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When was the earliest known use of writing?
When was the earliest known use of writing?
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The earliest known use of writing is from around 3400–3100 BCE in ancient Mesopotamia with cuneiform script, used for recording transactions and administrative details.
The cuneiform script, created in Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq, ca. 3200 BC, was first. It is also the only writing system which can be traced to its earliest prehistoric origin. This antecedent of the cuneiform script was a system of counting and recording goods with clay tokens.
The earliest known writing systems are the Sumerian archaic cuneiform script and Egyptian hieroglyphs, which both evolved from proto-literate symbol systems between 3400 and 3200 BCE. The earliest coherent texts date back to around 2600 BCE.
The Sumerian civilization developed writing around 3400 BCE, and their earliest texts were mostly economic and administrative documents. By the third millennium BCE, Sumerian scribes were also copying down essays, hymns, poetry, and myths. Two of their oldest known literary works are The “Kesh Temple Hymn” and The “Instructions of Shuruppak”.