Why was writing invented in Ancient Civilization?

Question

Why was writing invented in Ancient Civilization?

(i think this is supposed to relate to Fertile Cresent??? not sure)

Answer 1

Primarily for record keeping

"Beginning with farming some 9000 years ago, tokens marked with simple pictures began to be used to label basic farm produce.  With the rise of cities and urban centers of manufacture 6000 years ago, more complex pictographic tokens were also devised to label manufactured goods.  Eventually, the tokens were replaced by impressions made on clay tablets."

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201...

Above a certain level of development people need to keep records of what's in the storehouse, who owes who, what the rules are, and to send messages.

As example: "Unfortunately, a nasty snag quickly developed. The royal accountant would send out a message to one of his minions to collect taxes from Farmer Bob. The minion would go to Farmer Bob's place and present his tax bill: 3 cows and 200 baskets of grain. Farmer Bob would grudgingly load up the wagon with the goods, and the minion would dispatch it back to town via a wagon-driver. But when the royal accountant checked them in, there were only 2 cows and 150 baskets of grain. The farmer insisted that he had turned over the correct amounts; the minion insisted that he had not pilfered them, and the wagon-driver insisted that he had not pilfered them, either. It was one fellow's word against the other, and although they would punish one or the other of the parties, they couldn't stop the problem."

http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/Histor...

Answer 2

For the purpose of documentation and a method for providing non verbal communication.  This includes, royal proclamations,  records for accurate inventories, totals of the revenues from the collection of taxes,  religious theory, orders from the ruler to military leaders, census, family relationships provided by documentation of birth, and a way of documentation abstractions.  I have no idea how it is related to the fertile crescent, but combined glyphs that were designed represented learned, and used as a method for non verbal communication, I believe originated in china.

Answer 3

Writing was invented because the passing down of information verbally from person to person or from people to people was becoming quite unreliable and could be subject to almost irreversible distortion or manipulation.

This is especially true when people started transacting business with others. They have to keep some sort of tangible record as evidence of what both or all parties have talked about or agreed upon. This is also the same with the laws that have been decreed. People saw the need to have written records so that if anyone tried to dispute or discredit a claim, evidence could be readily shown.

If you're thinking about the fertile crescent, maybe you're thinking about "Cuneiform" writing invented by the Sumerians.

Answer 4

Apple,

It happened like this:

Back in Mesopotamia where folks began to collect in groups who didn't;t like to roam the countryside everyday looking for wild grains, fruit and other thangs ta eat,  

someone, probably female since they tend to be smarter than us males, said...Hey! Let's stop hunting and gathering and just stay right here all day.

Some guy said, "what we gonna eat?" So, they began to collect food stuffs and goats and sheep, maybe a cow or two to use for food.

Then some individual with power (he had people working for him that took his orders) said I have collected all this stuff to eat and I don't want to loose any of it. He hired some smart kid to make symbols on a chunk of damp clay to account for his cows, sheep, sacks of grain and the like.

This was the first accounting method and the first language.

Later on, folks called anthropologists decided to call this accounting method...Cuneiform.

Then in a place that came to be called Akkadia, a more expressive version of accounting came to be called, oddly enough, Akkadian and the rest, as they say, is history.

Now, if you want a really good answer I found this:

http://www.historian.net/hxwrite.htm

This site was well done and very informative and a lot better than my silly story which, by the way, is fairly accurate.

Answer 5

you'd think they got tired of saying " i said Tuesday" ... " your mistaken i payed for ten eggs" and thought they better invent a more tangible form of communication

Answer 6

What do you use writing for?

Oh wait you're asking this answer on Yahoo answers so you dont have to write your own homework essay ...

Try doing more writing and thinking of your own?

Answer 7

the simple and correct answer that you would need and that ur teacher is looking for (assuming this is a question for hw) is it was initially developed for record keeping. taxes. etc. it then evolved from that purpose on.

and the fertile crescent thing prob refers to where the Sumerians lived. (they invented it)