History of writing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The history of writing traces the development of expressing language by letters or other marks[1] and also the
study and description of these developments.

In the history of how systems of representation of language through graphic means have evolved in different
human civilizations, more complete writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, systems of ideographic or
early mnemonic symbols. True writing, in which the content of a linguistic utterance is encoded so that another
reader can reconstruct, with a fair degree of accuracy, the exact utterance written down[A 1] is a later
development. It is distinguished from proto-writing which typically avoids encoding grammatical words and
affixes, making it more difficult or impossible to reconstruct the exact meaning intended by the writer unless a
great deal of context is already known in advance. One of the earliest forms of written expression is
cuneiform.[2]

Contents
1 Inventions of writing
2 Writing systems
3 Recorded history
4 Developmental stages
4.1 Literature and writing
5 Locations and timeframes
5.1 Proto-writing
5.2 Bronze Age writing
5.2.1 Cuneiform script
5.2.2 Egyptian hieroglyphs
5.2.3 Elamite script
5.2.4 Indus script
5.2.5 Early Semitic alphabets
5.2.6 Anatolian hieroglyphs
5.2.7 Chinese writing
5.2.8 Cretan and Greek scripts
5.2.9 Mesoamerica
5.3 Iron Age writing
5.4 Writing in the Greco-Roman civilizations
5.5 Writing during the Middle Ages
5.6 Renaissance and the modern era
6 Writing materials
7 See also
8 Notes
9 Citations
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links

Inventions of writing
Writing numbers for the purpose of record keeping began long before the writing of language. See History of
writing ancient numbers for how the writing of numbers began.
It is generally agreed that true writing of language (not only
numbers) was independently conceived and developed in at least
two ancient civilizations and possibly more. The two places where it
is most certain that the concept of writing was both conceived and
developed independently are in ancient Sumer (in Mesopotamia)
around 3100 BC, and Mesoamerica by 300 BC,[3] as no precursors
have been found to either of these in their respective regions. Several
Mesoamerican scripts are known, the oldest being from the Olmec
or Zapotec of Mexico.

Independent writing systems also arose in Egypt around 3100 BC

and in China around 1200 BC,[4] but historians debate whether these
writing systems were developed completely independently of
Sumerian writing or whether either or both were inspired by
Sumerian writing via a process of cultural diffusion. That is, it is
possible that the concept of representing language using writing, Sumer, an ancient civilization of southern
though not necessarily the specifics of how such a system worked, Mesopotamia, is believed to be the place
was passed on by traders or merchants traveling between the two where written language was first invented
around 3100 BC
regions.

Ancient Chinese characters are considered by many to be an

independent invention, because there is no evidence of contact
between ancient China and the literate civilizations of the Near
East,[5] and because of the distinct differences between the
Mesopotamian and Chinese approaches to logography and phonetic
representation.[6] Egyptian script is dissimilar from Mesopotamian
cuneiform, but similarities in concepts and in earliest attestation
suggest that the idea of writing may have come to Egypt from Limestone Kish tablet from Sumer with
Mesopotamia.[7] In 1999, Archaeology Magazine reported that the pictographic writing; may be the earliest
earliest Egyptian glyphs date back to 3400 BC, which "challenge the known writing, 3500 BC.Ashmolean
commonly held belief that early logographs, pictographic symbols Museum
representing a specific place, object, or quantity, first evolved into
more complex phonetic symbols in Mesopotamia."[8]

Similar debate surrounds the Indus script of the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization in Ancient India (2600
BC). In addition, the script is still undeciphered and there is debate over whether the script is true writing at all,
or instead some kind of proto-writing or non-linguistic sign system.

An additional possibility is the undeciphered Rongorongo script of Easter Island. It is debated whether this is
true writing, and if it is, whether it is another case of cultural diffusion of writing. The oldest example is from
1851, 139 years after their first contact with Europeans. One explanation is that the script was inspired by
Spain's written annexation proclamation in 1770.[9]

Various other known cases of cultural diffusion of writing exist, where the general concept of writing was
transmitted from one culture to another but the specifics of the system were independently developed. Recent
examples are the Cherokee syllabary, invented by Sequoyah, and the Pahawh Hmong system for writing the
Hmong language.

Writing systems
Symbolic communication systems are distinguished from writing systems in that one must usually understand
something of the associated spoken language to comprehend the text. In contrast, symbolic systems such as
information signs, painting, maps, and mathematics often do not require prior knowledge of a spoken language.
Every human community possesses language, a feature regarded by many as an innate and defining condition
of mankind (see Origin of language). However the development of writing systems, and their partial
supplantation of traditional oral systems of communication, have been sporadic, uneven and slow. Once
established, writing systems on the whole change more slowly than their spoken counterparts, and often
preserve features and expressions that no longer exist in the spoken language. The greatest benefit of writing is
that it provides the tool by which society can record information consistently and in greater detail, something
that could not be achieved as well previously by spoken word. Writing allows societies to transmit information
and share knowledge.

Recorded history
Scholars make a reasonable distinction between prehistory and history of early writing,[10] but have disagreed
concerning when prehistory becomes history and when proto-writing became "true writing". The definition is
largely subjective.[11] Writing, in its most general terms, is a method of recording information and is composed
of graphemes, which may in turn be composed of glyphs.[12]

The emergence of writing in a given area is usually followed by several centuries of fragmentary inscriptions.
Historians mark the "historicity" of a culture by the presence of coherent texts in the culture's writing
system(s).[10]

The invention of writing was not a one-time event, but a gradual process initiated by the appearance of
symbols, possibly first for cultic purposes.

Developmental stages
A conventional "proto-writing to true writing" system follows a general series of developmental stages:

Picture writing system: glyphs (simplified pictures) directly represent objects and concepts. In connection
with this the following substages may be distinguished:
Mnemonic: glyphs primarily a reminder;
Pictographic: glyphs directly represent an object or a concept such as (A) chronological, (B)
notices, (C) communications, (D) totems, titles, and names, (E) religious, (F) customs, (G)
historical, and (H) biographical;
Ideographic: graphemes are abstract symbols which directly represent an idea or concept.
Transitional system: graphemes refer not only to the object or idea which it represents but to its name as
well.
Phonetic system: graphemes refer to sounds or spoken symbols, and the form of the grapheme is not
related to its meanings. This resolves itself into the following substages:
Verbal: grapheme (logogram) represents a whole word;
Syllabic: grapheme represents a syllable;
Alphabetic: grapheme represents an elementary sound.

The best known picture writing system of ideographic or early mnemonic symbols are:

Jiahu symbols, carved on tortoise shells in Jiahu, c. 6600 BC

Vina signs (Trtria tablets), c. 5300 BC[13]
Early Indus script, c. 3100 BC

In the Old World, true writing systems developed from neolithic writing in the Early Bronze Age (4th
millennium BC). The Sumerian archaic (pre-cuneiform) writing and the Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally
considered the earliest true writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems
from 34003100 BC with earliest coherent texts from about 2600 BC.

Literature and writing

Literature and writing, though obviously connected, are not synonymous. The very first writings from ancient
Sumer by any reasonable definition do not constitute literature. The same is true of some of the early Egyptian
hieroglyphics and the thousands of ancient Chinese government records. The history of literature begins with
the history of writing. Scholars have disagreed concerning when written record-keeping became more like
literature than anything else, but "literature" can have several meanings. The term could be applied broadly to
mean any symbolic record, from images and sculptures to letters. The oldest surviving literary texts date from a
full millennium after the invention of writing, to the late 3rd millennium BC. The earliest literary authors
known by name are Ptahhotep (who wrote in Egyptian) and Enheduanna (who wrote in Sumerian), dating to
around the 24th and 23rd centuries BC, respectively. In the early literate societies, as much as 600 years passed
from the first inscriptions to the first coherent textual sources: i.e. from around 3100 to 2600 BC.

Locations and timeframes

Proto-writing

The first writing systems of the Early Bronze Age were not a sudden
invention. Rather, they were a development based on earlier traditions
of symbol systems that cannot be classified as proper writing, but have
many of the characteristics of writing. These systems may be described
as "proto-writing". They used ideographic or early mnemonic symbols
to convey information, but probably directly contained no natural
language. These systems emerged in the early Neolithic period, as early
as the 7th millennium BC evidenced by the Jiahu symbols in China.

In 2003, tortoise shells were found in 24 Neolithic graves excavated at

Jiahu, Henan province, northern China, with radiocarbon dates from the
7th millennium BC. According to some archaeologists, the symbols
carved on the shells had similarities to the late 2nd millennium BC
oracle bone script.[15] Others have dismissed this claim as insufficiently
substantiated, claiming that simple geometric designs such as those
found on the Jiahu shells cannot be linked to early writing.[16]

The Vina signs show an evolution of simple symbols beginning in the

7th millennium BC, gradually increasing in complexity throughout the
6th millennium and culminating in the Trtria tablets of c. 5300 BC[13]
with their rows of symbols carefully aligned, evoking the impression of
a text.

The Dispilio Tablet of the late 6th millennium is similar. The

hieroglyphic scripts of the Ancient Near East (Egyptian, Sumerian
proto-Cuneiform and Cretan) seamlessly emerge from such symbol
systems, so that it is difficult to say at what exact time writing
developed from proto-writing. Further, very little is known about the
symbols' meanings.

Even after the Neolithic, several cultures went through an intermediate

stage of proto-writing before they used proper writing. The "Slavic
Example of the Jiahu symbols, writing-
runes" from the 7th and 8th centuries AD, mentioned by a few medieval
like markings found ontortoise shells,
authors, may have been such a system. The quipu of the Incas (15th
dated around 6000 BC.[14]
century AD), sometimes called "talking knots", may have been of a
similar nature. Another example is the pictographs invented by Uyaquk
before the development of the Yugtun syllabary (c. 1900).

Bronze Age writing

Writing emerged in many different cultures in the Bronze Age. Examples are the cuneiform writing of the
Sumerians, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Cretan hieroglyphs, Chinese logographs, Indus script, and the Olmec script
of Mesoamerica. The Chinese script likely developed independently of the Middle Eastern scripts, around 1600
BC. The pre-Columbian Mesoamerican writing systems (including Olmec and Maya scripts) are also generally
believed to have had independent origins. It is thought that the first true alphabetic writing was developed
around 2000 BC for Semitic workers in the Sinai by giving mostly Egyptian hieratic glyphs Semitic values (see
History of the alphabet and Proto-Sinaitic alphabet). The Ge'ez writing system of Ethiopia is considered
Semitic. It is likely to be of semi-independent origin, having roots in the Meroitic Sudanese ideogram
system.[17] Most other alphabets in the world today either descended from this one innovation, many via the
Phoenician alphabet, or were directly inspired by its design. In Italy, about 500 years passed from the early Old
Italic alphabet to Plautus (750 to 250 BC), and in the case of the Germanic peoples, the corresponding time
span is again similar, from the first Elder Futhark inscriptions to early texts like the Abrogans (c. AD 200 to
750).

Cuneiform script

The original Sumerian writing system derives from a system of clay

tokens used to represent commodities. By the end of the 4th millennium
BC, this had evolved into a method of keeping accounts, using a round-
shaped stylus impressed into soft clay at different angles for recording
numbers. This was gradually augmented with pictographic writing
using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted. Round-stylus
and sharp-stylus writing were gradually replaced around 27002500 BC
by writing using a wedge-shaped stylus (hence the term cuneiform), at
first only for logograms, but developed to include phonetic elements by
the 29th century BC. About 2600 BC cuneiform began to represent
syllables of the Sumerian language. Finally, cuneiform writing became
a general purpose writing system for logograms, syllables, and
numbers. From the 26th century BC, this script was adapted to the
Akkadian language, and from there to others such as Hurrian and
Hittite. Scripts similar in appearance to this writing system include
those for Ugaritic and Old Persian.

Egyptian hieroglyphs
Middle Babylonian legal tablet from
Writing was very important in maintaining the Egyptian empire, and Alalah in its envelope
literacy was concentrated among an educated elite of scribes. Only
people from certain backgrounds were allowed to train as scribes, in the
service of temple, royal (pharaonic), and military authorities.

Geoffrey Sampson believes that most scholars hold that Egyptian hieroglyphs "came into existence a little after
Sumerian script, and ... probably [were] invented under the influence of the latter ..."[18] This view, however, is
strongly contested by other scholars. Dreyer's findings at Tomb UJ at Abydos in Upper Egypt clearly show
place names written in hieroglyphs (up to four in number) recognizable as signs which persisted and were
employed during later periods and which are written and read phonetically. The tomb is dated to c. 3250 BC
and demonstrates that such writing (on bone and ivory labels) is a more advanced form of writing than was
evident in Sumer at that date. It is argued, therefore, that the Egyptian writing system, which is in any case very
different from the Mesopotamian, could not have been the result of influence from a less developed system
existing at that date in Sumer.[19]

Elamite script

The undeciphered Proto-Elamite script emerges from as early as 3100 BC. It is believed to have evolved into
Linear Elamite by the later 3rd millennium, and then replaced by Elamite Cuneiform adopted from Akkadian.
Indus script

The Middle Bronze Age Indus script which dates back to the early
Harappan phase of around 3000 BC in ancient north western India and
what is now Pakistan, has not yet been deciphered.[20] It is unclear
whether it should be considered an example of proto-writing, or if it is
actual writing of the logographic-syllabic type of the other Bronze Age Sequence of ten Indus signs discovered
writing systems. Mortimer Wheeler recognises the style of writing as near the northern gate of the Indus site
boustrophedon, where "this stability suggests a precarious maturity". Dholavira

Early Semitic alphabets

The first pure alphabets (properly, "abjads", mapping single symbols to single phonemes, but not necessarily
each phoneme to a symbol) emerged around 1800 BC in Ancient Egypt, as a representation of language
developed by Semitic workers in Egypt, but by then alphabetic principles had a slight possibility of being
inculcated into Egyptian hieroglyphs for upwards of a millennium. These early abjads remained of marginal
importance for several centuries, and it is only towards the end of the Bronze Age that the Proto-Sinaitic script
splits into the Proto-Canaanite alphabet (c. 1400 BC) Byblos syllabary and the South Arabian alphabet (c. 1200
BC). The Proto-Canaanite was probably somehow influenced by the undeciphered Byblos syllabary, and in
turn inspired the Ugaritic alphabet (c. 1300 BC).

Anatolian hieroglyphs

Anatolian hieroglyphs are an indigenous hieroglyphic script native to western Anatolia, used to record the
Hieroglyphic Luwian language. It first appeared on Luwian royal seals from the 14th century BC.

Chinese writing

The earliest confirmed evidence of the Chinese script yet discovered is the body of inscriptions on oracle bones
from the late Shang dynasty (c. 12001050 BC). From the Shang Dynasty most of this writing has survived on
bones or bronze implements (bronze script). Markings on turtle shells, or jiaguwen, have been carbon-dated to
around 1500 BC.[21][21][22] Historians have found that the type of medium chosen depended on the subject of
the writing.

There have recently been discoveries of tortoise-shell carvings dating back to c. 6000 BC, like Jiahu Script,
Banpo Script, but whether or not the carvings are complex enough to qualify as writing is under debate.[15] At
Damaidi in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, 3,172 cliff carvings dating to 60005000 BC have been
discovered, featuring 8,453 individual characters such as the sun, moon, stars, gods and scenes of hunting or
grazing. These pictographs are reputed to be similar to the earliest characters confirmed to be written Chinese.
If it is deemed to be a written language, writing in China will predate Mesopotamian cuneiform, long
acknowledged as the first appearance of writing, by some 2,000 years; however it is more likely that the
inscriptions are rather a form of proto-writing, similar to the contemporary European Vinca script.

Cretan and Greek scripts

Cretan hieroglyphs are found on artifacts of Crete (early-to-mid-2nd millennium BC, MM I to MM III,
overlapping with Linear A from MM IIA at the earliest). Linear B, the writing system of the Mycenaean
Greeks,[23] has been deciphered while Linear A has yet to be deciphered. The sequence and the geographical
spread of the three overlapping, but distinct, writing systems can be summarized as follows:[23]
 Writing system Geographical area Time span[A 2]

Cretan Hieroglyphic Crete c. 16251500 BC

Linear A Aegean islands (Kea, Kythera, Melos, Thera), and Greek mainland (Laconia) c. 18th century1450 BC

Linear B Crete (Knossos), and mainland (Pylos, Mycenae, Thebes, Tiryns) c. 13751200 BC

Mesoamerica

A stone slab with 3,000-year-old writing, the Cascajal Block, was discovered in the Mexican state of Veracruz,
and is an example of the oldest script in the Western Hemisphere, preceding the oldest Zapotec writing dated to
about 500 BC.[24][25][26]

Of several pre-Columbian scripts in Mesoamerica, the one that appears to have been best developed, and has
been fully deciphered, is the Maya script. The earliest inscriptions which are identifiably Maya date to the 3rd
century BC, and writing was in continuous use until shortly after the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores in
the 16th century AD. Maya writing used logograms complemented by a set of syllabic glyphs: a combination
somewhat similar to modern Japanese writing.

Iron Age writing

The Phoenician alphabet is simply the Proto-Canaanite alphabet as it

was continued into the Iron Age (conventionally taken from a cut-off
date of 1050 BC). This alphabet gave rise to the Aramaic and Greek
alphabets. These in turn led to the writing systems used throughout
regions ranging from Western Asia to Africa and Europe. For its part
the Greek alphabet introduced for the first time explicit symbols for
vowel sounds.[27] The Greek and Latin alphabets in the early centuries
of the Common Era gave rise to several European scripts such as the
Runes and the Gothic and Cyrillic alphabets while the Aramaic
alphabet evolved into the Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic abjads and the
South Arabian alphabet gave rise to the Ge'ez abugida. The Brahmic
family of India is believed by some scholars to have derived from the
Aramaic alphabet as well.[28] Cippus Perusinus, Etruscan writing near
Perugia, Italy. The beginning of the
Writing in the Greco-Roman civilizations writing with the Latin alphabet.

The history of the Greek alphabet started when the Greeks borrowed the
Phoenician alphabet and adapted it to their own language.[29] The
letters of the Greek alphabet are more or less the same as those of the
Phoenician alphabet, and in modern times both alphabets are arranged
in the same order.[29] The adapter(s) of the Phoenician system added
three letters to the end of the series, called the "supplementals". Several
varieties of the Greek alphabet developed. One, known as Western
Greek or Chalcidian, was used west of Athens and in southern Italy.
The other variation, known as Eastern Greek, was used in present-day
Turkey and by the Athenians, and eventually the rest of the world that
spoke Greek adopted this variation. After first writing right to left, like
the Phoenicians, the Greeks eventually chose to write from left to right.
Early Greek alphabet on pottery in the
National Archaeological Museum of
Greek is in turn the source for all the modern scripts of Europe. The
Athens
most widespread descendent of Greek is the Latin script, named for the
Latins, a central Italian people who came to dominate Europe with the
rise of Rome. The Romans learned writing in about the 5th century BC
from the Etruscan civilization, who used one of a number of Italic scripts derived from the western Greeks. Due
to the cultural dominance of the Roman state, the other Italic scripts have not survived in any great quantity,
and the Etruscan language is mostly lost.

Writing during the Middle Ages

With the collapse of the Roman authority in Western Europe, the literary development became largely confined
to the Eastern Roman Empire and the Persian Empire. Latin, never one of the primary literary languages,
rapidly declined in importance (except within the Church of Rome). The primary literary languages were Greek
and Persian, though other languages such as Syriac and Coptic were important too.

The rise of Islam in the 7th century led to the rapid rise of Arabic as a major literary language in the region.
Arabic and Persian quickly began to overshadow Greek's role as a language of scholarship. Arabic script was
adopted as the primary script of the Persian language and the Turkish language. This script also heavily
influenced the development of the cursive scripts of Greek, the Slavic languages, Latin, and other languages.
The Arabic language also served to spread the HinduArabic numeral system throughout Europe. By the
beginning of the second millennium the city of Cordoba in modern Spain, had become one of the foremost
intellectual centers of the world and contained the world's largest library at the time.[30] Its position as a
crossroads between the Islamic and Western Christian worlds helped fuel intellectual development and written
communication between both cultures.

Renaissance and the modern era

By the 14th century a rebirth, or renaissance, had emerged in Western Europe, leading to a temporary revival of
the importance of Greek, and a slow revival of Latin as a significant literary language. A similar though smaller
emergence occurred in Eastern Europe, especially in Russia. At the same time Arabic and Persian began a slow
decline in importance as the Islamic Golden Age ended. The revival of literary development in Western Europe
led to many innovations in the Latin alphabet and the diversification of the alphabet to codify the phonologies
of the various languages.

The nature of writing has been constantly evolving, particularly due to the development of new technologies
over the centuries. The pen, the printing press, the computer and the mobile phone are all technological
developments which have altered what is written, and the medium through which the written word is produced.
Particularly with the advent of digital technologies, namely the computer and the mobile phone, characters can
be formed by the press of a button, rather than making a physical motion with the hand.

The nature of the written word has recently evolved to include an informal, colloquial written style, in which an
everyday conversation can occur through writing rather than speaking. Written communication can also be
delivered with minimal time delay (e-mail, SMS), and in some cases, with an imperceptible time delay (instant
messaging). Writing is a preservable means of communication. Some people regard the growth of multimedia
literacy as the first step toward a postliterate society.

Writing materials
There is no very definite statement as to the material which was in most common use for the purposes of
writing at the start of the early writing systems.[31] In all ages it has been customary to engrave on stone or
metal, or other durable material, with the view of securing the permanency of the record; and accordingly, in
the very commencement of the national history of Israel, it is read of the two tables of the law written in stone,
and of a subsequent writing of the law on stone. In the latter case there is this peculiarity, that plaster (sic, lime
or gypsum) was used along with stone, a combination of materials which is illustrated by comparison of the
practice of the Egyptian engravers, who, having first carefully smoothed the stone, filled up the faulty places
with gypsum or cement, in order to obtain a perfectly uniform surface on which to execute their engravings.[31]
Metals, such as stamped coins, are mentioned as a material of writing; they include lead,[32] brass, and gold. To
the engraving of gems there is reference also, such as with seals or signets.[31]
The common materials of writing were the tablet and the roll, the former probably having a Chaldean origin,
the latter an Egyptian. The tablets of the Chaldeans are among the most remarkable of their remains. There are
small pieces of clay, somewhat rudely shaped into a form resembling a pillow, and thickly inscribed with
cuneiform characters.[33] Similar use has been seen in hollow cylinders, or prisms of six or eight sides, formed
of fine terra cotta, sometimes glazed, on which the characters were traced with a small stylus, in some
specimens so minutely as to be capable of decipherment only with the aid of a magnifying-glass.[31]

In Egypt the principal writing material was of quite a different sort. Wooden tablets are found pictured on the
monuments; but the material which was in common use, even from very ancient times, was the papyrus. This
reed, found chiefly in Lower Egypt, had various economic means for writing, the pith was taken out, and
divided by a pointed instrument into the thin pieces of which it is composed; it was then flattened by pressure,
and the strips glued together, other strips being placed at right angles to them, so that a roll of any length might
be manufactured. Writing seems to have become more widespread with the invention of papyrus in Egypt. That
this material was in use in Egypt from a very early period is evidenced by still existing papyrus of the earliest
Theban dynasties. As the papyrus, being in great demand, and exported to all parts of the world, became very
costly, other materials were often used instead of it, among which is mentioned leather, a few leather mills of an
early period having been found in the tombs.[31] Parchment, using sheepskins left after the wool was removed
for cloth, was sometimes cheaper than papyrus, which had to be imported outside Egypt. With the invention of
wood-pulp paper, the cost of writing material began a steady decline.

See also
Main
Phonetics, Palaeography, logograms, Brahmi, Devanagari, logographic, Vina signs, Asemic writing
General
Alphabet, Palaeography, Inscriptions, Book, Manuscript, Shorthand, Latin alphabet, writing system,
ogham, Indus script, Mixtec, uncials, Zapotec, Aurignacian, Chinese characters (kanji, hanja), Ugarit,
katakana, Acheulean, Ethnoarchaeology, Hoabinhian, Gravettian, Oldowan, Uruk, Etruscan, Cretan
hieroglyphs, Nabataean, Luwian, Olmec, Busra, Tamil, Kannada, Grakliani Hill
Other
History of numbers, History of art (Ancient art), Oral literature, History of developmental dyslexia

Notes
1. writing usually does not convey the tone of the utterance.
2. Beginning date refers to first attestations, the assumed origins of all scripts lie further back in the past.

Citations
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14. Helen R. Pilcher 'Earliest handwriting found? Chinese relics hint at Neolithic rituals', Nature (30 April
2003), doi:10.1038/news030428-7 (https://dx.doi.org/10.1038%2Fnews030428-7) "Symbols carved into
tortoise shells more than 8,000 years ago [...] unearthed at a mass-burial site at Jiahu in the Henan
Province of western China". Li, X., Harbottle, G., Zhang, J. & Wang, C. 'The earliest writing? Sign use in
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16. Houston, Stephen D. (2004). The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process. Cambridge
University Press. pp. 2456. ISBN 978-0-521-83861-0.
17. "Meroitic Writing System" (http://www.library.cornell.edu/africana/Writing_Systems/Meroitic.html).
Library.cornell.edu. 2004-04-04. Retrieved 2010-01-31.
18. Geoffrey Sampson, Writing Systems: a Linguistic Introduction, Stanford University Press, 1990, p. 78.
19. Gunther Dreyer. A Hundred Years at Abydos.
20. Whitehouse, David (1999) 'Earliest writing' found (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/334517.stm) BBC
21. William G. Boltz, Early Chinese Writing, World Archaeology, Vol. 17, No. 3, Early Writing Systems.
(Feb., 1986), pp. 420436 (436).
22. David N. Keightley, "Art, Ancestors, and the Origins of Writing in China", Representations, No. 56,
Special Issue: The New Erudition. (Autumn, 1996), pp.6895 (68).
23. Olivier 1986, pp. 377f.
24. "Writing May Be Oldest in Western Hemisphere." (https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/science/15writi
ng.html). New York Times. 2006-09-15. Retrieved 2008-03-30. "A stone slab bearing 3,000-year-old
writing previously unknown to scholars has been found in the Mexican state of Veracruz, and
archaeologists say it is an example of the oldest script ever discovered in the Western Hemisphere."
25. " 'Oldest' New World writing found" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5347080.stm). BBC.
2006-09-14. Retrieved 2008-03-30. "Ancient civilisations in Mexico developed a writing system as early
as 900 BC, new evidence suggests."
26. "Oldest Writing in the New World" (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/313/5793/1610).
Science. Retrieved 2008-03-30. "A block with a hitherto unknown system of writing has been found in
the Olmec heartland of Veracruz, Mexico. Stylistic and other dating of the block places it in the early first
millennium before the common era, the oldest writing in the New World, with features that firmly assign
this pivotal development to the Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica."
27. Millard 1986, p. 396
28. Salomon, Richard (1996). "Brahmi and Kharoshthi". The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University
Press. ISBN 0-19-507993-0.
29. McCarter, P. Kyle. "The Early Diffusion of the Alphabet", The Biblical Archaeologist 37, No. 3 (Sep.,
1974): 54-68. page 62.
30. Bury, J.B. The Cambridge Medieval History volumes 1-5 (https://books.google.com/books?id=9lHeh36S
8ooC). p. 1215.
31. McClintock, J., & Strong, J. (1885). Cyclopedia of Biblical, theological, and ecclesiastical literature (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=u-oXAAAAYAAJ): Supplement. New York: Harper. Pages 990997.
32. though whether to writing on lead, or filling up the hollow of the letters with lead, is not certain.
33. These documents have been in general enveloped, after they were baked, in a cover of moist clay, upon
which their contents have been again inscribed, so as to present externally a duplicate of the writing
within; and the tablet in its cover has then been baked afresh. The same material was largely used by the
Assyrians, and many of their clay tablets still remain. They are of various sizes, ranging from nine inches
long by six and a half wide, to an inch and a half by an inch wide, and even less. Some thousands of
these have been recovered; many are historical, some linguistic, some geographical, some astronomical.

References
 Millard, A. R. (1986). "The Infancy of the Alphabet". World Archaeology. 17 (3): 390398.
doi:10.1080/00438243.1986.9979978.
Olivier, J.-P. (1986). "Cretan Writing in the Second Millennium B.C". World Archaeology. 17 (3): 377
389. doi:10.1080/00438243.1986.9979977.

Further reading
21st century sources

The Idea of Writing: Writing Across Borders. Edited by Alex de Voogt, Joachim Friedrich Quack.
BRILL, Dec 9, 2011.
Powell, Barry B. 2009. Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization, Oxford:
Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-6256-2
Steven R. Fischer A History of Writing, Reaktion Books 2005 CN136481
Hoffman, Joel M. 2004. In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language. New York
University Press. Chapter 3.
Jean-Jacques Glassne. The Invention of Cuneiform: Writing in Sumer. JHU Press, 2003. ISBN
0801873894

Late 20th century sources

Andrew Robinson, The Story of Writing, Thames & Hudson 1995 (second edition: 1999). ISBN 0-500-
28156-4
Hans J. Nissen, P. Damerow, R. Englund, Archaic Bookkeeping, University of Chicago Press, 1993,
ISBN 0-500-01665-8
Denise Schmandt-Besserat, Before Writing, Vol. I: From Counting to Cuneiform. University of Texas
Press, 1992. ISBN 0292707835
Denise Schmandt-Besserat HomePage, How Writing Came About, University of Texas Press, 1992,
ISBN 0-292-77704-3.
Saggs, H., 1991. Civilization Before Greece and Rome Yale University Press. Chapter 4.
Jack Goody, The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society, Cambridge University Press, 1986

Earlier 20th century sources

Otto Neugebauer, Abraham Joseph Sachs, Albrecht Gtze. Mathematical Cuneiform Texts. Pub. jointly
by the American Oriental Society and the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1945.
Smith, William Anton. The Reading Process. New York: The Macmillan company, 1922.
Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopdia Britannica; A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General
Information. Cambridge, Eng: University Press, 1911. "Writing".
Clodd, Edward. The Story of the Alphabet. Library of useful stories.

External links
Cuneiform

cdli:wiki : Assyriological tools for specialists in cuneiform studies

General

History of Writing. historian.net

Alphabet & protoalphabet the manifest of astrologic doctrine?
The New Post-Literate
Denise Schmandt-Besserat HomePage
The Ethiopic Alphabet By Dr. Aberra Molla
Children of the Code: A Brief History of Writing Online Video

Broadcasts
 Cracking the Maya Code. NOVA, Public Broadcasting Service. (Timeline (flash))
BBC on tortoise shells discovered in China
Fragments of pottery discovered in modern Pakistan
Egyptian hieroglyphs c. 3000 BC

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