How Did Humans Invent Writing?

How Did Humans Invent Writing? 0:00 The Man in Uruk 3:09 Tokens: Writing Before Writing 5:01 The First Tablets 5:47 Cuneiform & The Scribe 8:10 Egypt: Hieroglyphs & The Rosetta Stone 10:34 China: Oracle Bones 11:58 The Maya Code 15:52 The Alphabet Revolution 20:31 Why Writing? It Was for Counting 23:16 The Answer All research and sources are linked below. 📚 RESEARCH & SOURCES: ▸ Clay tokens & the origin of writing — Denise Schmandt-Besserat, "The Evolution of Writing": https://sites.utexas.edu/dsb/tokens/t... ▸ Rosetta Stone & Champollion — decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs, 1822: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_... ▸ Maya glyph decipherment — Tatiana Proskouriakoff, 1959 breakthrough: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... ▸ Proto-Sinaitic & the first alphabet — Wadi el-Hol, ~1800 BCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-S... ▸ Oracle bone script — Shang dynasty China, earliest Chinese writing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_... ▸ Code of Hammurabi — Babylonian law stele, ~1754 BCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammurab... ———————————————————— PEOPLE & SITES MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO: ▸ Denise Schmandt-Besserat — Archaeologist who showed writing evolved from clay accounting tokens. ▸ Jean-François Champollion — Deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs using the Rosetta Stone. ▸ Eric Thompson — British scholar who insisted Maya glyphs could not record history. ▸ Tatiana Proskouriakoff — Proved Maya glyphs recorded real dynastic history in 1959. ▸ Hammurabi — Babylonian king whose law code was carved on a stone pillar. ▸ Uruk — Mesopotamian city where the earliest writing appeared, ~3200 BCE. ▸ Wadi el-Hol — Egyptian valley where the first alphabet was carved, ~1800 BCE. ▸ Yinxu — Site of the last Shang capital, source of most oracle bones. ———————————————————— 🎨 Animation by Human Archive ———————————————————— #writing #humanhistory #evolution #history #ancienthistory #mesopotamia #egypt #maya #alphabet #explainer #animation #education #humanorigins #cuneiform #hieroglyphs keywords: writing, human history, origin of writing, cuneiform, hieroglyphs, alphabet, Mesopotamia, ancient history