Paul Cooper at Literary Hub: One Sumerian epic poem called Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta gives the first known story about the invention of writing, by a king who has to send so many messages that his messenger can’t remember them all.
His speech was substantial, and its contents extensive… Because the messenger, whose mouth was tired, was not able to repeat it, the lord of Kulaba patted some clay and wrote the message as if on a tablet. Formerly, the writing of messages on clay was not established. Now, under that sun and on that day, it was indeed so.
The Sumerians had two things in virtually limitless abundance: the clay beneath their feet, and the reeds that grew on the marshes and riverbanks—and these combined to create the written word. They made marks on palm-sized tablets of wet clay with the ends of cut reeds, and the distinctive shape of these impressions gives this form of writing its name, from the Latin for “wedge-shaped”: cuneiform. The oldest cuneiform clay tablets come from the Sumerian city of Uruk, and date to the late fourth millennium BCE. They are ergonomically shaped to the human and, and as a result are roughly the dimensions of a modern smartphone.
Cuneiform was at first made up of some 1,500 pictograms that each represented a whole word—but scribes had to work fast, copying hundreds of documents throughout their day. Over time, the original pictographs naturally became simpler and more abstract. Around this time, someone had the bright idea that each symbol could also stand for a certain sound, instead of a whole idea, and after 3000 BCE, this meant number of symbols was reduced from some 1,500 to about 600. These were the beginnings of the first alphabets. The human brain would never be the same again—and in large part thanks to this new ability to record and pass on knowledge, the technology of Sumer made even greater leaps forward.
This phase of Mesopotamian history is known as the Uruk Period, which lasted until the end of the fourth millennium BCE. One of the key markers of the shift into this period is a dramatic change in the region’s pottery—but it did not become more sophisticated and ornate as technology improved. In fact, the pottery of the preceding Ubaid Period was exceptionally beautiful, made on a device known as a slow wheel and painted with distinctive geometrical designs in brown or black glaze. These were luxury items for the wealthy few. The Uruk Period, by contrast, saw a significant increase in the amount of pottery produced—but the quality fell dramatically. Thanks to the new ‘fast wheel’, clay jars and pots could be made in great numbers by workmen in intensive workshops, and they could now be afforded by everyone. This was the first era of mass production.
More here.
