Around 3300 BC, accountants in the temples of Uruk in Sumer began to press signs into soft clay tablets with a reed to record deliveries of grain, beer, sheep and workers. The signs began as pictures and numbers and gradually became wedge-shaped cuneiform, which later could write the sounds of the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. Writing allowed administrations, laws and trade to expand beyond the memory of individuals, and led to the first literature. Cuneiform was used for more than three thousand years for a dozen languages. Egyptian hieroglyphs appeared at nearly the same time.
Before and after
- from 36th century BCE to 18th century BCECaral–Supe civilization
- c. 3,501 BCEPeople first tame horses on the steppe
- from c. 3,500 BCE to 2,500 BCEOrigins of Brú na Bóinne
- from c. 3,500 BCE to 2,500 BCEAfanasevo culture
- 34th century BCEWriting is invented in Mesopotamia
- from c. 3,300 BCE to 600 BCEBronze Age
- from c. 3,300 BCE to 1,100 BCEMinoan civilization
- from c. 3,300 BCE to 2,600 BCEYamnaya culture
- from c. 3,300 BCE to 1982Origins of Qatna
More in Civilizations & archaeology
- from about 12,000 years ago to 7th millennium BCEConstruction of Göbekli Tepe
- from 10th millennium BCE to 3rd millennium BCENeolithic revolution
- from 10th millennium BCE to 3rd millennium BCENeolithic
- from 76th century BCE to 25th century BCEChalcolithic
- from 5th millennium BCE to 1st millennium BCEAncient Egypt
- from 4th millennium BCE to 1st millenniumAncient history
The era
This moment belongs to the Human prehistory (300,000 years ago to 3,200 BCE), the human story before writing.