About 5,000 years ago, people in the region called Mesopotamia - which means 'land between two rivers' in ancient Greek - needed a way to keep track of things like how much grain they had or how many sheep they owned. They began pressing shapes into soft clay using a cut reed, and those shapes slowly became a full writing system called cuneiform.
Cuneiform tablets have been found in their thousands. Some record trades and lists, while others tell amazing stories - including one of the world's oldest adventure tales, the Epic of Gilgamesh, about a great king who goes on a long journey. Imagine reading a story written 4,000 years ago!
Scribes - the people whose job it was to write - trained for many years, practising the same signs over and over. Students in ancient Mesopotamia had to go to special schools called edubba, which means 'tablet houses'. Their homework tablets have even been found, complete with their teachers' corrections.
Once a clay tablet dried in the sun or was baked in a kiln, the writing lasted for thousands of years. That is why we can still read these messages from so long ago. Today, Iraqi museums and universities work hard to protect these incredible clay records for everyone in the world to learn from.