The Origins Of Writing

3100 BC- Mesopotamia and Cuneiform

The first recorded history of writing tablets comes from Sumer in 3100 BC. The chief of the temple called the ‘sangu’ (accountant) was responsible for noting animals and other goods to tally the temple’s wealth. The images of these goods were simply drawn on lumps of wet clay and lines drawn in accordance with the number of each, allowed to dry in the sun and became a permanent tablet.

In Mesopotamia, clay tablets became the most common surface for documenting and writing. A piece of reed, sculpted with a tapered or rectangular end became the first writing instrument. This initial human script consisted of wedge-shaped characters called cuneiform. This became the standardized method of writing and is seen in Mesopotamia, Persia and Ugarit. Scribes were able to record messages to be read with the understanding and concept of long-lasting notations passing through time and space.

A Script Evolves

Pictograms were the basis of early writing systems, straightforwardly illustrating the item for description. This proved to be too difficult as many physical objects and concepts are too complicated for simple pictures. These pictograms evolved by organizing the images conjunctively, to demonstrate concepts. A play-on-words was invented, forming the image with some modification that suggested something different but when spoken sounded the same. An example of this is the character for ‘house’ which is depicted by a shallow inverted V, signifying a roof. If the character was placed under the symbol for a woman, the idea became ‘family’ or ‘home’. This punned or play-on-words character for a financial institution such as a ‘bank’ was symbolized by the same ‘house’ V in combination with a sloping symbol which represented a river bank. ‘Bank’ and ‘roof’ forming the concept of a ‘bank’ that is a ‘house’.

3000 BC- Ancient Egyptians Develop Papyrus

The Egyptian script developed the pictograms of the Sumerians in greater detail. The combined concepts and suggestions of objects are similarly depicted. The ‘hieroglyph’ name came from the Greeks in 500BC. ‘Heiros’ (sacred) and ‘glypho’ (engrave) in Greek was coined because the Greeks used this type of writing only for holy texts. Prior to the introduction of Papyrus, hieroglyphic inscriptions were used on the walls of tombs and temples, created by sculptors, painters and craftsmen who modeled these intricate images in relief on plaster.

Scribes began writing on papyrus, a smooth surface created from tall, pithy sedge plants that grew along the Nile river. The hieroglyphic inscriptions had utmost importance, becoming more detailed and delicate as the act of writing with a fine reed pen evolved. The scribe was a professional and regarded as such. Three hieratic versions of hieroglyphs developed, formal for religious documents, less formal for official documents and literature and even less formal for private letters.

For 2000 years hieratic script existed, in 700 BC Egyptian scribes’ inscriptions became known as demotic (‘for the people’) due to business pressures and practicality with regard to speed and efficiency. This abbreviated script is more difficult to interpret than earlier hieroglyphs. Hieratic and demotic script was used until 400 AD. The Rosetta Stone, the key to understanding the ancient Egyptians, was uncovered in 1799 and deciphered by Jean-François Chapollion in 1822.

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