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Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

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Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#81

And that's why we have dumbcuneiform.com

Turn dumb tweets into cuneiform tablets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36275974 - June 2023 (47 comments)

Dumb Cuneiform - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10526680 - Nov 2015 (16 comments)

Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#82
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to Wikipedia it is 25,000 years ago and in Eastern Europe The person you were replying to was asking about cities. The article you are posting is about Sedentism - "the practice of living in one place for a long time". The figure of 25,000 years ago is for the first evidence of permanent settlements. These do not fit anyone's definition of a city. The first evidence of cities are from Sumer, which is what…

Look, I know this is confusing (no, it isn't). The person I replied to replied to me. I never mentioned city, but they injected the word city nonetheless probably because they had no idea what they were replying to or what the words meant. What qualifies whether any fixed permanent or semi-permanent settlement is actually a city , town , hamlet , or village is entirely subjective.

> What qualifies whether any fixed permanent or semi-permanent settlement is actually a city, town, hamlet, or village is entirely subjective.

nope

Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#86
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that redundant? It’s like asking everyone to prefix every statement with “As far as I know…”

Fair point, I think it depends on the certainty. I am just about 100% certain Neil Armstrong was the first human to walk on the moon, so "first" makes sense. Hillary and Norgay were the first "confirmed" climbers of Everest. The "confirmed" part is needed because it is reasonable that others before them made it without evidence. I am open to the possibility a civilization had a writing system before the Sumerians, an…

Right, but that's recent information. When talking about deep history, "that we know of" is effectively a given. There will never be true certainty.

Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#88

There was an article 3 days ago that said the oldest known writing system was from Syria: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42224330

That's the earliest alphabetic writing system. The Sumerian writing system started out pictographic (like hieroglyphs), and predates that Syrian find by about 800 years.

It became less pictographic over time, and that Syrian site is only 500 miles from the Sumerian empire. My amateur speculation would be that trade with Sumer brought writing to Syria and they developed the idea in a different direction, arriving at this alphabetic system.

Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#90

"...Created the World’s First Writing System" that we know of. They used burned clay, which lasts forever. I am sure there have been writing systems before, they just rotted away.

Agreed. Examples include the Inca civilization using knots to record complex information and accounts. Those won't last as long as burned clay.
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