Editing Writing (section)

=== Mesopotamia ===
While research into the development of writing during the [[Neolithic]] is ongoing, the current consensus is that it first evolved from economic necessity in the [[ancient Near East]]. Writing most likely began as a consequence of political expansion in ancient cultures, which needed reliable means for transmitting information, maintaining financial accounts, keeping historical records, and similar activities. Around the 4th millennium&nbsp;BC, the complexity of trade and administration outgrew the power of memory, and writing became a more dependable method of recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form.{{sfnp|Robinson|2003|p=36}}

The invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the emergence of civilizations and the beginning of the [[Bronze Age]] during the late 4th millennium&nbsp;BC. [[Cuneiform]] used to write the [[Sumerian language]] and [[Egyptian hieroglyphs]] are generally considered the earliest writing systems, both emerging out of ancestral proto-writing systems between 3500 and 2900&nbsp;BC,{{sfnp|Finegan|2019}} with earliest coherent texts from {{circa|2600&nbsp;BC}}. It is generally agreed that Sumerian writing was an independent invention; however, it is debated whether Egyptian writing was developed completely independently of Sumerian, or was a case of [[cultural diffusion]].

[[File:Accountancy clay envelope Louvre Sb1932.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|Globular envelope with a cluster of accountancy tokens, Uruk period, from [[Susa]]{{snd}}[[Louvre Museum]]]]
Archaeologist [[Denise Schmandt-Besserat]] determined the link between previously uncategorized clay "tokens", the oldest of which have been found in the Zagros region of Iran, and cuneiform, the first known writing. Around 8000&nbsp;BC, Mesopotamians began using clay tokens to count their agricultural and manufactured goods. Later they began placing these tokens inside large, hollow clay containers (bulla, or globular envelopes) which were then sealed. The quantity of tokens in each container came to be expressed by impressing, on the container's surface, one picture for each instance of the token inside. They next dispensed with the tokens, relying solely on symbols for the tokens, drawn on clay surfaces. To avoid making a picture for each instance of the same object (for example: 100 pictures of a hat to represent 100 hats), they counted the objects by using various small marks.{{sfnp|Woods|Emberling|Teeter|2010|p=15}}

The original [[Mesopotamian]] writing system emerged {{circa|3200&nbsp;BC}} from this method of keeping accounts. By the end of the 4th millennium&nbsp;BC,{{sfnp|Kramer|1981|pp=381–383}} the Mesopotamians were using a triangular-shaped stylus pressed into soft clay to record numbers. This system was gradually augmented with using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted by means of [[pictographs]]. Round and sharp styluses were gradually replaced for writing by wedge-shaped styluses (hence the term ''cuneiform''), at first only for [[logogram]]s, but by the 29th century&nbsp;BC also for phonetic elements. Around 2700&nbsp;BC, cuneiform began to represent syllables of spoken Sumerian. About that time, Mesopotamian cuneiform became a general purpose writing system for logograms, syllables, and numbers. This script was adapted to another Mesopotamian language, the East Semitic [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] ([[Old Assyrian period|Assyrian]] and [[Babylonia]]n) {{cx|2600&nbsp;BC}}, and then to others such as [[Elamite]], [[Hattian language|Hattian]], [[Hurrian language|Hurrian]] and [[Hittite language|Hittite]]. Scripts similar in appearance to this writing system include those for [[Ugaritic]] and [[Old Persian]]. With the adoption of [[Aramaic]] as the lingua franca of the [[Neo-Assyrian Empire]] (911–609&nbsp;BC), Old Aramaic was also adapted to Mesopotamian cuneiform. The latest cuneiform texts in Akkadian discovered thus far date from the 1st century&nbsp;AD.{{sfnp|Geller|1997}}