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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.
Cuneiform [note 1] is a logo-syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. [3] The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. [4] Cuneiform scripts are marked by and named for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions (Latin: cuneus) which form their ...
In most cases, some form of the language had already been spoken (and even written) considerably earlier than the dates of the earliest extant samples provided here. A written record may encode a stage of a language corresponding to an earlier time, either as a result of oral tradition , or because the earliest source is a copy of an older ...
Around the 4th millennium BC, the complexity of trade and administration outgrew the power of memory, and writing became a more dependable method of recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form. [49] The invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the emergence of civilisations and the beginning of the ...
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 appeared very early in the Middle Uruk period, and then developed further in the Late Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods. [126] The first clay tablets inscribed with a reed stylus are found in Uruk IV (nearly 2000 tablets were found in the Eanna quarter) and some are found also in Susa II, consisting solely of numeric signs.
The earliest forms of writing were etched on stone slabs, transitioning to palm leaves and papyrus in ancient times. Parchment and paper later emerged as important substrates for bookmaking, introducing greater durability and accessibility. Across regions like China, the Middle East, Europe, and South Asia, diverse methods of book production ...