The History of Writing
(This looks really boring, doesn’t it? Let’s see what we can do to make it better on the next few slides)
Paleoanthropologists* estimate that between three and four million years ago, ancestors of the human race appeared on earth, naked in a world of enemies. The skills necessary for survival were mastered over many hundreds of thousands of years.
* What the heck is a paleoanthropologist? How could you figure that out? Hint: paleo /anthro / pologist
As you can imagine, these early people didn’t have much time for reading, math, playing games or doing anything other than staying alive in a hostile world.
Quick Essay Question: Would you rather go to school or spend your teens fighting off wild, man-eating beasts, and why? Please feel free to answer honestly; you won’t hurt my feelings. If you’d rather spend your time fending for your life than listening to me talk about Shakespeare, I am okay with that. Really.
Agriculture and the ways of life it created were the most important achievements of early humans. The first farmers scattered kernels of grain on the earth and waited patiently for harvest time. Wild beasts were tamed as work animals or kept for their meat and hides. Because their fields and flocks could supply most of their wants, a settled life in villages became possible; people were no longer compelled to move on endlessly in search of food, as their food-gathering ancestors had done for countless generations.
It was along the banks of great rivers that villages first grew into towns and cities. In early Egyptian picture writing a town is shown as a cross within a circle - the intersection of two pathways enclosed by a wall. The symbol is an appropriate one, for in the history of the human race the town marks the spot where civilization as we know it began.
Within the towns the business of living took new turns. While the majority still farmed, there were now more craftsmen turning out specialized wares, merchants trading for metals and other needed raw materials, priests conducting religious ceremonies, and administrators planning and supervising the necessary cooperative effort for the common good. Specialization allowed leisure time for intellectual and artistic pursuits that enriched the lives of the participants and developed a cultural heritage.
Quick Quiz: List five things you do in your leisure time.
A culture can last only if the knowledge necessary for its survival is passed on from generation to generation.
Some cultures, such as the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara peoples (as well as most other Native American nations) kept history through an oral tradition. Keeping such complex histories in memory is best suited to cultures where people lives in communal situations, sharing resources with members of extended families, clans, and tribes.
In cultures where individuals owned property and items of great value, money became a means of counting and identifying wealth. As soon as money was invented, methods for keeping records were needed and systems of writing were created.
Around 4100-3800 BCE, people created symbols that could be impressed or inscribed in clay to represent a record of land, grain or cattle and a written language was beginning to develop. One of the earliest examples was found in the excavations of Uruk in Mesopotamia at a level representing the time of the crystallization of the Sumerian culture.
Interesting Fact!
• In addition to writing, the Sumerians also invented beer.
• The need to keep track of grain used in the production of beer was a main motivation for the development of writing.
Eventually, the symbols were stylized, rotated and in impressed in clay with a wedge shaped stylus to become the script known as Cuneiform.
Twenty Minute Break(down)
• Go to this web page.(www. www.upennmuseum.com/cuneiform.cgi) • Enter your name (or any other word you like) to find the Babylonian (Sumerian) cuneiform way to write your it. • Copy the symbols by hand onto a piece of paper. Decorate as desired. • When you finish, close the web browser and you will return to this page.
Map of ancient Mesopotamia at 3500 B.C.
Map of the same area in 2007.
The earliest written story known to exist is the Sumerian tale of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Click here to read a summary of the story. (www.http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/GILG.HTM)
The End.