History of Writing

From Primitive Symbols to Today's Alphabet

The history of writing goes back very far. Writing started not with characters but with primitive symbols that evolved to symbols over time. Those symbols again evolved to characters.

The oldest known primitive symbols were created some 15.000 years before Christ. At that time, people drew mainly hunting scenes on cave walls and clay pots.

It was obviously a very long way from these beginnings to today's writing. This chapter is a summary of that long way, from the primitive signs to today's alphabet.

The following subpages are available in the chapter "The History of Writing":

Chronology

From primitive types to today's alphabet.

Primitive Types, 15,000 BC: Mostly simple pictorial representations, primarily painted on cave walls and pottery.
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Picture Writing

The desire of people to communicate with each other is very old. This is shown, for example, in cave paintings from the late Palaeolithic Age (40,000 BC). Pictu... 

Origin of the Alphabet

The area of development of the alphabet is nowadays assumed to be located in the southeast of the Mediterranean region. Historical traditions show that the alph...