The Invention of Writing

Long before there were any letters, people kept it all in mind, Every story, every number, passed by voice, one mouth to the next in line, A trader had to trust his memory to know what he had sold, Until someone pressed a mark in clay that a memory could hold.

Signs on clay, and signs on stone, The first words the world had ever known, A line, a wedge, a picture made plain, Turned a thought into something that would remain.

In a land between two rivers, people kept small clay tokens near, One for every sheep, one for every jar, counted with care, Slowly those small shapes turned to signs, pressed by a reed into wet clay, Wedge-shaped marks in careful rows, the world calls cuneiform today.

Far along the river Nile, at nearly the same time, Pictures carved on temple walls turned into a written line, Hieroglyphs, small painted signs, a bird, a reed, an eye, Writing was born again, in China, and lands across the sea.

Signs on clay, and signs on stone, The first words the world had ever known, A line, a wedge, a picture made plain, Turned a thought into something that would remain.

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Key Concepts: Around 3200 BCE, people in ancient Sumer (modern-day Iraq) pressed wedge-shaped signs into wet clay tablets with a reed stylus, a system now called cuneiform | Writing began as a practical tool for counting grain, animals, and trade, not first for stories | Egyptian hieroglyphs developed around the same time; writing was later invented independently again in China and in Mesoamerica

Key Words: writing, cuneiform, Sumer, clay, tablet, hieroglyphs, scribe