Paper Fact No. 16
As we continue, slowly but surely, reading Alexander Monro's book, "The Paper Trail", here's another short paper fact.
Writing began in Sumer, Mesopotamia (now southern Iraq). Sumer was also the first place known where the wheel, the irrigation system, the plough and the arch were used.
The complexity of this society led to the creation of signs. And from signs, images. Gradually, adjectives, verbs and conjunctions were added. For example, the drawing of an eye to represent the sound of "i" irrespective of meaning. This is what is called the rebus principle.
Sumerians mainly used clay tablets with a stylus to write. The name of their script was "cuneiform," which means "wedge-shaped."
Egypt adopted writing from the Sumerians, but instead of clay they used papyrus. They had the monopoly of the leaf to make papyrus, and for centuries it was the writing material of the mediterranean. Papyrus was also the beginning of the western literary canon. The greek word for plant's inner sap, "bubloi," gave birth to the word "biblos," meaning "writing on papyrus." This is also the root for the word "Bible."
