The Sumerians contributed to the development of metalworking, wheeled carts, and potter’s wheels.
The Sumerians contributed to the development of metalworking, wheeled carts, and potter’s wheels. They may have invented the first form of writing. They engraved pictures on clay tablets in a form of writing known as cuneiform (meaning “wedge-shaped”). The tablets were used to keep the accounts of the temple food storehouses. Over time the pictures lost their form and changed into abstract symbols that represented sounds rather than words. The symbols could be strung together to represent many more words and ideas than pictures could.