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ZEV RADOVAN/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

WEDGESMITHS. In Canaan, the scribes responsible for recording their kings’ correspondence had to be trained in how to write Akkadian. The cuneiform script used to write the language was dauntingly complex, with hundreds of different wedge-shaped signs—many with multiple phonetic and even logographic values—written on clay tablets using a reed stylus. The training process involved the use of multilingual lexical lists, which gives Sumerian words and their Akkadian equivalents. Advanced scribes would learn to reproduce literary texts, such as this fragment of the Epic of Gilgamesh that was discovered at Megiddo.