Who Invented Writing?

Writing, whether it is pen on paper, or type on a computer screen, is such a major part of life that we might find it hard to imagine a time without it. But writing did have a beginning. When was this beginning, and where? Who can we credit with the invention of this handy form of communication?
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India:
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China:
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[@anak_kucing101]

It's interesting to think that nowadays, if you asked a random person on the street, someone whose native language is Indo-European, to invent a writing system, they would likely create an alphabet based on syllables or single letters. This stands in contrast to the pictographs used by ancient humans to represent words and ideas.

[@V-Ad-ot8ob-1998]

@@anak_kucing101 Or perhaps use the Latin alphabet as inspiration to create new funny symbols or revive the outdated ones. Just saying.

[@Kittynugget1]

Thanks!

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Wow, and thank you!

[@Fclwilson]

I recently learned from Digital Hammurabi that a previously unknown language was discovered in the Hittite area. The linguists are slated to publish in February. If memory serves, it was rendered in cuneiform and the fragment is about 15 lines

[@petermsiegel573]

Kalasmaic… an Anatolian (Hittite-related) written in Hittite cuneiform (writing system), probably by Hittite scribes.

[@karenabrams8986]

That’s awesome news.

[@scribeslendy595]

That makes my little historian heart happy

[@faragraf9380]

there are foreign signs on Denisovan figurines and huge objects, found in the Visoco tunnels. I have both seen.

[@scribeslendy595]

@faragraf9380 kindly elaborate on visoco tunnels? I wasn't aware we'd discovered new remains/symbols in the area

[@susancottman9686]

Thanks for mentioning the Vinca. I read a book about the Danube River civilization a few years back. It was great.

[@soso4169]

Thank you, professor Miano, for mentioning the Dispilio wooden tablet. It was discovered in the neolithic lakeside settlement of Dispilio at lake Kastoria in northwest Macedonia, Greece - a must-see!

[@nikolaykolev1438]

This inscription is valuable because it was examined with C-14. The cedar lived 3000 /5260 BC/years. The inscription is later-3500 BC. This makes it possible to compare with other inscriptions and make a periodization of the development of writing.

[@undergroundman1993]

My friend asked me if I thought the Egyptians or Sumerians invented writing first or if one influenced the other. I told him they probably appeared within a few hundred years of each other but that it doesn't really matter which one came first. In my opinion both of their societies probably became large and complex enough around the same time to require the development of more complex systems of record keeping rather than one system being inspired by an earlier one.

[@barbarossarotbart]

Both systems are to different to be influenced by eachother.

[@abj136]

@@barbarossarotbart They surely had different backstories, but I’d believe the cultures gained ideas from each other.

[@barbarossarotbart]

@@abj136 Why could it not be a parallel development, like so many other things?

[@flyingeagle3898]

@@barbarossarotbart mainly because the 2 regions are in such close physical proximity that it would be weird if they didn't influence one another to some degree

[@barbarossarotbart]

@@flyingeagle3898 Which two regions? Egypt and Mesopotamia? They are not really close. They had not even been in contact when their writing systems had been developed.

[@AwakeAtTheWheel]

Super interesting! Amazing that so many places happened to develop writing around the same time. Thanks professor!!

[@yodasmomisondrugs7959]

Aliens....duh!

[@AwakeAtTheWheel]

@@yodasmomisondrugs7959 😂🍻

[@OmegaFares]

The others are still a couple of centuries later than Mesopotamia and Egypt and the so.called balkan scripts.are.just speculation.at this point.

[@jhthephd]

New intro graphic is sick!

[@robertstrawser1426]

Awesome video. I am actually surprised that we do not have more examples of much earlier writing systems that were lost or simply never really progressed. When it comes to writing we are definitely under a bias that, once invented, it would immediately be recognized for its usefulness and continue to develop. We know now that technological development is not usually a straight linear progression but a series of starts and stops with many failures before something actually catches on. Sadly, because many of these earliest attempts were likely written exclusively on perishable materials, we may never find them. I doubt we have found, or will ever find, humanity’s first actual writing but I wouldn’t be surprised if we found more examples of proto-writing, or even full writing systems, that go back many thousands of years before Mesopotamia and Egypt. They just never progressed for one reason or another. Truly this is a fascinating and compelling topic.

[@David1Eskin]

I think the development of writing probably first requires a need for it, namely large scale trade or taxation schemes that make recording communication in a form which is stable and can be transmitted over long spatial distances necessary. Its utility over temporal distances being likely a secondary benefit not necessarily called for at the initial stage of development.

[@hedgehog3180]

@@David1Eskin The temporal stability of writing is also something you have to first invent writing to discover. If you live in a society with purely oral transmission of knowledge you obviously have nothing else to compare oral transmission to so you have no way of knowing that writing is more temporally stable.

[@royalapplepie]

Love your presentations 💖

[@MrGaborseres]

Thank you again sir 🙂 Your take on the subject is very much appreciated 👍

[@shannon_kilpatrick]

So interesting. I never heard of the Balkan scripts before

[@arnorrian1]

Vinča culture is amazing, but little known. It was on par with Ubaid culture in Mesopotamia. The first street in history was found there, and they even did some basic smelting of copper. And the cubist figurines they made are wonderful.

[@annepoitrineau5650]

As always, thank you so much. Food for thought and reflection as well as full of knowledge and info. In his seminal book "Tristes tropiques", Claude Levi-Strauss relates of an Amazonian Chief who pretended to understand writing when interacting with C L-S in public, and responded by drawing wavy lines looking vaguely like C L-S's writing. He also includes in the book symbols used mostly as tattoos. These symbols are very abstract, and the Indians do not quite know what they mean, it seems (no agreement as to meaning that is).

[@Thorwald_Franke]

Thank you for mentioning the Vinca culture. It might be useful to produce a video about the prevailing writing system, how it developed into our present world-wide Latin alphabet used by everybody in one way or another. So, the Mesopopatmians are the source where it came from, via Phoenicia, the Greeks, the Etruscans.

[@SobekLOTFC]

Keep up the great work, Dr Miano!

[@meesalikeu]

could not be more interesting & more clearly laid out for us - thanks doc! 🎉

[@MegaMar20]

Very informative.

[@pastorwilliamhay1687]

Great presentation. Thx

[@zhubajie6940]

So glad you clearly define writing. I was fortunate enough to visit several areas in Henan a few cities and sites several years ago. One of my delights was to see a couple turtle plastrons from Jiahu displayed in the Henan Museum in Zhengzhou. One clearly had a ri(日) symbol I remember but as you said were symbols not writing. Also got to visit the National Museum of Chinese Writing which has many Shang dynasty oracle bones (earliest Chinese writing known) as well as visit Yinxu near Anyang where the earliest oracle bone writing is found dating from about 1300 BCE onward mostly on cattle scapula and turtle plastrons but also on some bronze artifacts.

[@drummersagainstitk]

Thank you for all your work.

[@chestnutoak1645]

This was very interesting. I especially liked the distinction between symbolic, protowritten language and mature written. Maybe future videos could explore: Norse runic writing and any examples of indigenous writing in sub Saharan Africa. Your KZbin shorts documenting your dates with women who also have an interest in ancient history are a hoot.

[@javieraaravena]

This video was very nicely narrated, like a storyteller

[@MajoraZ]

To clarify on what is said about potential Olmec writing: There's a number of engraved Olmec artifacts that seem to have some sort of writing or proto-writing script on them, the most notable example being the Cascajal Block, which is dated to around 900BC. I'm not quite sure why Dr. Miano decided to not clarify on this more: There IS debate about if this is actually writing or some other form of symbolism, but the Zapotec script itself may not fully meet the definition of a true writing system either, depending on how one defines that (under the strictest definition of "writing", the only script in the Precolumbian Americas which would qualify would be Maya writing) so I would have included it. The Cascajal Block in particular is also debated about in terms of if the dating is reliable or if it's even a legitmate prehispanic piece at all, but as I noted, there are other Olmec pieces which seem to have the same characters or glyphs or symbols on them too.

[@Dewydidit]

I don't feel as bad about the legibility of my handwriting after seeing some of these early examples.

[@davidclark573]

The world of antiquity doesn't seem to get anything right any more.

[@boscorner]

​@davidclark573 care to elaborate ? Also what does that have to do with the comment we are replying to?

[@yesfredfredburger8008]

@@davidclark573 what do you mean?

[@hedgehog3180]

@@davidclark573 I mean it's kinda difficult to get things right when you've been dead for millenia.

[@oderalon]

Have a look at Demotic :)

[@rogerbogh3884]

Amongst many great videos offered by you, this might be your best. Great topic, and it looks like you had fun

[@gregrefon]

Thank you. Very comprehesive and also well writen.

[@floepiejane]

Subscribed. I found it fascinating. Thank you. Cheers ✌🏽🌻

[@Meine.Postma]

I was the obnoxious commenter on your "Big News" video... Well prof, do not panic but I'm going to give you a compliment! Excellent video and I learned things. Way to go to promote your course. Most things I saw of you were debunking vids in which you (rightly) are a little elitist. But when you stick to teaching: Compliments! Please don't stop debunking BTW... Peace? O yeah, time for new spectacles? I've also appended my comment on your "Big News" video to recommend your new course/lecture

[@cattymajiv]

He has several different pairs of glasses, and he seems to wear them about equally. I wear which ever 1s of mine are the most comfortable, unless another pair are nearer to hand. My nicer ones hardly get worn. I save them for going out, and my best ones are for special occasions only. The ones I'm wearing now have lenses that are 40 years old and frames I got from Goodwill. They've been repaired twice, but they are the most comfortable. I think these 1s of his are a liitle odd too, but it's the last thing I would comment on.

[@Jonnygurudesigns]

We can always depend on straight talk and the "breakdown" from our friend the Doctor. This channel has stoked imaginations and passions for history that universities wish they could create through their courses... I find it interesting that other KZbin channels that are absolutely respectable and knowledgeable always give a nod and a tip of the hat to Dr. Miano and what he's doing here.. there is no better place to be than here 😉

[@frankdobs]

Others make history boring by nerding it up too much

[@3PercentNeanderthal]

Interesting video, I enjoyed it. Thanks for the content. Liked and now subscribed.

[@tkc1129]

Great video. Hopefully we keep finding more early examples.

[@杨洋-e8i]

Hello Professor, thank you very much for your fair and objective evaluation of one of the testimonies of human civilization - words. Liangzhu people have begun to use written records to preserve social development and cognition. At present, the tangible objects that can be verified exist in the world, such as ancient jade texts engraved on jade.

[@terrywallace5181]

Excellent program! Informative and interesting.

[@CoolClearWaterNM]

Great video! Who invented writing? I'd have to go with dozens and possibly hundreds around the world. Who invented it first? That changes with every new discovery. 'That we know of' will always be the best answer. It is a true pleasure to listen to someone who knows that we do not know everything. Side note: I am looking forward to your lecture series. As with Physics lectures from Lewin, Constitution from Hillsdale College, etc. I will wait until the great grand kids are here so that we can dive in as a family.

[@mnomadvfx]

"'That we know of' will always be the best answer" Very true. For all we know the neanderthals recorded information on clay or wood that has long since degraded to nothing, it's incredibly unlikely that any of it would have survived till now.

[@TerribleTom113]

Hillsdale College? Isn't that a mid pushing far Right, Christian propaganda mill peddling alt history regarding the ideological and religious foundations of the U.S.?

[@rdawson808]

This is fascinating! Thanks for making your videos.

[@s.k.3891]

Prof. Gimbutas (I know, I know !) has published extensively about European writing and proto writing in "the language of the goddess".

[@surjagain]

Very interesting! Thank you for the video 🙏🏼

[@antiqqque]

that's a nice lookin' shirt and tie combo! love your channel Dr. Miano

[@Akkesama]

Really enjoy your videos!

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Thank you!

[@moonflower9403]

Love 🥰your knowledge. I find it very interesting to listen to

[@insanitarium2]

Great video. Thank you

[@mrgmurphy2000]

Good video... Very well researched! Thx

[@esioanniannaho5939]

Brilliant Video. One story that needs a bit of digging is about the library of Alexandria. The brilliant film r Movie 'Agora' depicts that and the Intellect Hypathia. It was burnt down by early Christian Fanatics. However some books were rescued and saved. Some manuscripts were turned into Palimpsest. They had a particular thirst for manuscripts from the libraries of the Far East. I would really love one on this topic and on early knowledge or internet of ancient times. Many 🙏 for the enlightenment 😊

[@aapex1]

Very informative as always.

[@stephentoons]

You make an interesting topic even more interesting :)

[@crispincain5373]

Thank you David

[@humbaba55]

Dr. Miano, have you done a video on the Dispilio tablet yet? I'd be interested in your take on it. Thank you for all your great videos.

[@Astras-Stargate]

Great video, thanks

[@anasevi9456]

excellent video, and perfectly outlines how writing as we know it; evolved from a supremely advanced tally system.

[@floepiejane]

Consider this, when you tell me something, you give me an account of it. Cheers ✌🏽🌻

[@pretentioussystem]

Many thanks!

[@ecta9604]

Thank you for this video Professor Miano! This is my favorite one yet, and that’s saying something. I have a couple of questions if you have time. 1. Why is it difficult to accept writing developing without being accompanied by things like states? I’ve heard that there used to be a concept called the “Neolithic Package”, with the idea being that things like monumental architecture, large settlements, strict hierarchies, animal and plant domestication etc. all tended to appear at the same time, but in recent scholarship this has been effectively challenged and examples of each of these things have been found to have developed independently of the others. Why hasn’t writing also been freed from this package? 2. I’ve grown to assume that when writing develops it isn’t forgotten, but I don’t know if this is a valid assumption. Might writing or proto-writing have developed multiple times in prehistory and been abandoned or forgotten, leaving no evidence behind?

[@WorldofAntiquity]

1. You can have writing without states, but it is difficult to achieve standardization without one. 2. Yes, but this would happen most probably to ones that do not receive widespread use.

[@ecta9604]

@@WorldofAntiquitythanks!

[@peterfmodel]

Excellent video.

[@rachmondhoward2125]

Interesting. Is the problem not with our definition of writing? Who defined symbols or signs must have sound value (phonetic) to be considered writing? People who have speech impediments use sign language (hand signs) to communicate, there are no phonetics involved. I think we should define writing as the use of pictures, signs and symbols to communicate meaning among people of a particular society. A triangular sign as a road marking or drawn on a piece of paper communicates meaning to those who have learned what the sign means, warning, yield and it elicit the appropriate behaviour.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

I'm not sure how it is a problem. No doubt there are people who would like to redefine the word "planet" so that it includes Pluto, but why?

[@AYAmusic.]

Love the new intro!

[@flyingeagle3898]

Thanks for this terrific, thorough, and fariminded summary of evidence for writing. I have occasionally challenged some conventional wisdom in your videos comments on this topic, but I think you did a fantastic job here. It is first absolutely true that the oldest writing we somewhat understand and therefore create a chain of memory and evidence to is the ~5000 year old(3000 BCE) examples from Egypt and Mesopotamia. The possible exception is China but my knowledge there is limited with your video here giving examples I was unaware of, and it seems the earliest possible examples of writing in China are not well understood even by professionals partly due to the limited number of surviving examples. For pre ~3000 BCE writing I personally find the examples in the Balkans by far the most compelling because they provide relatively strong evidence of a sophisticated communciation system(whether full writing or "proto-writing") prior to the systems with direct links to modern writing systems or known history . Given that it appears that writing arose independently in multiple places on the globe( at least the middle east, china, and central america, with possibly India, Egypt and others are independent as well) I would not find it at all surprising, In fact, I find it probable that it arose at other places and times before 5000 years ago, but many of those communication systems failed to survive to the present day, and if there was a state, or collection of city-states in the Balkans with a writing system 6-8,000 years ago, but the writing was mostly perishable and its memory was all lost, the evidence for that might look quite similar to what we have actually found in the region. I wonder what other parts of the world might yet be hiding.

[@revylokesh1783]

Memories of back ehen I was a student of sumerology. While the knowledge is all but lost now (me not having pursued a career in academia) I remember learning Sumerian by translating Gudea's votive inscriptions from Lagash.

[@TraitorVek]

Very Fascinating . I Love this.

[@Daniel-ob2ml]

In the writings of Shumer, there is one passage in which a king boast of being able to read the writings from before the flood.

[@patrycjakonieczna]

As it has been presented in film, the critical point is to determine where and when pictograms started to act as individual sounds. We could not say that some pictograms were not any form of simplified writing. Of course, they might be if one picture represented a single syllable not even an individual letter. Beside of these, I agree with conclusions that language must have a structure, each graphic sing corresponds to individilual letter, and there is a specific way of putting letters in a rows.

[@scottzema3103]

(YIKES! On certain sites I'm stimulated to write a lot apparently, thanks for your videos!) ....But continuing with the Chinese language discussion, the Chinese writing system since its inception has historically developed as primarily an ideographic system which is used throughout the Far East regardless of the country or culture or language. There are many connoisseurs of Chinese calligraphy in Japan or Korea, for instance, who don't understand a word of Chinese yet who understand the Chinese written language perfectly. As another example, you can have a Korean, a Chinese, and a Japanese together in one room who do not understand at all each another's language, but who can yet communicate very effectively using the universal written language of Chinese characters (up to a point). Even within China itself there are educated Chinese who can be mutually unintelligible with one another when speaking, yet who can read the same newspapers as both are literate with the same writing system. I myself was educated as a scholar of Japanese art, one benefit of which I can read Chinese although I understand only a few spoken words of Mandarin. So you can have a written language completely divorced from a spoken language. Also, when I think about symbols considered as tools for communication with aliens in our age I think about the symbols on the plaque on the Voyager spacecraft. I see symbolism carefully considered for communication with an alien species. I see scientific symbolism divorced of language such as mathematics. And what about handicapped people who are hard of hearing, yet who if profoundly deaf from birth who may have problems with understanding spoken language? They can certainly learn to write and read. Perhaps the Paleolithic hunters mouthed out the words when counting the dots next to the paintings on the walls of the caves, a name for each dot representing seasons or the months of gestation of the animals or whatever they intended to convey. I personally think that the pillar top you showed from Gobekli Tepe shows households (and houses) of prominent families in the settlement, each with its own animal totem and each with its forever unknowable spoken name. The impulse to write seems only a part of a generally human program of using symbols for purposes of communication. In my opinion the paintings of the cave animals you showed are part of this general human impulse, as are arguably all arts, which is at base the impulse to communicate. SZ BA MA Seattle

[@ceder4696]

5:03 the figurine on the left ball looks like the figurine of the glass translucent greek sculpture with colored glass that changes when you light it from different angles. Maybe the mesopotamians had streets lights that where lid by fireflies at night or decorative lamps or clothing that used the insect as a coating?

[@MossyMozart]

In 2020, "NOVA" (on PBS in the USA) did a 2-parter called "A to Z". The 1st episode was "The First Alphabet", which also explored this topic. They traced how letter forms evolved from pictographs and spread. Episode 2, "How Writing Changed the World", traced the development from parchment to papyrus to paper. Very interesting!

[@Farm_Emo]

The "one culture that was copied," seems like such a pinpoint hypothisis that I don't know how one would prove it. Seems closer to Tartaria thinking than scholarly. We already know languages themselves don't seem to share one common ancestor. Many do but not all language familys are connected to another. So it would seem very reasonable that those language families would also evolve writing separately from one another.

[@InternetDarkLord]

Also, how did writing get to the Americas so early?

[@PlatinumAltaria]

Writing has absolutely no connection to language families.

[@Desertphile]

Thank you.

[@johnnysmall]

Nice new intro graphic!

[@TheLionFarm]

I enjoy your works

[@ladyflimflam]

So the interesting thing about the cave art that was shown is that marks around many of the animals have been correlated to the length of time between rut and drop in these animals. So, keeping track of gestation length.

[@cattymajiv]

I haven't heard that, but it's a very interesting idea! Even though it hardly relates to writing, it could be a symbol system related to gestation. Certainly the people did have months, years, and seasons. And they would know that all small animals reproduce frequently, and that large mammals only drop their young about once a year, in spring. Would they really need to differentiate between a horse and a deer, a cow and a buffalo, a lion, a tiger, and a cheetah? I have an opinion, but I may be dead wrong. It's an interesting idea.

[@holdingpattern245]

@@cattymajiv Different animals would have different seasons for migrating, mating, hibernating, etc., which would be useful information for hunters. Written numbers could be related to writing, most writing systems started as systems of accounting. There are also abstract symbols found in cave drawings, some of which are forty thousand years old, but their significance is totally unknown.

[@hamm0155]

One direction to think about would be who developed writing in a way that stayed and was part of what transpired later and where we are today. When we ask “who invented x?” One meaning is where we got it from. Sumerians Egyptians and Chinese created systems that lived on and had descendants. If Balkan script is writing, presumably it did not have descendants.

[@cattymajiv]

Very well put! Thank you!

[@iviecarp]

This is a detail about the subtitles: at 7:38, Dr Miano says "we don't have that until the 2nd dynasty" but the subtitles say "3rd dynasty" which may be an issue if someone is not watching with audio on (and also makes me wonder if which of the two is wrong xD)

[@avrywilson577]

Enjoyable info! Also very shocked by 11:02 ... early south east China compared to ancient Egyptian. . Eg, bird on 'square'. wow!!

[@PlatinumAltaria]

To be clear, not all writing relates to speech sounds. Logographic writing systems convey morphemes (meaningful components of language), with no direct indication of sound; as opposed to something like an alphabet that marks the sounds. It would be more accurate to say that writing is a physical representation of language, just as speech is a vocal representation of language. It's important because all of the earliest examples of writing are logographic. Alphabets and syllabaries, which both encode actual speech sounds, were a later innovation. As far as I know no culture ever invented writing based on speech sounds initially, there was always an intermediate step of logographic writing or exposure to another literate culture. The main difference between logographies and pictograms or ideograms is that they bypass language and goes directly for meaning. This is what's called "proto-writing", the step between artistic drawing and formal writing. Edit: Oh and you didn't mention Rongorongo, which is from Polynesia. This and the origin in Mesoamerica makes a single origin point highly implausible.

[@cattymajiv]

Yes. You made so many very relevant points. Alphabets were indeed a much later development in writing. And Rongorongo was also definately important enough that he should have mentioned it! Nevermind the fact that many people are going to be frustrated by his ommision of discussion of Egyptian Hieroglyphs. But he did cover the Chinese writing very well. Most people merely gloss over it, and the Indus scripts, which he also covered fairly well. For that matter, he did not cover the fundamental difference between a language and a script, which should always be the starting point of any discussion on writing systems. I feel this video was far too short to really cover the basics at all. What he did cover was important, but he tried to make it short, and some subjects just can't be covered that briefly. So much more could have been said without adding too much more time to it. I'm not able to make this kind of video at all, but I would prefer it to be at least double the length, to include all of the most relevant info.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

But language itself is a form of communication that is in most instances conveyed by speech. I realize there are some languages conveyed by gesture, but in all of the cultures discussed here, that is not the case.

[@InternetDarkLord]

@@WorldofAntiquity But even if, for the sake of argument, one script here was for gestures instead of spoken words, how does that change the question, where did writing begin? How could we even tell the difference today?

[@kifer2594]

@@WorldofAntiquitycould you talk about the knowledge of complex geometry and astronomy in ancient Egypt? Or is there already a video about it?

[@PaulSpades]

@@WorldofAntiquity That's not the point. Written language encodes data, the data may be conceptual and not meant to be spoken. We have many languages of this sort from programming languages to document languages and bit encoding rulesets to mathematical notation and logic notation to music notation. Speech is inefficient or completely inadequate to represent most types of modern data encoding, there's no reason ancient people wouldn't have thought the same. Some of these "proto-languages" seem to encode tabular data, which is a very efficient form of data transmission (or communication, if you prefer), mouth noises will only fail to convey the positional nature of the data. Also, written communication needs not a representation in a completely different medium like speech or gestures. It functions on its own, as do the others. You learn to speak a language without fist knowing how to write, you can also learn how to write a language without speaking at all. This should be obvious to somebody with your linguistic experience.

[@johnkelly3886]

Proto-writing and writing were used to record economic transaction and produce statements of account. As such writing is the first step in the invention of money.

[@jamesolivier5224]

Traffic stuff. Thanks for your efforts.

[@R0guemetal]

A comment for the algorithm. Thank you for your efforts 💜

[@AlbertaGeek]

Good idea!

[@comment8767]

Thank you for not having a guitar in the background.

[@ivokolarik8290]

Good video

[@SimonCurrey]

Thank you. Most interesting. I'm involved in medical documentation. We have created a new system of capturing medical thinking to automate writing of documents. I have become fascinated how we externalise thinking and apply knowledge. Again my thanks. Drop me a note if you want to know more.

[@TT3TT3]

Thanks!🎉

[@AtomicCrucifier]

I would love to hear ur thoughts about connection between Vinča script and linear A and B. Thanks @World of Antiquity

[@David1Eskin]

What about the Quipu system of South America, while not graphical and therefore not writing, if those who assert that quipus recorded more than mere tallies and counts are correct, it represents a fascinating sibling to writing as a means of recording information and communication. Are there any examples of other similar siblings to writing from elsewhere in the world?

[@holdingpattern245]

It would be writing since it is a linear sequence of physical symbols. If the idea is correct, that is; but personally I have been convinced by the arguments of people opposed to it.

[@mahmoudrajabinejad2070]

You did not mention Jiroft culture! Their writing system goes back at least 2500 (with minimum excavation), and it seems that it influenced the linear elamite writing system.

[@Paul-ki8dg]

I like the subject. the invention of writing tools and materials for it along with forgery. Conte, employed by Napoleon Bonaparte invented the pencil. The Conte Crayon is still widely produced as solid in art supply stores....

[@ghostlyninja125]

I think that complex and abstract social constructs probably always come from some form of tradition that slowly builds and changes over time. This would include writing among various other things

[@vociferous9271]

How would an organized state be corroborating evidence for literacy? 16:20 - so many problems with this statement... making assumptions to start. what is a state? queue David Graeber from 'dawn of everything' on this question, would love to get your thoughts on that book BTW. Love your work!

[@monitor-mindtheover-void6712]

I'm pretty sure that one Uncle who decides my future every annual examination result day is the one who invented writing. He studied in Australia, France, Canada and America "simultaneously". He's also an astrologer btw, can't forget that.

[@Incorruptus1]

I see cave arts and petroglyphs, even tribal tattoos as a written form of communication as well. Although we must recognise most forms of life have forms of communication. ❤ Thanks Dr. M.!

[@loke6664]

In the Americas, it is possible that the Mayan script is close to the Zapotec as well. The earliest we found and clearly dated so far seems to be from San Bartolo and is dated somewhere between 300 and 400 BCE but the excavation of pre classic Maya cities is a bit spotty at best. For instance have only a tiny fraction of El Mirador been excavated and I think the oldest writing I heard of from there is dated around 100 BCE but the city seems to have been settled around 700 BCE and it was a massive city, maybe the largest in the new world at the time and with a tiny bit mostly from later periods have seen any archaeology yet, I assume there are at least somewhat older writing there too (I can of course be wrong). I find it pretty hard to manage a massive city with 200 000 people without any administration so it is certainly a place worth looking into at least. But it is still hard to say who first invented writing. I think Ur probably have the best claim with the evidence we have at the moment followed by Egypt a couple of years later but since we are talking about less then 100 years of the earliest in both places (even if the early Egyptian seems more primitive) a single find could switch that up. We also need to dig more in the Balkans and specifically China, the evidence for either is inconclusive. We only know that writing seems to have showed up in the old world around 5000 years ago and maybe 3000 years in the new from the evidence we have so far. One never know if the evidence already have been found and is lying around some museum with the wrong date on them or not even investigated, like those tiny clay figurines Claus Schmidt found and traced to Göbekli Tepe in the early 90s. I don't think writing was only invented once though. We find different proto scrips and symbols in use in too many places too far from each other for that to be the case. Sure, I could buy that the Harappan script could be inspired by Cuneiform since we have signs of trade between the western Harappan cities in Afghanistan at early times, they were not that far away and seems to at least had some kind of goods exchange so it is possible they were inspired by the Summerian seals on goods. I don't think the same thing is true for China or Mezzo America though, in China we see signs of proto language way before we see signs of contact or trade and we also see the signs slowly evolve which speak for them inventing them as a slow process. As for the Zapotecs, we have zero evidence of them trading with anyone with writing and the American symbols differs significantly from any others which speak against that. Some written languages were clearly inspired by others though, like the Scandinavian runes for instance (oldest known is from Norway dated to between 0-200 CE). Current theory is that someone was either trading or a mercanary in Roman service and realized the use of writing but wanted a simpler system that was easy to carve on stone, wood and antlers (that is was simpler can both be proven about the relatively high literacy in Scandinavia and the fact that it took me like 2 days to learn them, they were still common among Swedish peasants up to WW1 who couldn't write in Latin letters). In any case, it is a mystery and part of the problem is that this period of time have gotten less focus then the slightly later periods which affects funding and where archaeologists dig. Also, many regions have either been war torn or not gotten as much archaeology done which further makes finding the evidence harder. Hopefully new evidence will pop up in the future.

[@InternetDarkLord]

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to cultural exchanges between the Old and New Worlds thousands of years ago is pathogens. Why didn't more germs swap between the two hemispheres? The Vikings were in a remote area, but extensive trade should have spread diseases.

[@colinchampollion4420]

The Maya and Olmecas invented writing because of their old and superior civilization 😂🎉😂🎉

[@HumanBeanbag]

That little globe is pretty cool!

[@fernbedek6302]

Thogg in 127 000 BCE invented writing, but no one else in her community was interested in learning.

[@AncientPuzzles]

I wouldn't be surprised if some Neolithic cultures had writting, but having clear evidence is obviously important. Great vid👏🏻

[@GenghisVern]

If tin could travel a thousand miles by caravan, I'm sure information (like proto-writing) would spread along with it.

[@arthurballs9632]

I've regularly received deliveries from China for nearly two decades. Haven't picked up on their language though.

[@GenghisVern]

@@arthurballs9632 tech flows the other way, even today-- i'm sure the afghan tin miners of 3000bc had a reason for digging

[@KindlingEffect]

I once read in a history book that, travelling merchants had a huge role in simplifying the complex symbols into "short-hand" alphabets that could easily be made in a few brush strokes by anyone (no artistic skills required), since they had to do a lot of writing and they needed a lazier/simpler/quicker way to record information.

[@GenghisVern]

@@KindlingEffect sure. and the tallies on clay tablets for instance, if you consider mathematics a language.

[@barbarossarotbart]

Most of the writing systems used nowadays were developed out of the Phoenician writing system. This writing system was developed out of a writing system used by Hebrew workers in Egypt who adapted the Egyptian writing system for their own language and turned it into an alphabet. Most of the other ancient writing systems (cueniform, Minoan hieroglyphs, Harapan script etc.) vanished, but the Egyptian hieroglyphs are in a way still in use today.

[@karlkarlos3545]

The influence of Phoenician is true for alphabetic writing but not for syllables or logo phonetic systems.

[@barbarossarotbart]

@@karlkarlos3545 I said that most of the writing systems used today(!!!) were developed out of the Phoenician writing system. You can say that the only writing systems which are not based on the Phoenician writing system and are still in use today were either developed in America or in East Asia. There had been writing system developed in Europe, Asia or Africa not based on the Phoenician writing system but they fell out of use and had been replaced by writing systems which had been developed out of the Phoenician writing system.

[@karlkarlos3545]

@@barbarossarotbartVarious writing systems have existed throughout history, extending beyond alphabets to include Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and those used by Mesoamerican civilizations. The recent ascendancy of the alphabet can be attributed to its compatibility with movable type printing and the digital age.

[@barbarossarotbart]

@@karlkarlos3545 I am not talking about the writing systems of the past but about the writing systems which are still in use today. Most of these are based on the Phoenician writing system. The writing systems you mention are from the only regions which the writing systems were not influenced by the Phoenician writing system. Alphabetic writing systems (including abjads and even syllabaries) are no recent development. They have existed for centuries and became popular. this has nothing to do with printing or computers. The trend towards alphabetic writing system began centuries before the invention of the printing press.

[@karlkarlos3545]

@@barbarossarotbart You're acting like I went against you. I was just trying to add some context and nuance. No need to freak out just because someone doesn't give you a pat on the back for stating something that's common knowledge and easily found on Wikipedia. Also are you seriously claiming Asian writing systems are not widely used today? That's the definition of Eurocentrism.

[@jonr6680]

6:14 3150 BCE, that's a looong time ago. Would be interested to put that in context of when these cultures developed spoken language. History at this range seems like space travel, very hard to really grasp what it was truly like, such a long way (in time).

[@Meine.Postma]

For me the tortoise shells indicate a decade in the man's life. Also the Indus script is real writing. But I know nothing. From your video I still go for Sumerian being the first writing but Vinca makes me doubting

[@flyingeagle3898]

The Sumerian/ Egypt cluster or possibly the oldest Chinese examples are the earliest ones with a clear link to modern writing systems and therefore the earliest connections we have to the link of memory and history writing creates. However, it seems highly possible that the examples in the Balkans and a couple other examples were indeed earlier full-writing systems that failed to create that link with us in the modern day, and unfortunately without a large number of examples deciphering it will be near impossible, and perishable materials+ time on even the not -so perishable one make large numbers of examples unlikely to be found

[@Kinetic-Energy117]

Hey Doc! Thanks for the work I have to say, the video doesn't answer the title question. Its speculative implying more than anything in my opinion It's informative indeed, however, you have only talked about who didn't create writing and the few suspects, but not the actual accomplice! I request next video title "the first writers were _______" then you show us who they were, this was inconclusive, just like the 'who built the pyramids' video.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Keep in mind that this is in my "ancient mysteries" series, so alas, there will not be a solid answer.

[@Kinetic-Energy117]

😃

[@Ben-kv7wr]

I always thought of the development of writing as an evolutionary arms race between bureaucrats and tax evaders but these early possible examples you provided are making me rethink that!

[@jasonxoc]

What about the canaanites? I saw a video that they have an alphabet and is one of the earliest sentences written down with an alphabet. Specifically on a comb. The sentiment of the writing on the comb is “May this thing brush the lies from my hair and beard” or some such thing.

[@aaronmontgomery1304]

Just to make a point (or a couple/few)... Even in modern times, a lot of record keeping is done in types of notation that would likely not be recognized as parts of a full writing system without context that we, in our moment in time, take for granted or have due to working in a given field. Also, there are languages, still to this day, that, effectively, do not have numbers (0,1, few and many) and some other concepts, because their culture just doesn't have the concept. Also, there are still languages that don't have recursion, which for a long time was thought to be necessary for "speech" to truly be a language. Either of these would make it very difficult to establish if there was a true full writing system, without those pieces of information. All this in addition to wood, cloth, parchment (skins) and cloth/woven "paper" not surviving well, which were surely used. I can't believe "cave" people had ink/dye/paint but no one thought to use it when the first "writting" (of any kind) started.

[@daveshrum1749]

I just wanted to thank you for your videos. Every time I see one of those ancient alien type videos it makes my blood pressure rise and I just see red lol. I have to watch one of your videos as an antidote to stupidity. 😁

[@jvh22a]

Off this topic. But would your classes be able to be downloaded? I want to join but cant be at the computer for the live sessions

[@WorldofAntiquity]

In the future, yes.

[@jvh22a]

@@WorldofAntiquity great, I'll buy that course so I don't take up space on the coming up lessons. Thank you

[@jvh22a]

@@WorldofAntiquity or streamed at a later date would be good to. Thanks