Technology · c. 3400–3200 BCE
Writing is invented
Uruk, Sumer (southern Iraq)
In the temple district of Uruk, scribes began pressing signs into clay tablets around 3300 BCE to keep accounts of grain, animals and labour, a system that grew out of older clay accounting tokens. This proto-cuneiform developed into cuneiform, used for Sumerian, Akkadian and many other languages for some 3,000 years.
In Egypt, labels from tomb U-j at Abydos (c. 3400–3200 BCE) show the beginnings of hieroglyphs, usually counted as a separate invention.
Why it mattered
Writing let people store information beyond human memory, run large states and economies, and record laws, letters and literature; it marks the line between prehistory and history.
Elsewhere
Writing was invented independently at least twice more: in Shang China (oracle-bone inscriptions, c. 1250 BCE) and in Mesoamerica, where Maya inscriptions date from the 3rd century BCE and possible earlier Olmec writing is debated.
Related
- The world in 3000 BCE: The First Kings chapter
- The wheel and the plough previous moment · c. 3500 BCE
- Uruk, the first great city next moment · c. 3500–3100 BCE