Hittite cuneiform

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Hittite cuneiform is the form of cuneiform script used in writing the Hittite language. The surviving corpus of Hittite texts is preserved in cuneiform on clay tablets dating to the 2nd millennium BC (roughly spanning the 17th to 12th centuries BC). Hittite orthography was directly adapted from Old Babylonian cuneiform. As Harry A. Hoffner and Craig Melchert point out: "It is therefore generally assumed that Ḫattušili I (ca. 1650–1600), during his military campaigns in North Syria, captured scribes who were using a form of the late Old Babylonian syllabary, and these captives formed the nucleus of the first scribal academy at Ḫattuša." Alwin Kloekhorst, on the other hand, while affirming that Hittite cuneiform derives from Old Babylonian, casts doubt on the role of Ḫattušili I in its adoption, claiming that "the transfer of Syro-Babylonian scribal tradition into Asia Minor may have been a more gradual process that predates the Hittites occupation of Hattuša." What is presented below is...

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