#4: The Inventors of Writing

Ancient humans are telling us something ...

Today, we fire off a text message or leave a note on the fridge without a thought. But for most of our approximately 300,000 years of existence, anatomically modern Homo sapiens wrote nothing. No letters, no laws, no grocery lists. Human communication consisted mainly of spoken language, body language and gestures, storytelling, and cave art.

But eventually, that changed. And when that happened, everything changed.

Like agriculture and the use of fire, writing originated not in one society, but independently in at least four. During the Neolithic period, clay tokens were used to record livestock sales and other transactions. And then about 5,400 years ago, in Mesopotamia, Sumerian cuneiform began to take shape. This was a pictograph-based script that later evolved into a distinctive system that could be etched into clay with a stylus, making writing faster and easier.

(The Sumerians, bless their hearts, would eventually gift humankind with our first known fart joke.)

In Ancient Egypt, meanwhile, the earliest hieroglyphic writing was being developed. These symbols were highly pictorial and often used in ceremonial and religious rituals. In fact, the word hieroglyph comes from the Ancient Greek hieros, meaning sacred, and glyphē, or carving. The Egyptians themselves called their written language medu netjer, or “words of the gods.”

Although it arrived later, oracle bone script, the earliest form of Chinese writing, was created independently. This was around 1200 BCE, give or take a century or two. Its earliest usage consisted of divinations performed for the royal family of the Late Shang dynasty. Diviners would analyze the patterns of cracks on heated ox bones and turtle shells (called scapulomancy) and carve their interpretations into the bone. Some of these early characters resemble their modern descendants, which gives Chinese writing a lineage that spans more than three millennia.

Written language was invented again, also without the influence or knowledge of its precursors, by the Maya people in around 300 BCE. This Mesoamerican system included more than 800 glyphs, some of which represented syllables or entire words. Maya inscriptions included royal births and marriages, tales of creation, and uncannily precise records of lunar and solar cycles and eclipses.

Early writing was carved into clay or stone. It was the invention of papyrus that amplified the awesome potential of the written word. Ancient Egyptians sliced the inner pith of the papyrus plant, which grew along the Nile, into thin strips. These were soaked, dried, and pressed into lightweight sheets that were ideal for ink. Suddenly, scrolls could be transported. Letters could be sent; laws could be distributed. Much of what defines modern civilization — government, religion, science, mathematics, literature — stems from this pivotal moment.

Writing did much more than accelerate the advancement of multiple societies. It fundamentally transformed how we think and how our brains absorb and store information. And while writing for many centuries was reserved for scholars and other powerful elites, today it is something we too often take for granted.

Much of writing’s transformative powers lie in its permanence. In the wonderful dark fantasy film The Dark Crystal, released in 1982 and directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz, a character describes writing as “words that stay.” I could not have said it better myself. Many examples of the earliest writing still exist today.

Proto-cuneiform tablets, some dating to about 3500 BCE and detailing transactions of grain, beer, and other commodities, can be seen in numerous museums. Surviving examples of hieroglyphic writing date all the way to the dawn of the Egyptian pharaohs. One specimen, a ceremonial palette, depicts the ancient king Narmer and looks nearly as fresh as the day it was chiseled in siltstone about five thousand years ago. (The construction of the Great Pyramid was still centuries in the future.) Museums in China and elsewhere also house examples of Shang dynasty oracle bones.

Four known Maya codices survive (countless more were destroyed by Spanish conquistadores and missionaries). They are inscribed on amate, a primitive paper made from bark, and painted by skilled scribes using vegetable dyes. The Dresden Codex, for example, is a sort of almanac, covering topics that include the movements of Venus, creation myths, and rituals to cure illness.

What fascinates me about these antiquities is that they enable humanity to communicate across the span of millennia. This is not hyperbole; I mean it in a literal sense. When you read the translated words of a priest or scribe who inhabited this planet thousands of years ago, that long-gone person is telling you something. Their ancient message is being delivered to you now, today, in the present time.

They are explaining how they lived, who they worshiped, and what they believed. They are collapsing time, reaching across the centuries to connect with us, providing deeper insights into what it means to be human.

Or hey, maybe they’re just sharing a well-crafted fart joke.