Where did writing begin?

From Mesopotamia to the Americas, discover how different regions around the
world adopted writing at different times and for different reasons.
Full writing-systems appear to have been invented independently at least four times in
human history: first in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) where cuneiform was used
between 3400 and 3300 BC, and shortly afterwards in Egypt at around 3200 BC. By
1300 BC we have evidence of a fully operational writing system in late Shang-dynasty
China. Sometime between 900 and 600 BC writing also appears in the cultures of
Mesoamerica.

There are also several places such as the Indus River valley and Rapa Nui (Easter
Island) where writing may have been invented but it remains undeciphered.

Although these dates suggest that writing could have spread out from one central point
of origin, there is little evidence of any links between these systems, with each
possessing unique qualities.

Mesopotamian origins

Scholars generally agree that the earliest form of writing appeared almost 5,500 years
ago in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). Early pictorial signs were gradually
substituted by a complex system of characters representing the sounds of Sumerian (the
language of Sumer in Southern Mesopotamia) and other languages.

From 2900 BC, these began to be impressed in wet clay with a reed stylus, making
wedge-shaped marks which are now known as cuneiform.

The process of writing cuneiform stabilised over the next 600 years. Curves were
eliminated, signs simplified and the direct connection between the look of pictograms
and their original object of reference was lost.

Sometime during this same period, the symbols – which were initially read from top to
bottom – came to be read from left to right in horizontal lines (vertical alignments were
kept for more traditional pronouncements). In keeping with this, the symbols were also
realigned, rotated 90 degrees anti-clockwise.
Eventually, in 2340 BC, Sumer fell to the armies of Sargon, King of the Akkadians, a
northern Semitic people who had previously co-existed with the Sumerians. By this
time, cuneiform had, for several centuries, been used bilingually to write Akkadian too.
Sargon, the latest in a line of expansive Akkadian leaders, built an Empire that ran from
present day Lebanon down to ‘the nether sea’ (the Persian Gulf). Eventually, as many as
15 languages would use cuneiform-inspired characters.

Sumerian lingered on as the language of learning until at least 200 BC. Cuneiform, the
system invented to record it, however, outlived it by almost three centuries: it lasted as a
writing system for other languages well into the Christian era. The last datable
document in cuneiform is an astronomical text from 75 AD.

Egypt

New discoveries have pushed back the date for writing in Egypt close to that of
Mesopotamia. Discoveries of large-scale incised ceremonial scenes at the rock art site
of El-Khawy in Egypt date to around 3250 BC. They show features similar to early
hieroglyphic forms. Some of these rock-carved signs are nearly half a metre in height.

From 3200 BC onwards Egyptian hieroglyphs appeared on small ivory tablets used as
labels for grave goods in the tomb of the pre-dynastic King Scorpion at Abydos and on
ceremonial surfaces used for grinding cosmetics, such as the Narmer Palette.

Writing in ink using reed brushes and pens is first found in Egypt. This ink writing
came to be known in Greek as hieratic (‘priestly’ script), whilst the carved and painted
letters we see on monuments are called hieroglyphs (‘sacred carvings’).

Carved and written characters are close in date. This suggests that from the earliest
times, writing in Egypt had two functions: one was ceremonial, a display script
(carved), the other was in the service of royal and temple administrations (written).

Within four centuries of the finds in King Scorpion’s tomb, hieroglyphs and Hieratic (a
cursive writing system used for Ancient Egyptian) developed a full range of characters.
This included:

o 24 uni-consonantal symbols (an ‘alphabet’ containing various consonants only)

o phonetic components representing combinations of sounds
o determinative signs (signs with no phonetic value, used only to determine which of
several alternative meanings for a word is meant in a particular context).

It is from this Egyptian writing that an alphabet would first evolve, sometime from 1850
BC onwards.

China

The earliest examples of writing in China were found near present-day Anyang, on a
tributary of the Yellow River, 500km south of Beijing. Here, the kings of the late Shang
dynasty (1300–1050 BC) had founded their capital and carried out divination rituals
using animal bones.

For centuries, fragments of bones had been found by farmers and sold for use in
Chinese medicine as ‘dragon bones’. It was not until 1899 that politician and scholar
Wang Yirong (1845–1900) recognised characters carved into the surface of some of
these bones and realised their significance. As the earliest written records of Chinese
civilization found to date, these inscriptions extended Chinese historical and linguistic
knowledge by several centuries.

These 'oracle' bones (the shoulder blades of oxen and turtle plastrons) record questions
that were posed to the royal ancestors about topics as diverse as crop rotation, warfare,
childbirth and even toothache. To date, nearly 150,000 examples of such bones have
been found, containing over 4,500 different symbols, many of which can be identified
as the ancestors of Chinese characters still in use today.

But Shang readers would not be able to read present-day Chinese and the majority of
the characters on the oracle bones remain undeciphered. Even the characters that can be
identified have evolved considerably in terms of their function and form. Not only did
pictographic characters become gradually more abstract, but as the written vocabulary
expanded, more compound forms developed.

Basic components were shared between characters to reflect similarities in

pronunciation or meaning. In this way, since ancient times, Chinese characters have
been able to represent both concepts and the sounds of spoken language to varying
degrees.

The bones show a fully developed writing system which must have been formed many
years – perhaps centuries – earlier, although earlier materials have not yet been
discovered and may not have survived.

Mesoamerica

Recent discoveries have pushed the evidence for writing in this area – which runs from
southern Mexico to Costa Rica – close to 900 BC.

The discoveries have also widened the range of cultures and languages that we know
used writing from the Maya, Mixtecs and Aztecs to include the
earlier Olmecs and Zapotecs.

There were two types of writing systems in pre-colonial Mesoamerica:

1. Open systems were means of recording texts that were not linked to the
grammatical and sound structures of specific languages. They functioned as
mnemonic devices, guiding readers through the narratives of texts without
relying on the linguistic background of the given audience. These were common
among the Aztecs and other Mexica communities of central Mexico.
2. Closed systems were tied to the sound and grammatical structures of specific
languages. These were targeted at particular linguistic communities and
functioned similarly to the writing we know today. Examples of these closed
systems can be found among the Maya.

The position of scribe was of high status. Maya artists were often younger sons of the
royal family. The Keepers of the Holy Books, the highest scribal office, acted as
librarians, historians, genealogists, tribute recorders, marriage arrangers, masters of
ceremonies, and astronomers.

Just four Maya books survive from the pre-colonial period and fewer than 20 from the
entire region. These codices are painted onto deer skin and tree bark, the writing surface
coated (as were many of the buildings) with a polished lime paste or gesso.
There are still many unanswered questions about the extent and complexity of writing’s
use in pre-colonial Mesoamerica. Much of the evidence is unavailable since the vast
majority of materials that survived into the 16th century were burned by the Spanish
conquistadors.