and the festive night from 31 October to 1 November sounded like All Hallows Even or Halloween. That’s how the modern name Halloween came into being.

Halloween. These days.

Halloween is still celebrated today in Christian and pagan rites. That night, people wear ghost costumes, vampires, witches, and other evil things and put on masquerades. The main symbol of the holiday is a sacred lantern made of pumpkin, on which a “sinister” smile is carved. Such a pumpkin is also called the Jack-o’-lantern lamp. It is believed that the pumpkin lamp is placed outside the window to scare away evil spirits. Tonight, children dress up as monsters, walk from house to house, beg for sweets from their neighbors and shout, “Trick-or-treat!” The neighbors, in order to pay off the “evil spirits” and not to piss off real evil, treat the children with sweets and various sweets.

If you ever feel unhappy or think that you have the biggest problems, just remember these animals with deficiencies, happy eyes and a smile on their face and you’ll definitely get your strength back.

Faith was one of those animals who besides her shortage never stopped smiling and fighting for her life. The bipedal dog was born with three legs; two fully developed hind legs and a deformed front leg, which was amputated after it began to atrophy.

Many people, including veterinarians, advised Faith’s owner to euthanize the dog but she decided not to. Instead, she used a spoon with peanut butter to teach her how to hop first and start walking on her own after. She chose the harder way and fought with her beloved dog every day until she was able to normally function alone.

It’s one of those stories that burn your eyes and warm up your heart right? Even a book has been published detailing Faith’s story entitled “Faith Walks…A Memoir of a Beautiful Life“. On September 23, 2014, Faith passed away at the age of 11. She definitely lived a happy life thanks to her owner and the strong will for survival.

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‘We cry and smile with them. Flowers are lovely things that give life more meaning and color‘. You’ve just read a quote dedicated to these delightful beings that make the world a better place to live in.

You pass by them every day but have you ever stopped and stared for a while at the flowers embellishing your environment? Or felt grateful and thanked nature for creating such perfect plants that symbolize purity – something we rarely see in humans these days?

Although it isn’t their international day (January 19), let’s celebrate flowers today or every day. When you pass by them, smile and observe their pure beauty. You will realize that people should try to be more like flowers – humble, harmless and adorable. In their honor, we’ve prepared these 17 cool facts you probably never even heard of. Scroll down and find out more about flowers. We promise you will be surprised by some of the facts.

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Considering the fact that the streets of Berlin contain so much quality street art, we can qualify them as an outdoor museum that keeps surprising passersby, especially tourists who come visit the city.

The point of this kind of art is to boost awareness, originality and to provoke people to think with their own heads. However, it’s surprisingly how much creativity hides in young minds who decided to paint the city and managed to attract people’s attention and paint their minds on the street walls.

If you still haven’t visited Berlin and enjoyed its ‘outdoor museum’, you don’t know what you’re missing. Scroll down and let us show you. Who knows, maybe peeking into the street art of the Berlin walls will make you catch the first plane to visit this artistic city.

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Many animals and humans are affected by this disorder. One of the animals born with Heterochromia is Pam Pam, the snow white kitten that became famous thanks to her hypnotizing eyes. Apparently, the disorder is most common with Angoras cats and believe it or not, Pam Pam is one of those types of cat.

She’s got one yellow and one blue eye and be careful while looking at her because she may hypnotize you the way she hypnotized us. Now we can’t help ourselves from staring at her. She’s definitely one of the most adorable kittens ever. Scroll down and check her out.

What makes us different from other living creatures on this planet is our ability to think and decide and our sensuality.

You wonder why sensuality? Well, just ask yourself, are there other creature on Earth that can look and act sensual or take photos of someone who looks and acts sensual? You got your answer.

Today we’ve managed to collect the top 10 most sensual black and white photography we found on the Internet. Check them out but be prepared to get into a cold shower after because you may need it.

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• 7 Picasso paintings recreated as 3D sculptures

The Spanish painter, sculptor, ceramist, printmaker, poet, stage designer, and playwright, Pablo Picasso inspired many modern artists to bring back to life some of his remarkable paintings.

One of them was the Pakistani illustrator, Omar Aqil, who turned 7 of Picasso’s paintings into 3D sculptures. They were digitally rendered and look as if they were physically constructed thanks to Omar’s great eye for textures and shadows. Scroll down and check them out.

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‘Who needs kids when we have pets?’ This is the latest most common statement couples and married people use to answer the question why don’t they have kids yet or are they planning on having one.

“Pets are becoming a replacement for children,” said Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University. “They’re less expensive. You can get one even if you’re not ready to live with someone or get married, and they can still provide companionship.”

According to statistics, three in ten couples chose to raise a dog rather than a kid. However, we can’t deny the fact that raising a pet is way easier and less expensive than raising a child. If you’re at a cross path in your life and wondering if you should raise a child, scroll down. Maybe these photos of couples with their pets they treat as children will make you change your mind and go to the stationary today.

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We’ve already seen the beautiful one-eyed dogs and cats and now it’s time to honor these one-leg dogs that are the happiest dogs alive.

Some of them lost a leg or two by accident, and others were born with this shortage. However, that didn’t affect their life much because they learned how to survive and how to be happy just the way they are.

You don’t have to be perfect to be happy and beautiful and these one-leg dogs are the living prove of that. Scroll down and see how these little heroes jump, play and smile around without any trouble.

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