The first forms of writing, reportedly, were invoices and accounting statements, such as, “this guy owes this other person so much wheat” and “this person didn’t pay their taxes.”  Bookkeeping is primordial.

My inclination to research this topic was prompted by tax time (today is the day and we owe a bunch) as well as the need for a topic for my habitual weekly blog post.

Instantly, i thought of Moses, who as overseer of Pharoah’s graneries, gained prowess and notoriety in Egypt for his meticulous bookkeeping. Later, the Lord tapped him to write the first five books of the Bible, after bringing the Ten Commandments to the namdic tribes of Israel. Known to Pharoah as escapees.

Penultimate claims to fame, despite reportedly have a stutter.

Scholars consider cuneiform the first writing system, emerging around 3400 BC. Before cuneiform, there was an archaic script using abstract pictographic signs called proto-cuneiform, appear around 3350 to 3000 BC in the city of Uruk, in modern southern Iraq. The Egyptians also wrote in pictograhpic symbols and invented paper from papyrus.

Archaeologists have been busy through the millennia.

Researchers conducting a careful analysis of proto-cuneiform symbols were surprised to uncover similarities when they studied the engravings of cylinder seals invented in Uruk, an ancient city (in what is modern day Iraq) in 4400 BC and used to imprint motifs on soft clay. Not only do some of the symbols match exactly, but they also appear to convey the same meanings in relation to ancient transactions and trade.

Archaeologist unearthed multiple 3500-year-old tablets, the size of a thumb, following a recent earthquake in Iraq. Knowledge emerging from the bowels of the earth after a violent upheaval is a good thing, but it doesn’t balance out the human death toll.