Written Language (Cuneiform)
Information stored outside the human brain.
Explore this event on the interactive timeline →Developed by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia, cuneiform is the earliest known system of writing. By pressing wedge-shaped styluses into wet clay tablets, humans could record information permanently, marking the absolute transition from prehistory to recorded history.
Verified Facts
- The earliest writing was not invented for poetry or religious texts—it was invented by accountants to track grain inventories and tax records.
- Because clay tablets could be fired — deliberately in kilns, or accidentally in the very blazes that destroyed cities — many survived for millennia (unlike paper or papyrus), leaving hundreds of thousands of records; sun-dried tablets, by contrast, are fragile and dissolve in water.
- Writing allowed complex civilizations to organize massive bureaucracies, enforce legal codes (like the Code of Hammurabi), and pass accumulated knowledge across generations without relying on fragile oral tradition.