History of Writing

History Blog Post on the history of writing/invention of writing

The history of writing was incredibly important for the development of human civilization; writing allows humans to create businesses, communicate over long distances, record information, and share knowledge. Without writing, modern-day human life would not exist. Writing allows modern-day humans to have the life that humans nowadays currently have. Writing allows businesses to track and record payments. Writing allows businesses to pay each other digitally.

The History of writing does not have lots of primary sources that are easy to access. It also happened so long ago that writing was not as common or as developed; pieces of evidence have also been destroyed since then. However, I used two fairly solid, scholarly, and credible sources.

Writing was first developed in Mesopotamia, India, and Mesoamerica. Writing was first created to record business payments.

The history of writing begins with an early form of writing called Proto-Cuneiform in 3350 BCE- 3100 BCE in ancient Mesopotamia.  The first forms of writing were clay tablets of Cuneiform that mentioned business payments. The first official writing in the Mediterranean was possibly from Phocian, which spread to the Greeks. At the end of the Mediterranean Dark Age, there were more advanced forms of writing in 1200BCE: Linear B and Hittite Cuneiform! The main form of Phocian writing was developed/written between 1000BCE-100BCE. Phocian writing was the first literal form of writing, which quickly spread to the Greeks through the Phocian trade routes and their colonies. Phocian writing was the bedrock for the spread of writing throughout the Mediterranean.

Writing was an important invention that spread inequality significantly between people who could read and write, caused economic mobility for those who could write, and shrunk inequality between those who could read and write. People who could not read or write would be at the legal, social, economic, cultural, and military whims of those who could.

Bibliography:

Schmandt-Besserat, Denise. “The Evolution of Writing.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, edited by James D. Wright. Elsevier, 2014.

From Aleph to Alpha Project. “A Revolution in Writing: The Spread of the Alphabet.” Ancient History, no. 60 (2026).