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Writing systems typically satisfy three criteria. Firstly, the writing must have some purpose or meaning to it, and a point must be communicated by the text. Secondly, writing systems make use of specific symbols which may be recorded on some writing medium. Thirdly, the symbols used in writing generally correspond to elements of spoken ...
The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared c. 5,200 years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing having spread to almost all cultures by the 19th century.
A 2003 report in Antiquity interpreted them "not as writing itself, but as features of a lengthy period of sign-use which led eventually to a fully-fledged system of writing". [2] The earliest known body of writing in the oracle bone script dates much later to the reign of the late Shang dynasty king Wu Ding, which started in about c. 1250 BC ...
A link exists between 6,000-year-old engravings on cylindrical seals used on clay tablets and cuneiform, the world’s oldest writing system, according to new research.
For broader coverage of this topic, see Writing. A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a script, as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing was invented during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each writing system invented without prior knowledge of writing gradually evolved from a system of proto-writing that ...
The writing system used is very close to the Maya script, using affixal glyphs and Long Count dates, but is read only in one column at a time as is the Zapotec script. It has been suggested that this Isthmian or Epi-Olmec script is the direct predecessor of the Maya script, thus giving the Maya script a non-Maya origin.
[not verified in body] The use of hieroglyphic writing arose from proto-literate symbol systems in the Early Bronze Age c. the 33rd century BC , [6] with the first decipherable sentence written in the Egyptian language dating to the 28th century BC (Second Dynasty).
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]