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INVENTION OF WRITING
Cuneiform
West Asia >
Mesopotamia
Location
3300 BCE to
100 CE
Time
Clay tokens have been used since as early as 8000 BCE in
Mesopotamia for some form of record-keeping.Clay tokens are basically
three dimension geometric shapes. There are two types of clay tokens,
plain and complex. The plain tokens are the oldest ones, found as far
back as 8000 BCE.
Sumerian
Location
West Asia > Mesopotamia
Time
3300 BCE to 100 CE
The Sumerian writing system during the early
periods was constantly in flux. The original
direction of writing was from top to bottom, but
for reasons unknown, it changed to left-to-right
very early on (perhaps around 3000 BCE).
Around
that time
still….
Elamite
Location
West Asia > Mesopotamia
Time
3300 BCE to 500 BCE
The development of writing in Elam paralleled that in Sumer. From as
early as the 8th millenium BCE, clay tokens of different shapes were
used to represent commodities such as grain, livestock, alcohol, and
manufactured goods for economic record-keeping and transactions.
Egyptian
Type
Logophonetic
Genealogy
Egyptian
Location
Africa > Egypt
Time
3100 BCE to 400 CE
The Egyptian Hieroglyphs is among the old writing system dating back around 3100BCE
in the world. Unlike its contemporary cuneiform Sumerian, Egyptian Hieroglyph's origin is
much more obscure. There is no identifiable precursor. It was once thought that the origin
of Egyptian Hieroglyphs are religious and historical, but recent developments could point
to an economical impetus for this script as well as push back the time depth of this writing
system.
.
Quipu
Location
Americas > South America
Time
2600 BCE to 1550 CE
The first cities first sprang up in the bone-dry valleys of northern Peru's coast in
the 3rd millennium BCE, and then spread along the coast and up into the high
Andes, leading to an incredible flowering of different cultures and empires
through time. When the Spanish conquistadores encountered
the Tahuantinsuyu, known to the modern world as the Inca Empire, they had
stumbled upon the most politically sophisticated and technologically advanced
urban culture of the New World. A single quipuis often several ropes tied
together
.
Akkadian
Location
West Asia > Mesopotamia
Time
2500 BCE to 100 CE
While the cuneiform writing system was created and used at first only by
the Sumerian, it did not take long before neighboring groups adopted it for their own
use. By about 2500 BCE, the Akkadian, a Semitic-speaking people that dwelled north
of the Sumerians, starting using cuneiform to write their own language. However, it
was the ascendency of the Akkadian dynasty in 2300 BCE that positioned Akkadian
over Sumerian as the primary language of Mesopotamia.
Cretan Hieroglyphs
Location
Europe > Crete
Time
1900 BCE to 1600 BCE
Bronze Age Crete was home to the powerful seafaring civilization known
to the modern world as the Minoans. As the first literate culture of
Europe, the Minoans employed not one but two related writing systems.
The more commonly known system is Linear A due to the rectilinear
shape of its symbols. The second system, more ancient but less wellknown and even less understood, is called Cretan Hieroglyphs. It is so
called because of the relatively naturalistic style of the characters, as
compared to the more "abstract" forms in Linear A. Many signs resemble
natural objects like body parts, plants, animals, implements, weapons,
ships,
as
well
as
more
abstract
symbols.
Cypriot
Location
Europe > Cyprus
Time
1500 BCE to 300 BCE
The earliest examples dating from as early as 1500 BCE cannot be
read, comparisons clearly show that the Cypriot syllabary seemed to
have derived from Linear A, and therefore is like a sibling to Linear B.
For this reason, sometimes the script at this very early stage is called
Cypro-Minoan, to distinguish it from the Cypriot script used for writing
Greek after the 12th century BCE
Chinese
Location
East Asia > China
Time
1500 BCE to Present
The first recognizable form of Chinese writing dates from 3,500 years ago, but
many argue that its origins lie much deeper in the past. Regardless of its actual
age, Chinese has evolved substantially over time yet has retained its ancient
core, making it one of the longest continuously used writing system in the
world. The earliest form of Chinese writing is called the oracle bone script,
used from 1500 to 1000 BCE. This script was etched onto turtle shells and
animals bones, which were then heated until cracks would appear.
Mesoamerican Writing Systems
Location
Americas > Mesoamerica
Time
900 BCE to 1697 CE
Unlike other parts of the world, writing in Mesoamerica did not start as an accounting
aid but instead had religious, political, and historical purposes. It marked those who
possessed and leveraged the knowledge of writing as a group of higher social status
than the common people, and therefore reinforced the ruling elite's claim to power.
One of the earliest complex urban cultures to appear in Mesoamerica were the
Olmecs, whose villages and towns sprang up in the tropical, riverine regions of
Mexico's Veracruz and Tabasco states. During the Early and Middle Pre-Classic
periods (1500 to 300 BCE) in Mesoamerica, the Olmecs depicted their rulers on giant
monuments
in
the
shape
of
human
heads