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When did cuneiform writing disappear from general use?
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cuneiform
An account of barley distribution, probably from Uruk, Mesopotamia, c. 3100–2900 bce; in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
Cuneiform writing gradually fell out of general use as it was replaced by more efficient alphabetic scripts, such as the Phoenician alphabet, which gained prominence across the Middle East and Mediterranean.1
While the international prestige of cuneiform had largely faded by 500 BCE, the script did not vanish immediately. Following the fall of the Assyrian and Babylonian kingdoms in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, and as Aramaic became the dominant popular language, decadent varieties of Late Babylonian and Assyrian continued to be used as written languages. These forms of cuneiform persisted in limited use almost until the time of Christ.12