History of writing

Each historical invention of writing emerged from systems of proto-writing that used ideographic and mnemonic symbols but were not capable of fully recording spoken language.

"[18] During the 1990s, symbols originally inscribed between 3400 and 3200 BC were discovered at Abydos, which shed some doubt on the previous notion that the Mesopotamian sign system predated the Egyptian one.

[9] In each case where writing was invented independently, it emerged from systems of proto-writing, which used ideographic and mnemonic symbols to communicate information, but did not record human language directly.

[29] The origins of writing are more generally attributed to the start of the Late Neolithic, when clay tokens were used to record specific amounts of livestock or commodities.

[30] An ancient Sumerian poem gives the first known story of the invention of writing: Because the messenger's mouth was heavy and he couldn't repeat (the message), the Lord of Kulaba patted some clay and put words on it, like a tablet.

By the end of the 4th millennium BC, this had evolved into a method of keeping accounts, which recorded numbers using a round stylus pressed into the clay at different angles.

[19][32][43] Frank J. Yurco states that depictions of pharaonic iconography such as the royal crowns, Horus falcons and victory scenes were concentrated in the Upper Egyptian Naqada and A-Group cultures.

He further elaborates that "Egyptian writing arose in Naqadan Upper Egypt and A-Group Nubia, and not in the Delta cultures, where the direct Western Asian contact was made, [which] further vitiates the Mesopotamian-influence argument".

Around the 5th century BC, the Romans adopted writing from the Etruscan civilization, who wrote in a number of Italic scripts derived from the western Greeks.

[64] By the 11th century, the city of Córdoba, Andalusia in what is now southern Spain had become one of the world's foremost intellectual centres, and was the site of the largest library in Europe.

Similar use has been seen in hollow cylinders, or prisms of six or eight sides, formed of fine terracotta, sometimes glazed, on which the characters were traced with a small stylus, in some specimens so minutely as to require the aid of a magnifying glass.

[70] The papyrus reed grew chiefly in Lower Egypt and could be adapted into a more economical writing medium—its pith was extracted and divided into thin pieces that were flattened under pressure and glued together.

[76] Paper money was first used in China during the 11th century;[77] it and other financial instruments relied on writing, initially in the form of letters and later as specialized genres designed to facilitate specific types of transactions and guarantees of value between individuals, banks, or governments.

[82][83][84] Graham Smart has examined in depth how the Bank of Canada uses writing to cooperatively produce policies based on economic data and then to communicate strategically with relevant publics.

[92] Writing has been central to expanding many of the core functions of governance through law, regulation, taxation, and documentary surveillance of citizens; all dependent on growth of bureaucracy which elaborates and administers rules and policies and maintains records.

[95][96][97] In the Ancient Near East this was carried out through the formation of scribal schools;[98] in China, this led to the institution of written imperial examinations based on classic texts that effectively defined traditional Chinese education for millennia.

During the Middle Ages and early modern period, the church dominated education in Europe, reflecting the central role religious life had in the maintenance of state power and bureaucracy.

[102] The Reformation's emphasis on the individual reading of sacred texts eventually increased the spread of literacy beyond the ruling classes, and opened the door to a wider awareness and criticism of government policy.

[103] In this and other periods of conflict throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, cheap and disposable printed materials facilitated propaganda campaigns appealing to segments of the emerging public, pamphlet wars with authors attacking one another, and challenges to the status quo, often illicit, able to be published clandestinely.

The invention of writing facilitated the sharing, comparing, criticizing, and evaluating of texts, resulting in knowledge becoming a more communal property across wider geographic and temporal domains.

[108] Scholars have disagreed concerning when written record-keeping became more like literature, but the oldest surviving literary texts date from a full millennium after the invention of writing.

[116] Less is known about Mayan, Aztec, and other Mesoamerican learning because of the destruction of texts by the conquistadors, but it is known that scribes were revered, elite children attended schools, and the study of astronomy, map making, historical chronicles, and genealogy flourished.

[100] While Socrates thought writing an inferior means of transmission of learning (recounted in the Phaedrus), we know of his works through Plato's written accounts of his dialogues.

Havelock also connects the philosophical work of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle with literacy, as it enabled the development of critical thinking via the analysis of permanent texts written both by the author and their peers.

Herodotus and Thucydides, who wrote during the 5th century BC in Athens, are considered founders of the Western historiographical tradition, incorporating genealogy and mythic accounts into systematic investigations of events.

Hellenized writers in Egypt also produced compendia of knowledge using the resources of the Library of Alexandria, such as Euclid's Elements, which remains a standard reference work in geometry.

[125] From Baghdad, knowledge and texts were to flow back to South Asia and down through Africa, with a large collection of books and an educational center around the Sankoré Madrasah in Timbuktu, the seat of the Songhai Empire.

[130][131][132][133][134] Johannes Gutenberg's introduction of the moveable type printing press to Europe c. 1450 created new opportunities for the production and widespread distribution of books, fostering much new writing, with particular consequences for the development of knowledge, as documented by Elizabeth Eisenstein.

[138] Books of medicine began to incorporate observations from contemporary surgery and dissections, including printed plates providing illustrations, to improve knowledge of anatomy.

In the 18th century, dissident Scottish and English universities began offering practical instruction in rhetoric and writing to enable non-elite students to influence contemporary events.