John Noble Wilford's Who Began Writing?

Who began writing? The answer is writing was developed independently in different places at different times. In John Noble Wilford’s article “Who Began Writing? Many Theories, Few Answers” it provides evidence that there was not one specific place that it developed. Evidence doubts that the Sumerians were the first to write, a few places had developed writing around the same time.

The first forms of writing found date back to 250 B.C-3,200 B.C. Many places had begun using writing to keep documents. These places included, China, Mesoamerica, Sumerian, Egypt, and the Indus Valley. Writing derived from symbols carved in clay and set out too dry. Not all were writing, most were the pictures for oral story tellers. “Writing more than likely began as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, like painting, sculpture and oral storytelling, and only later merged with spoken language.” (1/6) Although most places began using writing, not all of their writing styles were the same. Writing styles differed from place to place. “Egyptian hieroglyphics are so different from Sumerian cuneiform, Dr. Baines said, that they were probably invented independently not long after

It shaped the beginning of civilization. An organized civilization should have written down laws followed by the people. Writing was needed to keep organization in day to day activities. It had made it possible to store documents both political and personal for safe keeping. Writing was used for governing, commerce, and coding systems. “This presumably reflects writing’s origins and first applications in economic administration in a growing, increasingly complex society, scholars said. Most of the Uruk tablets were documents about property, inventory and, even then, taxes.” Writing had provided a new form of control. “Coercion and control were early writing’s first important purpose, a new way to control how people