1.
Cradle of civilization
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The cradle of civilization is a term referring to locations where, according to current archaeological data, civilization is understood to have emerged. Current thinking is that there was no single cradle, but several civilizations that developed independently, other civilizations arose in Asia among cultures situated along large river valleys, notably the Indus River in the Indian Subcontinent and the Yellow River in China. The extent to which there was significant influence between the early civilizations of the Near East and those of East Asia is disputed, scholars accept that the civilizations of Mesoamerica, mainly in modern Mexico, and Norte Chico in present-day Peru emerged independently from those in Eurasia. The concept cradle of civilization is the subject of much debate, the figurative use of cradle to mean the place or region in which anything is nurtured or sheltered in its earlier stage is traced by the OED to Spenser. Charles Rollins Ancient History has Egypt that served at first as the cradle of the holy nation, the phrase cradle of civilization plays a certain role in national mysticism. It has been used in Eastern as well as Western cultures, for instance, in Hindu nationalism, the terms also appear in esoteric pseudohistory, such as the Urantia Book, claiming the title for the second Eden, or the pseudoarchaeology related to Megalithic Britain. The earliest proto-urban settlements with several thousand inhabitants emerged in the Neolithic, the first cities to house several tens of thousands were Memphis and Uruk, by the 31st century BCE. Historic times are marked apart from times when records of the past begin to be kept for the benefit of future generations. A civilized way of life is linked to conditions coming almost exclusively from intensive agriculture. A traditional theory of the spread of civilization is that it began in the Fertile Crescent, scholars more generally now believe that civilizations arose independently at several locations in both hemispheres. They have observed that sociocultural developments occurred along different timeframes, sedentary and nomadic communities continued to interact considerably, they were not strictly divided among widely different cultural groups. Current scholarship generally identifies six sites where civilization emerged independently, Mesopotamia, the Nile River, the Indus River, the Yellow River, the Central Andes, one of the most notable PPNA settlements is Jericho in the Levant region, thought to be the worlds first town. In Mesopotamia, the convergence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers produced rich fertile soil, the civilizations that emerged around these rivers are among the earliest known non-nomadic agrarian societies. It is because of this that the fertile crescent region, the period known as the Ubaid period is the earliest known period on the alluvial plain although it is likely earlier periods exist obscured under the alluvium. It was during the Ubaid period that the movement towards urbanization began, eridu is the oldest Sumerian site settled during this period, around 5300 BCE, and the city of Ur also first dates to the end of this period. In the south, the Ubaid period had a long duration from around 6500 to 3800 BCE. Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and, during its later phase. Proto-writing in the dates to around 3500 BCE, with the earliest texts dating to 3300 BCE
2.
Crescent
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A crescent shape is a symbol or emblem used to represent the lunar phase in the first quarter, or by extension a symbol representing the Moon itself. It is used as the symbol for the Moon. It was also the emblem of Diana-Artemis, and hence represented virginity, in Roman Catholic Marian veneration, it is associated with the Virgin Mary. From its use as roof finial in Ottoman era mosques, it has become associated with Islam. The crescent symbol is used to represent the Moon, not necessarily in a particular lunar phase. When used to represent a waxing or waning lunar phase, crescent or increscent refers to the waxing first quarter, the crescent symbol was long used as a symbol of the Moon in astrology, and by extension of Silver in alchemy. The astrological use of the symbol is attested in early Greek papyri containing horoscopes, in the 2nd-century Bianchinis planisphere, the personification of the Moon is shown with a crescent attached to her headdress. Its ancient association with Ishtar/Astarte and Diana is preserved in the Moon representing the female principle, as such, it belongs to the class of figures known as lune in planar geometry. The tapering towards the points of intersection of the two arcs are known as the horns of the crescent, the word crescent is derived etymologically from the present participle of the Latin verb crescere to grow, technically denoting the waxing moon. Unicode encodes a crescent at U+263D and a decrescent at U+263E, the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block provides variants with faces, FIRST QUARTER MOON WITH FACE at U+1F31B and LAST QUARTER MOON WITH FACE at U+1F31C. The crescent shape is used to represent the Moon, and the Moon deity Nanna/Sin from an early time, visible in Akkadian cylinder seals as early as 2300 BC. The crescent was used in the iconography of the Ancient Near East and was used transplanted by the Phoenicians in the 8th century BC as far as Carthage in modern Tunisia. The crescent and star also appears on coins of South Arabia. The combination of star and crescent also arises in the Ancient Near East, representing the Moon and Ishtar and it was inherited both in Sassanian and Hellenistic iconography. In the iconography of the Hellenistic period, the crescent became the symbol of Artemis-Diana, numerous depictions show Artemis-Diana wearing the crescent Moon as part of her headdress. The related symbol of the star and crescent was the emblem of the Mithradates dynasty in the Kingdom of Pontus and was used as the emblem of Byzantium. The crescent remained in use as an emblem in Sassanid Persia, in the Crusades it came to be associated with the Orient and was widely used in Crusader seals and coins. It was used as a charge by the later 13th century
3.
History of agriculture
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The history of agriculture records the domestication of plants and animals and the development and dissemination of techniques for raising them productively. Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a range of taxa. At least eleven separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin, Wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 20,000 BC. From around 9,500 BC, the eight Neolithic founder crops, emmer and einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax were cultivated in the Levant. Rice was domesticated in China between 11,500 and 6,200 BC, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans, pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 13,000 BC, followed by sheep between 11,000 and 9,000 BC. Cattle were domesticated from the aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey. Sugarcane and some vegetables were domesticated in New Guinea around 7,000 BC. Sorghum was domesticated in the Sahel region of Africa by 5,000 BC, in the Andes of South America, the potato was domesticated between 8,000 and 5,000 BC, along with beans, coca, llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs. Bananas were cultivated and hybridized in the period in Papua New Guinea. In Mesoamerica, wild teosinte was domesticated to maize by 4,000 BC, cotton was domesticated in Peru by 3,600 BC. Camels were domesticated late, perhaps around 3,000 BC, irrigation, crop rotation, and fertilizers were introduced soon after the Neolithic Revolution and developed much further in the past 200 years, starting with the British Agricultural Revolution. The Haber-Bosch process allowed the synthesis of nitrate fertilizer on an industrial scale. Modern agriculture has raised social, political, and environmental issues including pollution, biofuels, genetically modified organisms, tariffs. In response, organic farming developed in the century as a consciously pesticide-free alternative. Scholars have developed a number of hypotheses to explain the origins of agriculture. Current models indicate that wild stands that had been harvested previously started to be planted, localised climate change is the favoured explanation for the origins of agriculture in the Levant. When major climate change took place after the last ice age and these conditions favoured annual plants which die off in the long dry season, leaving a dormant seed or tuber. An abundance of readily storable wild grains and pulses enabled hunter-gatherers in some areas to form the first settled villages at this time, early people began altering communities of flora and fauna for their own benefit through means such as fire-stick farming and forest gardening very early
4.
Civilization
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Historically, a civilization was a so-called advanced culture in contrast to more supposedly primitive cultures. As an uncountable noun, civilization also refers to the process of a society developing into a centralized, urbanized, stratified structure, Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over the rest of nature, including over other human beings. The earlier neolithic technology and lifestyle was established first in the Middle East, and later in the Yangtze and Yellow River basins in China, similar pre-civilized neolithic revolutions also began independently from 7,000 BCE in such places as northwestern South America and Mesoamerica. These were among the six civilizations worldwide that arose independently, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BCE, with civilizations developing from 6,500 years ago. Towards the end of the Neolithic period, various elitist Chalcolithic civilizations began to rise in various cradles from around 3300 BCE. Chalcolithic civilizations, as defined above, also developed in Pre-Columbian Americas and, despite an early start in Egypt, Axum and Kush, the English word civilization comes from the 16th-century French civilisé, from Latin civilis, related to civis and civitas. The fundamental treatise is Norbert Eliass The Civilizing Process, which traces social mores from medieval courtly society to the Early Modern period, in The Philosophy of Civilization, Albert Schweitzer outlines two opinions, one purely material and the other material and ethical. Adjectives like civility developed in the mid-16th century, the abstract noun civilization, meaning civilized condition, came in the 1760s, again from French. The word was therefore opposed to barbarism or rudeness, in the pursuit of progress characteristic of the Age of Enlightenment. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, during the French revolution, civilization was used in the singular, never in the plural and this is still the case in French. The use of civilizations as a noun was in occasional use in the 19th century. Only in this sense does it become possible to speak of a medieval civilization. Already in the 18th century, civilization was not always seen as an improvement, one historically important distinction between culture and civilization is from the writings of Rousseau, particularly his work about education, Emile. From this, a new approach was developed, especially in Germany, first by Johann Gottfried Herder and this sees cultures as natural organisms, not defined by conscious, rational, deliberative acts, but a kind of pre-rational folk spirit. Civilization, in contrast, though more rational and more successful in material progress, is unnatural and leads to vices of social life such as guile, hypocrisy, envy and avarice. In World War II, Leo Strauss, having fled Germany, argued in New York that this opinion of civilization was behind Nazism, Social scientists such as V. Gordon Childe have named a number of traits that distinguish a civilization from other kinds of society. Andrew Nikiforuk argues that civilizations relied on shackled human muscle and it took the energy of slaves to plant crops, clothe emperors, and build cities and considers slavery to be a common feature of pre-modern civilizations. All civilizations have depended on agriculture for subsistence, grain farms can result in accumulated storage and a surplus of food, particularly when people use intensive agricultural techniques such as artificial fertilization, irrigation and crop rotation
5.
Sumer
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Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, Sumerian farmers were able to grow an abundance of grain and other crops, the surplus of which enabled them to settle in one place. Proto-writing in the dates back to c.3000 BC. The earliest texts come from the cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr and date back to 3300 BC, modern historians have suggested that Sumer was first permanently settled between c.5500 and 4000 BC by a West Asian people who spoke the Sumerian language, an agglutinative language isolate. These conjectured, prehistoric people are now called proto-Euphrateans or Ubaidians, some scholars contest the idea of a Proto-Euphratean language or one substrate language. Reliable historical records begin much later, there are none in Sumer of any kind that have dated before Enmebaragesi. Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians lived along the coast of Eastern Arabia, todays Persian Gulf region, Sumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period, continuing into the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. During the 3rd millennium BC, a cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians, who spoke a language isolate, and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the 3rd millennium BC as a Sprachbund, Sumer was conquered by the Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian Empire around 2270 BC, but Sumerian continued as a sacred language. Native Sumerian rule re-emerged for about a century in the Neo-Sumerian Empire or Third Dynasty of Ur approximately 2100-2000 BC, the term Sumerian is the common name given to the ancient non-Semitic-speaking inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Sumer, by the East Semitic-speaking Akkadians. The Sumerians referred to themselves as ùĝ saĝ gíg ga, phonetically /uŋ saŋ gi ga/, literally meaning the black-headed people, the Akkadian word Shumer may represent the geographical name in dialect, but the phonological development leading to the Akkadian term šumerû is uncertain. Hebrew Shinar, Egyptian Sngr, and Hittite Šanhar, all referring to southern Mesopotamia, in the late 4th millennium BC, Sumer was divided into many independent city-states, which were divided by canals and boundary stones. Each was centered on a dedicated to the particular patron god or goddess of the city. The Sumerian city-states rose to power during the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods, classical Sumer ends with the rise of the Akkadian Empire in the 23rd century BC. Following the Gutian period, there is a brief Sumerian Renaissance in the 21st century BC, the Amorite dynasty of Isin persisted until c.1700 BC, when Mesopotamia was united under Babylonian rule. The Sumerians were eventually absorbed into the Akkadian population, 2500–2334 BC Akkadian Empire period, c. 2218–2047 BC Ur III period, c, 2047–1940 BC The Ubaid period is marked by a distinctive style of fine quality painted pottery which spread throughout Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. It appears that this culture was derived from the Samarran culture from northern Mesopotamia and it is not known whether or not these were the actual Sumerians who are identified with the later Uruk culture
6.
Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates, foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today
7.
Nile
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The Nile is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It is generally regarded as the longest river in the world, in particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt and Sudan. The Nile has two tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The White Nile is considered to be the headwaters and primary stream of the Nile itself, the Blue Nile, however, is the source of most of the water and silt. The White Nile is longer and rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa and it flows north through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and South Sudan. The Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and flows into Sudan from the southeast, the two rivers meet just north of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The northern section of the river flows north almost entirely through the Sudanese desert to Egypt, then ends in a large delta, Egyptian civilization and Sudanese kingdoms have depended on the river since ancient times. Most of the population and cities of Egypt lie along those parts of the Nile valley north of Aswan, in the ancient Egyptian language, the Nile is called Ḥpī or Iteru, meaning river. In Coptic, the words piaro or phiaro meaning the river come from the ancient name. The English name Nile and the Arabic names en-Nîl and an-Nîl both derive from the Latin Nilus and the Ancient Greek Νεῖλος, beyond that, however, the etymology is disputed. One possible etymology derives it from a Semitic Nahal, meaning river, the standard English names White Nile and Blue Nile, to refer to the rivers source, derive from Arabic names formerly applied only to the Sudanese stretches which meet at Khartoum. Above Khartoum, the Nile is also known as the White Nile, at Khartoum the river is joined by the Blue Nile. The White Nile starts in equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile begins in Ethiopia, both branches are on the western flanks of the East African Rift. The drainage basin of the Nile covers 3,254,555 square kilometers, the source of the Nile is sometimes considered to be Lake Victoria, but the lake has feeder rivers of considerable size. It is either the Ruvyironza, which emerges in Bururi Province, Burundi, or the Nyabarongo, the two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania border. Gish Abay is reportedly the place where the water of the first drops of the Blue Nile develop. The Nile leaves Lake Nyanza at Ripon Falls near Jinja, Uganda and it flows north for some 130 kilometers, to Lake Kyoga. For the remaining part it flows westerly through the Murchison Falls until it reaches the very northern shores of Lake Albert where it forms a significant river delta
8.
Euphrates
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The Euphrates is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia, originating in eastern Turkey, the Euphrates flows through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris in the Shatt al-Arab, which empties into the Persian Gulf. The Ancient Greek form Euphrátēs was borrowed from Old Persian Ufrātu, the Elamite name is ultimately derived from the Sumerian Buranuna, possibly through the Akkadian name. In Akkadian the river was similarly called Purattu, which has been perpetuated in Semitic languages, the Elamite, Akkadian, and possibly Sumerian forms are suggested to be from an unrecorded substrate language. The earliest references to the Euphrates come from texts found in Shuruppak and pre-Sargonic Nippur in southern Iraq. In these texts, written in Sumerian, the Euphrates is called Buranuna, the name could also be written KIB. NUN. or dKIB. NUN, with the prefix d indicating that the river was a divinity. In Sumerian, the name of the city of Sippar in modern-day Iraq was also a written UD. KIB. NUN, the Euphrates is the longest river of Western Asia. It emerges from the confluence of the Kara Su or Western Euphrates, the same figures are given by Isaev and Mikhailova. The length of the Shatt al-Arab, which connects the Euphrates, both the Kara Su and the Murat Su rise northwest from Lake Van at elevations of 3,290 metres and 3,520 metres amsl, respectively. At the location of the Keban Dam, the two rivers, now combined into the Euphrates, have dropped to an elevation of 693 metres amsl, from Keban to the Syrian–Turkish border, the river drops another 368 metres over a distance of less than 600 kilometres. The Euphrates receives most of its water in the form of rainfall and melting snow, discharge in these two months accounts for 36 percent of the total annual discharge of the Euphrates, or even 60–70 percent according to one source, while low runoff occurs in summer and autumn. The discharge regime of the Euphrates has changed dramatically since the construction of the first dams in the 1970s, data on Euphrates discharge collected after 1990 show the impact of the construction of the numerous dams in the Euphrates and of the increased withdrawal of water for irrigation. Average discharge at Hīt after 1990 has dropped to 356 cubic metres per second, the seasonal variability has equally changed. The pre-1990 peak volume recorded at Hīt was 7,510 cubic metres per second, the minimum volume at Hīt remained relatively unchanged, rising from 55 cubic metres per second before 1990 to 58 cubic metres per second afterward. In Syria, three rivers add their water to the Euphrates, the Sajur, the Balikh and the Khabur and these rivers rise in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains along the Syro–Turkish border and add comparatively little water to the Euphrates. The Sajur is the smallest of these tributaries, emerging from two streams near Gaziantep and draining the plain around Manbij before emptying into the reservoir of the Tishrin Dam. The Balikh receives most of its water from a spring near Ayn al-Arus. In terms of length, drainage basin and discharge, the Khabur is the largest of these three and its main karstic springs are located around Ras al-Ayn, from where the Khabur flows southeast past Al-Hasakah, where the river turns south and drains into the Euphrates near Busayrah
9.
Tigris
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The Tigris is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq, the Tigris is 1,850 km long, rising in the Taurus Mountains of eastern Turkey about 25 km southeast of the city of Elazig and about 30 km from the headwaters of the Euphrates. The river then flows for 400 km through Turkish territory before becoming the border between Syria and Turkey and this stretch of 44 km is the only part of the river that is located in Syria. Close to its confluence with the Euphrates, the Tigris splits into several channels, First, the artificial Shatt al-Hayy branches off, to join the Euphrates near Nasiriyah. Second, the Shatt al-Muminah and Majar-al-Kabir branch off to feed the Central Marshes, further downstream, two other distributary channels branch off, which feed the Hawizeh Marshes. The main channel continues southwards and is joined by the Al-Kassarah, finally, the Tigris joins the Euphrates near al-Qurnah to form the Shatt-al-Arab. According to Pliny and other ancient historians, the Euphrates originally had its outlet into the sea separate from that of the Tigris, Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, stands on the banks of the Tigris. The port city of Basra straddles the Shatt al-Arab, in ancient times, many of the great cities of Mesopotamia stood on or near the Tigris, drawing water from it to irrigate the civilization of the Sumerians. Notable Tigris-side cities included Nineveh, Ctesiphon, and Seleucia, while the city of Lagash was irrigated by the Tigris via a canal dug around 2400 B. C, the Tigris has long been an important transport route in a largely desert country. Shallow-draft vessels can go as far as Baghdad, but rafts are needed for transport upstream to Mosul, General Francis Rawdon Chesney hauled two steamers overland through Syria in 1836 to explore the possibility of an overland and river route to India. One steamer, the Tigris, was wrecked in a storm which sank, Chesney proved the river navigable to powered craft. Later, the Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company was established in 1861 by the Lynch Brothers trading company and they had 2 steamers in service. By 1908 ten steamers were on the river, tourists boarded steam yachts to venture inland as this was the first age of archaeological tourism, and the sites of Ur and Ctesiphon became popular to European travelers. In the First World War, during the British conquest of Ottoman Mesopotamia, Indian, see Siege of Kut and the Fall of Baghdad. The Tigris Flotilla included vessels Clio, Espiegle, Lawrence, Odin, armed tug Comet, armed launches Lewis Pelly, Miner, Shaitan, Sumana, and stern wheelers Muzaffari/Mozaffir. These were joined by Royal Navy Fly-class gunboats Butterfly, Cranefly, Dragonfly, Mayfly, Sawfly, Snakefly, and Mantis, Moth, the Ancient Greek form Tigris was borrowed from Old Persian Tigrā, itself from Elamite Tigra, itself from Sumerian Idigna. The Sumerian form was borrowed into Akkadian as Idiqlat, and from there into the other Semitic languages, another name for the Tigris used in Middle Persian was Arvand Rud, literally swift river. Today, however, Arvand Rud refers to the confluence of the Euphrates, in Kurdish, it is also known as Ava Mezin, the Great Water
10.
History of writing
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The history of writing traces the development of expressing language by letters or other marks and also the study and description of these developments. One of the earliest forms of expression is cuneiform. Writing numbers for the purpose of record keeping began long before the writing of language, see History of writing ancient numbers for how the writing of numbers began. It is generally agreed that true writing of language was conceived and developed in at least two places and possibly more. Egyptian script is dissimilar from Mesopotamian cuneiform, but similarities in concepts, similar debate surrounds the Indus script of the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization in Ancient India. In addition, the script is still undeciphered and there is debate whether the script is true writing at all. An additional possibility is the undeciphered Rongorongo script of Easter Island and it is debated whether this is true writing, and if it is, whether it is another case of cultural diffusion of writing. The oldest example is from 1851,139 years after their first contact with Europeans, one explanation is that the script was inspired by Spains written annexation proclamation in 1770. Recent examples are the Cherokee syllabary, invented by Sequoyah, symbolic communication systems are distinguished from writing systems in that one must usually understand something of the associated spoken language to comprehend the text. In contrast, symbolic systems such as signs, painting, maps. Every human community possesses language, a feature regarded by many as an innate, however the development of writing systems, and their partial supplantation of traditional oral systems of communication, have been sporadic, uneven and slow. Once established, writing systems on the change more slowly than their spoken counterparts. Writing allows societies to transmit information and share knowledge, scholars make a reasonable distinction between prehistory and history of early writing, but have disagreed concerning when prehistory becomes history and when proto-writing became true writing. Writing, in its most general terms, is a method of recording information and is composed of graphemes, the emergence of writing in a given area is usually followed by several centuries of fragmentary inscriptions. Historians mark the historicity of a culture by the presence of coherent texts in the writing system. The invention of writing was not an event, but a gradual process initiated by the appearance of symbols. A conventional proto-writing to true writing system follows a series of developmental stages, Picture writing system. Transitional system, graphemes refer not only to the object or idea which it represents, phonetic system, graphemes refer to sounds or spoken symbols, and the form of the grapheme is not related to its meanings
