When do you stop using a writing system?

A question implicit in a post from almost five years ago: when did people quit using cuneiform? If Augustine didn't know the histories of the "Assyrians," maybe the use had been lost by then. I tried a prediction: Alexander the Great would have introduced the alphabet in a great way, and the complicated cuneiform system would have dried up--maybe quickly if the new Greek masters wanted official records translated.

So, what says wikipedia? Oh. Which cuneiform? There seem to have been a lot of them, from about 2900BC to the most recent object known made in 75AD; with a major change when Old Persian became dominant (e.g. Darius I, about 525BC)--which made it into a simplified syllabary. I wonder what future archaeologists would make of our computer texts -- alphabet plus pictographs. Would they try to detect the derivation of our alphabet from the emojis?

Yes, people have been trying to use AI to do more rapid translations, though "Predictably, the AI had a higher level of accuracy for formulaic texts, such as royal decrees or divinations, which follow a certain pattern. More literary and poetic texts, such as letters from priests or treaties, had a higher incidence of “hallucinations,”"

If an empire begins to crumble and its cities are overrun, will the conqueror care about the old history? Probably not much. The old literature? Eh. Maybe, but not obviously enough to make an effort to preserve it. That burden would lie on the entertainers. How about the old religious ritual records? Not so much; that burden rests on the clergy of the defeated gods, to make the case for honoring the gods of the land. How about old title records? William the Conqueror said the land all belonged to him now, and he'd fief it out--that probably wasn't a novelty. Still, it might be handy to keep the local administration running, working for you, so that would keep the old systems going awhile.

So maybe there was no great reason for the records to survive. Things like astrological texts, math, etc, would be translated by the practitioners for the use of their new students.

The Seleucids and early Parthians were still using cuneiform in the hellenistic period up to April 69 BC, though it wasn't the same as the very oldest cuneiforms.

This rabbit hole looks deep.