The history and Evolution:
Writing had surfaced in many different cultures and in innumerable locations throughout the ancient world. The earliest writing systems evolved independently and at approximately the same time in Egypt and Mesopotamia, but current scholars suggest that Mesopotamia’s writing appeared first. That writing system, invented by the Sumerians, emerged in Mesopotamia around 3500 BCE. It had commenced when Mesopotamians developed a way to mark writings on tablets to record or represent any type of information.
The writings on these tablets were simple pictures, or pictograms, which represented an object or an idea; because clay is a strenuous material on which to draw lines and curves, the Mesopotamians eventually minimized pictograms into a series of wedge-shaped signs that they compressed into clay with a reed stylus. This wedge-shaped writing is called cuneiform.
Though writing commenced as pictures, this system was unsuitable for conveying anything other than simple nouns, and it became increasingly abstract as it evolved to incorporate more abstract concepts, eventually taking form in the world’s earliest writing: cuneiform. An increasingly complex civilization revitalized the development of an increasingly sophisticated form of writing. Cuneiform came to operate both phonetically (representing a sound) and semantically (representing a meaning such as an object or concept) rather than only representing objects exactly as a picture.
The innovation of writing was the inception of the information revolution. This significant technological approach allowed news and ideas to be conveyed and transported to distant places without having to depend on a messenger's memory. Like all inventions, writing surfaced because there was a necessity for it. In Mesopotamia, it was developed as a record-keeping vehicle for commercial transactions or administrative procedures. There are also texts that served as "copy books" for the education of future scribes. Eventually, cuneiform script was used to originate some of the most substantial literary works in recorded history.
Writing had surfaced in many different cultures and in innumerable locations throughout the ancient world. The earliest writing systems evolved independently and at approximately the same time in Egypt and Mesopotamia, but current scholars suggest that Mesopotamia’s writing appeared first. That writing system, invented by the Sumerians, emerged in Mesopotamia around 3500 BCE. It had commenced when Mesopotamians developed a way to mark writings on tablets to record or represent any type of information.
The writings on these tablets were simple pictures, or pictograms, which represented an object or an idea; because clay is a strenuous material on which to draw lines and curves, the Mesopotamians eventually minimized pictograms into a series of wedge-shaped signs that they compressed into clay with a reed stylus. This wedge-shaped writing is called cuneiform.
Though writing commenced as pictures, this system was unsuitable for conveying anything other than simple nouns, and it became increasingly abstract as it evolved to incorporate more abstract concepts, eventually taking form in the world’s earliest writing: cuneiform. An increasingly complex civilization revitalized the development of an increasingly sophisticated form of writing. Cuneiform came to operate both phonetically (representing a sound) and semantically (representing a meaning such as an object or concept) rather than only representing objects exactly as a picture.
The innovation of writing was the inception of the information revolution. This significant technological approach allowed news and ideas to be conveyed and transported to distant places without having to depend on a messenger's memory. Like all inventions, writing surfaced because there was a necessity for it. In Mesopotamia, it was developed as a record-keeping vehicle for commercial transactions or administrative procedures. There are also texts that served as "copy books" for the education of future scribes. Eventually, cuneiform script was used to originate some of the most substantial literary works in recorded history.