Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The first alphabetic writing was developed by workers in the Sinai Peninsula to write Semitic languages c. 2000 BC. This script worked by giving Egyptian hieratic letters Semitic sound values. The Geʽez script native to Ethiopia and Eritrea descends from the Ancient South Arabian script, which had initially been used to write early Geʽez ...
The following is a list of the world's oldest surviving physical documents. Each entry is the most ancient of each language or civilization. For example, the Narmer Palette may be the most ancient from Egypt, but there are many other surviving written documents from Egypt later than the Narmer Palette but still more ancient than the Missal of Silos.
The earliest writing systems of Europe arise in the Iron ... Another example is the system of pictographs invented by Uyaquk before the development of the Yugtun ...
This is a list of languages arranged by age of the oldest existing text recording a complete sentence in the language. It does not include undeciphered writing systems, though there are various claims without wide acceptance, which, if substantiated, would push backward the first attestation of certain languages.
Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system [5] [6] and was originally developed to write the Sumerian language of southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Over the course of its history, cuneiform was adapted to write a number of languages in addition to Sumerian.
More complete writing systems were preceded by proto-writing. Early examples are the Jiahu symbols (c. 6600 BCE), Vinča signs (c. 5300 BCE), early Indus script (c. 3500 BCE) and Nsibidi script (c. before 500 CE). There is disagreement concerning exactly when prehistory becomes history, and when proto-writing became "true writing". [2]
Ancient literature comprises religious and scientific documents, tales, poetry and plays, royal edicts and declarations, and other forms of writing that were recorded on a variety of media, including stone, clay tablets, papyri, palm leaves, and metal.
Writing in ancient Sumer was a time-consuming activity known to few. For this reason, writing was mainly used to keep necessary economic records. Literacy in Uruk was also likely limited at the time. [1] A clay tablet detailing a trade transaction contains one of the first examples of rebus writing. [2] It reads "28,086 [a] measures barley 37 ...