Writing was invented in Mesopotamia 6,000 years ago, with a possible earlier instance in China. Mesopotamian cuneiform was the first widely recognized form of writing, using logograms. Writing spread to Egypt, India, and the Levant, evolving to include sounds and eventually leading to the world’s first alphabet in Egypt.
Writing is thought to have been invented in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) 6,000 years ago, in 4000 BC. There is a possible controversial instance of writing 2,000 years earlier, from turtle shell carvings excavated in China, although whether these signs are complex enough to qualify as a written language is under debate.
Mesopotamian cuneiform is the first widely recognized form of writing, created by pressing a reed stylus into soft clay and allowing it to harden. He started using logograms, a type of writing in which, instead of corresponding to a sound, each symbol corresponds to a whole word. This type survives to this day in the form of some Chinese characters. Writing was a closely guarded skill used only by scribes and priests. Its original function was, for example, accounting, tabulating how many slaves were working on a particular job. The foundation of the written word was closely accompanied by the first issues.
After the practice started in Mesopotamia, it started showing up in a variety of other places around the world. The earliest known Egyptian hieroglyphs, from the Narmer Palette, date from 3100 BC, 900 years after the invention of Mesopotamian cuneiform. The mysterious Indus Valley Civilization in India began writing writings around 3000 BC, although these have not been deciphered.
Around 2900 BC, Mesopotamian writing evolved to include sounds, rather than simple logograms. In about 2600 BC, Sumerian speech was translated into written syllables using cuneiform. Made with brittle clay, most of these ancient examples have been destroyed.
It is known that the world’s first alphabet originated in Egypt in 2000 BC, based on hieroglyphs. It then spread to the Levant and the rest of the world. Many Egyptian hieroglyphs have been preserved in stone. Thanks to the Rosetta Stone, which included Ancient Greek writing alongside hieroglyphics, people were able to translate some of the symbols.
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