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Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human SocietiesIn the last centuries before 3000 b.c., developments in accounting technology, format, and signs rapidly led to the first system of writing. One such technological innovation was the use of flat clay tablets as a convenient writing surface. Initially, the clay was scratched with pointed tools, which gradually yielded to reed styluses for neatly pressing a mark into the tablet. Developments in format included the gradual adoption of conventions whose necessity is now universally accepted: that writing should be organized into ruled rows or columns (horizontal rows for the Sumerians, as for modern Europeans); that the lines should be read in a constant direction (left to right for Sumerians, as for modern Europeans); and that the lines should be read from top to bottom of the tablet rather than vice versa. But the crucial change involved the solution of the problem basic to BLUEPRINTSAND BORROWED LETTERS • 2, I 9 Locations of some scripts mentioned in the text 1. Sumer 9. West Semitic, Phoenician 5. Proto-Elamite 2. Mesoamerica 10. Ethiopian 7. Hittite ?3. China 11 ...» |
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