Writing

Writing may refer to two activities: the inscribing of characters on a medium, with the intention of forming words and other constructs that represent language or record information, and the creation of material to be conveyed through written language. (There are some exceptions; for example, the use of a typewriter to record language is generally called typing, rather than writing.) Writing refers to both activities equally, and both activities may often occur simultaneously.

Writing in Historical Cultures

Mesopotamia

In Mesopotamia the writing system invented by the Sumerian culture is called cuneiform. This system developed over several hundreds of years beginning with pictograms which were first used to represent real things beginning around 3200 BC. Apparently the first symbol, the 'nail' cuneiform is named after, was used on its own to represent one, the numercial counting unit, long before any language was represented, so primitive mathematical writing was the first pre-cursor of all alphabets. These pictograms were soon simplified and changed to better represent ideas as well as things.

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Egypt

In Egypt writing was very important however very few people knew how to read or write. Writing was often used to record all types of information in tombs, temples, the army and in government. Only people from a particular group were allowed to train to become scribes, in the service of temples and public (mainly pharaonic, e.g. military) authorities. Unfortunately the three hieroglyph systems were difficult to learn and use, especially the old, prestigious hieratic one, even the simpler demotic type was not to conquer the world but ultimately gave way in daily life to the Greco-Macedonian alphabet, next to its Roman counterpart (still later came Arabic).

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The Winner: Phoenicia's model

It was the Phoenician system to develop a modern style alphabet basing the form of letters on cuneiform symbols that would conquer the Ancient world because of its simplicity and universal application. There were many variations on the theme throughout the commercialy linked Mediterranean basins, even on a single island (e.g. Crete), but ultimately the militarily victorious empires of Alexander the Great (using the Greek alphabet) and of Rome would impose a dominant convention, that would be spread 'worldwide' by christianity; the first serious rival was the Arabic alphabet (Semitic like Ancient Egypt) of Islam's Holy Book, the Quran.

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China

In China historians have found out a lot about the early Chinese dynasties from the written documents left behind. From the Shang dynasty most of this writing has survived on bones or bronze impliments. Historians have found that the type of media used had an effect on what the writing was documenting and how it was used.

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Indus Valley

The Indus Valley script is one of the most fascinating and mysterious aspects of ancient Indian culture as it has not yet been deciphered. Although we have many example of the Indus script, without true understanding of how the script works and what the inscriptions say, it is impossible to understand the importance of writing in the pre-Indo-European Harappan Civilization.

Related Topics:
Indus Valley - Indo-European

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Elsewhere

Many other systems have been developed independently, e.g. the complex Mayan writing; Etruscan is still not deciphered despite a fairly lage corpus of material (mainly Latin and Greek).

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