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Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

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Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#151

Post by rglynn »

frutiger wrote: post #3
datadeft wrote: post #2

* that we are aware of as of 2024. I think most historical discoveries should be prefixed or suffixed with this because as we dig up more things we might learn that there was an even older writing system (in this case).

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

In formal contexts, I believe this is reasonable. Some statements can still be made in confidence without the preface, particularly concerning the present or recent past. Given the existence of such certainties, I think it is important to differentiate those which are not.

Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#152

Post by rglynn »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #24
datadeft wrote: post #2

* that we are aware of as of 2024. I think most historical discoveries should be prefixed or suffixed with this because as we dig up more things we might learn that there was an even older writing system (in this case).

I think most of everything should be taught like this, especially from a young age. Too many people assume that other people already figured it all out, and never bother challenging facts or looking deeper. I think part of it is about not questioning authority, but it’s mostly about fear of the unknown. In some corporate environments there is pushback against so-called “weasel words.” Which is fine to call out for co…

I totally agree. However, in corporate politics especially, one has to acknowledge that truth is not the basis on which the organisation or individuals are operating on. It is money and status. Viewed through that lens, it is not important that statements made are exactly truthful or accurate, but that they are effective and have "good optics".

Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#153

Post by shakna »

adrian_b wrote: post #54
skapa_flow wrote: post #50

"...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.

This does not seem very likely, because earlier than this people did not really need a writing system. More precisely, they had no reason to believe that a writing system would be useful, so there was no pressure to invent one. In Mesopotamia we can see the evolution over many hundreds of years and even a few millennia from an accounting system that used a few symbols for the things that were recorded, to a full fled…

The Mayans were writing with knotted rope around 1900BCE, so I would very much say it wouldn't be beyond possibility. Most of the early use was for tracking the seasons for religious rites - a pressure for developing writing that would exist across most early cultures.

Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#154

Post by shakna »

adastra22 wrote: post #128
Koshkin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there must have been a long pre-history of writing proper, like, leaving marks on trees or soil as a guide, a warning, etc. But it takes a civilization to start writing on a scale comparable to that of the Sumerians, and such a civilization cannot be lost to time so completely as to leave behind some evidence if its writing - especially given that they would likely use different media, including clay and stone.

Leaving marks on trees and such is not writing. It is not the transcription of spoken language. We have examples of this kind of symbol-placement on ancient cave art stretching far back into the ice age. It is not considered writing.

Written language is rarely just a transcription. It usually has a number of distinct differences in both lexicon and syntax. There are languages that are only written.

Art is not writing, true. Distinct symbols and syntax are required for writing. But it need not be transcription of anything spoken.

Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#155

Post by adastra22 »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #149
adastra22 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least when I took world history and anthropology classes, the academic term for 'monumental architecture' was quite well defined: large-scale man-made structures that are built to impress and convey symbolic meanings. Göbekli Tepe is definitely that. The definition you offer seems quite subjective, and maybe more suited to art history than archeology.

I'm an archaeologist (or was?) who's specifically done work on the Neolithic transition. I don't know much about art history, so I couldn't say whether they'd use a similar definition. What's often taught in introductory classes is usually more of a basic outline of actual archaeological thought rather than a perfect reflection of literature. Not knowing your curriculum, level, or when you were in school, but it prob…

I still don't understand your intangible mental aspects claim. That seems a nonphysical, and really nonscientific subjective evaluation. You didn't go back in time and interview the builders, so how do you know what the intangible mental aspects were? It's guesswork.

Physical size isn't necessary, and I didn't mean to clean that it was. The more fundamental connection would be labor expenditure, and directed organization. There's a bunch of old cities in the Levant that were occupied for thousands of years and which developed into very large beehive-like structures. These aren't monumental architecture in the way a smaller, but purpose-built temple or city walls would be.

The connection to 'civilization', as I understand it, is that a social organization beyond mere family units making incremental home improvements over generations is required to build monumental architecture, so it directly implies the existence of some form of societal structure to organize the work. That's what turns a 'culture' into a 'civilization.'

Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#156

Post by 7thaccount »

austin-cheney wrote: post #77
biorach wrote: 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.

I didn't inject the word "city", you did.

You referred in your above post to colonies/cities that were over 45,000 years old. Although I don't doubt such a thing is possible (maybe just lost to history), my last dive into this had scholars claiming the oldest known cities to be in the range of 9,000-11,000 years old like Gobekli Tepe and its sister cities. I was just asking if that consensus still holds. I can see this is getting into semantics a bit though and what the definition of city is.

Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#157

Post by WalterBright »

quotemstr wrote: post #16

I've always wondered whether the Sumerians knew they were the first. Past empires, lost civilizations, and ancient artifacts have always fascinated us. The first museum emerges is Mesopotamia around 530 BC; the Egyptian obelisk installed next to the brand-new Colosseum in Rome was older then than the Colosseum is now; legends of giants and heroes of bygone ages are literary universals. We hunger for the past. But the…

The first that we know of does not mean they were the first.

Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#158

Post by WalterBright »

shakna wrote: post #153
adrian_b wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does not seem very likely, because earlier than this people did not really need a writing system. More precisely, they had no reason to believe that a writing system would be useful, so there was no pressure to invent one. In Mesopotamia we can see the evolution over many hundreds of years and even a few millennia from an accounting system that used a few symbols for the things that were recorded, to a full fled…

The Mayans were writing with knotted rope around 1900BCE, so I would very much say it wouldn't be beyond possibility. Most of the early use was for tracking the seasons for religious rites - a pressure for developing writing that would exist across most early cultures.

I wonder about the knotted rope. How much information could it contain? Not very much. It's hard to imagine it being very useful.

Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#159

Post by elia_is_me »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #114

The Chinese assert that they in fact started the first civilization, before the civilizations of the Tigris/Euphrates, Nile, or Indus. I never had the time to really dig into it to evaluate the arguments, but I don't think it's correct because the Shang Dynasty is usually placed around 1600 BC while Sumer is dated around 3000 BC (or even earlier). So I don't know how the Chinese claim they were first. But I can tell…

most chinese people have no interest in those who started the first civilization. in fact most of them there have to work about 12~14 hours a day and have no ability to spend any time to 'think' and 'assert'.

only a few people there that have higher position and get well educated that know a little about the very old times... and most of them believe Egipt or middle east started the first civilization because that's what the schools there teach.

Re: Ancient Sumerians created the first writing system

#160

Post by WalterBright »

mistercheph wrote: post #58
adrian_b wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does not seem very likely, because earlier than this people did not really need a writing system. More precisely, they had no reason to believe that a writing system would be useful, so there was no pressure to invent one. In Mesopotamia we can see the evolution over many hundreds of years and even a few millennia from an accounting system that used a few symbols for the things that were recorded, to a full fled…

How do you know so much about the motivations of people that have been dead for tens of thousands of years? Maybe you can speak to the dead?

If you're a nomadic hunter-gatherer tribe, you're not going to carry around clay tablets that say "Happy Birthday, love Gramma" on them.
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