The Origins of Writing

Sandstone sphinx found in Serabit el-Khadim in Sinai, with Proto- Sinaitic signs on the left base, some of which resemble Egyptian hieroglyphs (inscribed on the sphinx’s right shoulder and base – not shown), 1800–1500 BC. The Proto-Sinaitic signs are thought to be part of the world’s first alphabet, inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphs. When and how did people first begin to write down ideas? Andrew Robinson investigates The origins of writing Writing is generally agreed to be among from its frequent appearance in pictorial quality, whereas the second the greatest inventions in human history, exquisite hieroglyphic inscriptions on frequently retained it. Furthermore, in perhaps the greatest invention, since objects in the tomb. both of these neighbouring cultures, it made history possible – as well as So where, when and how did writing the representation of ideas, words and today’s digital world. When H. G. Wells come into existence? Wells hazarded the syllables that could not be directly published A Short History of the World in following explanation, again perceptive, pictured was made possible through the 1922 he concisely expressed writing’s if inevitably far more speculative: ‘At use of rebuses (Latin for ‘by things’). significance to civilisation as follows: first writing was merely an abbreviated For example, according to Wells the two ‘The command of the priest or king and method of pictorial record. Even before syllables (so to speak) of the familiar his seal could go far beyond his sight Neolithic times men were beginning to Scottish name ‘Campbell’ might be and voice and could survive his death’, write.’ Thus, in certain Palaeolithic cave represented in rebus writing by a picture citing the artistically carved sealstones paintings of Europe, the artists created of a camp with tents beside a picture of of early Mesopotamia impressed in full human figures but also abbreviated a bell. These two developments then led clay. As if to confirm the truth of this human figures with just a vertical mark to the alphabet: ‘All the true alphabets observation, in November 1922, just and one or two transverse strokes. of the later world derived from a after Wells’s book was published, the ‘From this to a conventional condensed mixture of the Sumerian cuneiform tomb of an unknown pharaoh who picture writing was an easy transition’, and the Egyptian hieroglyphic (priest ruled more than three millennia ago Wells claimed, which occurred in both writing). Later in China there was to was discovered in Egypt’s Valley of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, in develop a conventionalised picture the Kings. The pharaoh’s name was the cuneiform and hieroglyphic scripts, writing, but in China it never got to the immediately identified as Tutankhamun the first of which soon abandoned its alphabetical stage.’ 42 British Museum Magazine Autumn 2020 The earliest Neolithic Chinese Chinese pottery marks from characters the Banpo culture inscribed on a of the Yellow River Shang Dynasty valley, 5000–4000 oracle bone, BC. c.1200 BC. Late Uruk proto-cuneiform clay tablet from Mesopotamia, 3300–3100 BC, with a human head and a triangular object representing bread in front of it, and three different types of numerical symbols. A century after Wells’s suggestive and all thought’ – to quote an influential China’s Neolithic pottery marks outline, how much of it is still accepted? definition by Sinologist John DeFrancis dating from 5000–4000 BC – notably And how much further advanced is our in his book Visible Speech: The Diverse those from the Banpo culture of the understanding of the origin of writing? Oneness of Writing Systems. Yellow River valley found in 1953 The answer is, broadly speaking, most However, Wells’s notion of the – have stimulated speculation about of it. Writing began with pictures, then monogenesis of writing in Mesopotamia their connection with today’s Chinese came pictography, then rebuses, then (the ‘cradle of civilisation’) closely characters. The characters’ earliest from c.3300 BC Sumerian cuneiform followed by Egypt, which was favoured clearly recognisable versions occur and soon afterwards Egyptian by most scholars until the later 20th on the so-called ‘oracle bones’ of the hieroglyphs. Finally, in the mid-second century, has been progressively Shang culture dating from c.1200 BC, millennium in Palestine, came the first abandoned. ‘Origin’ has tended accidentally discovered by Chinese ‘Proto-Canaanite’ alphabet, influenced towards ‘origins’. Generally speaking, scholars in Beijing in 1899. They record by the hieroglyphic signs. These stages the archaeological discoveries of the royal divinations in sophisticated detail. are still widely seen by modern scholars past century – and the decipherments Certain Neolithic marks resemble as being essential to the development of of ancient scripts such as Linear B of Shang characters, but the marks writing, as it evolved from proto-writing, Crete/Greece and the Mayan glyphs of generally occur in isolation, not in capable of limited communication like Mesoamerica – have complicated, rather sequence like the characters, and the the earliest ‘proto-cuneiform’ tablets than simplified, our understanding of apparent resemblances may be simply and also modern airport symbols, to early writing. Let us look at just three coincidental, rather than definitive. full writing, that is, ‘a system of graphic scripts: in China, South Asia and Rapa Moreover, the gap in time between symbols that can be used to convey any Nui (Easter Island). the Neolithic marks and the Shang British Museum Magazine Autumn 2020 43 culture – more than three millennia – seems implausibly long for the developmental stages of a sophisticated writing system: it is the same time span in which cuneiform and hieroglyphs both originated and operated as mature writing systems. ‘At present, the most that can be said for Neolithic origins is that certain habits of drawing, patterning and combining elements in Neolithic pottery marks might have endured for many centuries before they provided some sort of basis for the first invention of writing signs’, wrote former British Museum curator Oliver Moore in his BM guide, Reading the Past: Chinese. Current scholars therefore hold differing opinions about the origin of Shang writing and Chinese characters. Some favour a gradual development of full writing from 5000 BC – so far undetected by archaeologists – from the proto-writing of the Neolithic marks, viewing Chinese writing as wholly indigenous. But most continue to support a much later emergence of writing in the Shang culture c.1200 BC, without being able to account for how this occurred. Might such apparently rapid emergence be explained by the import of the basic idea of writing from Mesopotamia via some forerunner of the Silk Roads that operated between Europe and China from the end of the 1st millennium BC until modern times? Conceivably so – yet there is no clear evidence for such a long-distance link. Classic Mayan In South Asia, an entirely unsuspected carved limestone civilisation in the Indus River valley lintel from Mexico (modern Pakistan and northwest India) showing a bloodletting ritual dating from about 2500–1900 BC, performed by the was discovered by British and Indian king of Yaxchilan archaeologists in the early 1920s. It used and his wife in 709 AD, with an exquisite script inscribed mainly glyphs indicating on steatite sealstones, some of which the event and the are displayed in the British Museum. date, produced in 723–6. Unfortunately, the Indus signs have resisted an agreed decipherment for almost a century, notwithstanding dozens of highly imaginative proposals. They – along with enigmatic emblems of objects, yogic figures and animals, Indus sealstone from Harappa including ‘unicorns’, inscribed next with a ‘unicorn’ to many of the signs – resemble those and undeciphered of no other contemporary ancient inscription, 2500–1900 BC. script. Probably Indus sealstones and signs were markers of personal 44 British Museum Magazine Autumn 2020 identification like the clay cylinder seals origin of the script. Intriguingly, some of the Rongorongo of Mesopotamia. A stone boss on the Our third mystery relates to Rapa Nui glyphs closely resemble 40–50 far-distant back of sealstones with a hole drilled in the Pacific Ocean, one of the most ancient Indus signs, leading to far-fetched in it suggests that they were carried on remote inhabited islands on the planet, claims of Indus influence across oceans strings around the neck of the owner. famous for its giant human figures in and millennia. Did the islanders invent Intriguingly, a small number of Indus stone, the moai. In the 19th century, Rongorongo unprompted, or did they seals (20 in all) have been discovered at and possibly long before, Rapa Nui also borrow it from another place, perhaps excavations in Mesopotamia. There is had a script, although the script does Polynesia or Mesoamerica (home of also an Akkadian cuneiform cylinder not appear on the moai. Engraved only the less ancient Mayan glyphs), via seal dating from c.2300 BC (the time of on wooden tablets – maybe with the trans-Pacific contacts? Or did it emerge Sargon) that may show a Mesopotamian tooth of a shark, a flake of obsidian following the first visit of European ruler in negotiation with Indus or a sharpened bird bone – some 25 sailors on Spanish ships to Rapa Nui in merchants, according to its inscription, examples of this undeciphered script are 1770, after the islanders saw the sailors’ which refers to Meluhha: the apparent scattered around the world’s museums, alphabetic writing? If the independent Akkadian name for the Indus region. including the British Museum. None invention of Rongorongo on isolated Without doubt, the Indus civilisation of the tablets is formally dated. The Rapa Nui were ever to be proved, traded extensively with Mesopotamia script is known as Rongorongo – the this would enormously strengthen by sea during the third millennium name means ‘chants or recitations’ in the argument that writing had several BC.

Load more