Welcome to the History of the World Podcast. My name is Chris Hasler.

And you're listening to volume 2, The Ancient World. This is episode The Story of Writing of Writing Part 1. And the As a fan of the History of the World Podcast and history in general, I first want to thank the show for giving me the opportunity to record this quick little intro for you guys. My name is Tom and I am the host of the

Myth Podcast. You'll find it as just Myth, all capital, MYTH. It's on iTunes and Spotify and everywhere else. And if you're a fan of history, a fan of this show, a fan of stories about our past that dive into the nature of being human, that I think you'll like my show. Again that's Myth or Myth

podcast and you can find that anywhere you get your podcasts or check out more

information on robots radio dot net. I shall post the link on the social media pages so that you can access this

great new podcast thank you very much Tom but for now let's get back to the

history of the world podcast and the Story of Writing. So it's time to take a bit of a

break from the historical narrative and take a look at an important aspect of human development that has been a fundamental part of our story,

the emergence of writing systems around the world.

A means of communication without speaking or even without actually being there.

Writing is a means of recording information, very much like what I'm doing now by recording my own voice. I could have written a magazine article, but I chose to record my voice. It serves the same purpose to you as the receiver of the

information. It also acts as a reference for that information so it's indisputable

because it's visibly there. It's not the memory of a

conversation that can be questioned. This point alone is rather important because

it is the necessity of the recording of information that is

probably the reason why the written word flourished around 5,000 years ago when

coalesced societies required administration to uphold the law of the city.

And it is for this reason that we have a separator for the prehistoric and ancient periods. History refers to the written story of our

past, so therefore if it's over 5,000 years old it's before history and therefore prehistory. The problem for us is that the written word

of 5,000 years ago is not written in any kind of modern language and it is not even written in any kind of modern language and it is not even written in any kind of

modern alphabet. So how can we possibly know what anything written 5,000 years ago might possibly mean.

The Rosetta Stone.

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