Earliest writing

[Minimalist]

Sorry, fundies. It is not "Hebrew."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/arts/d...&src=twrhp

CHICAGO — One of the stars of the Oriental Institute’s new show, “Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond,” is a clay tablet that dates from around 3200 B.C. On it, written in cuneiform, the script language of ancient Sumer in Mesopotamia, is a list of professions, described in small, repetitive impressed characters that look more like wedge-shape footprints than what we recognize as writing.

In fact “it is among the earliest examples of writings that we know of so far,” according to the institute’s director, Gil J. Stein, and it provides insights into the life of one of the world’s oldest cultures.

[Anomalocaris]

There are indications of proto writting much earlier than that, dating back as far as 9000 years. Imagine the befuddlement of the descendants of those poor early writters as god interrupted their mad scribbling by creating the world. They must be startled indeed to fail to record an event as momentous and unprecendented in their lives as the beginning of the universe.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

There are indications of proto writting much earlier than that, dating back as far as 9000 years. really.

Proto-writing is more the use of mnemonic symbols than a phonetic script and is not usually considered writing.

Earliest developed scripts so far were discovered in 2000 in Southern Iran, (Sumeria) in the area of the legendary Jiroft and Aratta kingdom.

http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Archaeology/jiroft.htm

[Minimalist]

Israel Finkelstein in The Bible Unearthed notes that writing systems develop in response to a need for record-keeping. This occurs when a political entity reaches the point of true statehood and the "king" or whatever title you wish to hang on him, needs to keep track of his property. Literature develops later on.

He makes a compelling argument and the introduction of tax records, product inventory, and labels appears right on time in the northern kingdom of "Israel" and a century later in the southern kingdom of "Judah."