2. The origin of writing

Signs and symbols, notches carved in sticks, counting tablets and clay markings which were used for accounting purposes were precursors for the new written form of communication. Writing first took on an actual form with the advanced culture of the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia. Markings in cuneiform script were derived from pictograms. At the same time, this script was slowly phoneticized so that signs became identified with sounds as opposed to pictures and their ability to convey meaning increased. As a result, the number of signs decreased. Thus 1200 signs were initially used by the Sumerians and only around 500 remained with their successors, the Babylonians, whereby the Babylonian-Assyrian cuneiform system still had no pure syllables or phonetic spelling. The first written records from the 3rd Century BC are mainly associated with administration and economics. Religious, literary-mythological or historical content, which relied on a long oral tradition, were not recorded in written form until much later. The collection of various texts on topics such as poetry, religion, science and laws finally led to the existence of libraries – the meeting places for writing and culture.
The propagation of cuneiform writing over the whole of Mesopotamia, parts of Persia and Anatolia and its circulation as the language of diplomacy of the entire Middle East declined rapidly and nearly entirely disappeared when Mesopotamia lost its independence in the 6th Century and the phonetic alphabet came into existence.
In Egypt, the first written records are from the 3rd Century BC. The names of kings are recorded on clay tablets in a predominantly pictorial language. It appears that hieroglyphics evolved, in contrast to cuneiform, not due to economic requirements but as a result of an awareness of history. Unlike the Mesopotamian script for official purposes, the precursors of which were abacuses and markings, this form of writing appears to concern a traditional and sacral script which is used much more by story tellers than for counting. The death cult of the Egyptians plays a significant role here, since most written records have been preserved in tombs, mainly of the kings.

The fact that an administrative mechanism of the magnitude of Egypt at that time could not function without the aid of a tool such as writing proves that the Egyptian script also developed, not from historical necessity, but also due to administrative requirements. The lack of written records documenting these leaves us to assume that it was mainly papyrus which was used in every day life and in administration - a material which is highly perishable over time.
As with cuneiform writing, it is not known whether the hieroglyphics evolved slowly from pictures or a pictorial script, or whether they are an invention in the true sense of the word, that is a unique creation of signs embodying words and sounds. It is certain that the Egyptian script was already more highly phoneticized than cuneiform writing. As a result, the Frenchman Francois Champollion succeeded in deciphering the hieroglyphics at the beginning of the 19th Century. You will see here a copy of the Rosetta Stone which he used for this deciphering. The original stone can be seen in the British Museum in London. This shows the text of a law from the 2nd Century in Egyptian, Demotic and Greek languages. Demotic refers to a cursive script which replaced the normal hieratic script of the Egyptians as of 700 BC. Greek became the language of administration when Egypt was under Greek rule. While hieroglyphics were then only used as a priestly argot, demotic script continued to be used. By comparing the 3 languages, the Frenchman finally deciphered the previously unreadable hieroglyphics. With the onset of Christianity in the 3rd Century AD, hieroglyphics were finally pushed aside by the Coptic alphabet. This consisted of 24 Greek letters.
A new profession, that of the scribe, came about in order to uphold the extensive administrative machinery and the bureaucracy associated with it.
The number of scribes was very low and only made up a few percent of the population in Ancient Egypt. Today it would be hard to imagine only public employees and clerks being able to write! Those permitted to train as a scribe mainly included the sons of top administrators and the aristocracy, later on also clerks of a lower rank, merchants and traders. Peasants were in principle not excluded from this but could not afford the high cost of training.

Training was basically open to all who could afford it - even women. And there were a small number of female scribes who, unlike their male colleagues, however, were not particularly highly respected. The job of scribe was therefore a primarily male-dominated area despite the Mesopotamian and Egyptian goddesses of writing, Nisaba and Seschat.
As well as having a basic knowledge of literature, grammar, arithmetic, geometry and the law, a scribe also needed to learn primarily about order and discipline. The scribes were beaten into submission using a cane. The prospective scribes were also rewarded for their hard training with a privileged professional and social position associated with the social elite in the form of a clerk, temple employee or independent scribe. The prospect of not having to do physical work and having hardly any superior authority was also alluring.
A scribe may write hymns for various gods upon the request of a ruler or, as a public employee, be responsible for distributing food or collecting taxes from peasants. The image of the scribe as a tax collector demonstrates the negative aspects of the written form, that is to say the ability to exercise and glorify power through this medium. In its early stages, the written form did not therefore really enhance culture but rather contributed to purely technical advances and thus to the enslavement and exploitation of people associated with it.
It is therefore not surprising that writing was soon simplified. An alphabetic script accessible to the masses evolved on the fringes of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian advanced cultures which finally broke away from the education and power monopoly.

The eastern Mediterranean coast around the area occupied by Israel, Libya and Syria today was already an area of bustling trade by the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. Thanks to its favourable location, it became the main trans-shipment centre for the major economic powers. The most varied ethnic and cultural influences of the many merchants and small traders prompted the simplification of writing. How? The small merchants could not afford to commission a scribe and therefore had to be their own accountants.
Thus, following the Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Mesopotamian cuneiform writing, various alphabetic scripts developed from which the Phoenician script evolved in approximately 1100 BC. At first only in Phoenicia, now Lebanon, it penetrated all other scripts over the entire eastern Mediterranean area and was taken over by the Israelites in Palestine and by the Aramaeans in Syria. The Hebrew, Aramaean and Arabic scripts all developed from this at a later date.

The Phonencian script, which evolved out of social economic necessity, can rightly be named the mother of all alphabets. Inspired by the bustling trading relations, it was also adopted by the Greeks and further developed. The Greeks introduced vowels, which enabled the language to be recorded according to real sounds for the first time. The Greek alphabet spread all over the area during the reign of Alexander the Great. The Cyrillic script, which is now only used in the Slavonic languages, is based on the Greek alphabet. Through the various Greek colonies in France, Spain and Italy, the alphabet was also accepted in these countries – although the Etruscans were probably responsible for this in Italy.

The Latin alphabet was propagated world wide with the rise of Rome as a global power, and the associated colonisation. The path forward was smoothed out by the democratisation of culture.
In spite of this, Greek and Roman cultures remained extensively oral cultures – you only have to think of Homer, who was blind and whose works were handed down orally and not written down until later.
In the Early and High Middle Ages, the use of writing declined and was limited to a large extent to the monasteries, in which literate monks mainly copied Christian texts from the ancient world. For a long time, writing remained the privilege of a social minority consisting of state and religious dignitaries, traders and merchants, craftsmen and the city-dwelling upper-class. This only changed with the invention of printing by Johannes Gutenberg from Mainz around 1450 and the mass production of paper which followed.

Take a look here at a page of the famous Gutenberg Bible, - the first printed work by Johannes Gutenberg.