How did writing develop?
Writing developed from simple accounting tokens in Mesopotamia around 3400 BCE. Clay tokens representing goods evolved into pictographic marks on clay tablets, which gradually became the abstract wedge-shaped cuneiform script. Writing was invented independently at least four times worldwide.
The development of writing was a gradual process, not a single moment of invention. In Mesopotamia, the story begins with small clay tokens — geometric shapes representing quantities of goods — used for accounting as early as 8000 BCE. As temple economies grew more complex, tokens were sealed inside clay envelopes, and eventually the shapes of the tokens were simply pressed into the outside of the envelope, creating the first written symbols.
By around 3400 BCE in the Sumerian city of Uruk, this system had evolved into marks pressed directly into flat clay tablets with a reed stylus. The earliest texts are purely administrative — lists of goods, inventories, receipts. Over the next several centuries, the pictographic symbols became increasingly abstract and stylized, eventually producing the characteristic wedge-shaped marks of cuneiform.
The crucial transition was from logographic to phonetic representation — using signs to represent sounds rather than things. This allowed writing to express any word in the language, including abstract concepts that couldn't easily be pictured. By around 2600 BCE, cuneiform could express the full range of Sumerian language, including literature, law, and personal correspondence.
Writing was invented independently at least four times: in Mesopotamia (c. 3400 BCE), Egypt (c. 3200 BCE), China (c. 1200 BCE), and Mesoamerica (c. 600 BCE). Each system took a different approach, but all followed a similar trajectory from practical record-keeping to full literary expression. The Phoenician alphabet (c. 1050 BCE) represented a further revolution — reducing writing to a small set of sound signs that anyone could learn relatively quickly.