Cuneiform
Cuneiform, the earliest known script, wasnβt used for poetry, or to send messages to far-off lands. It was used to create the worldβs first accounts and written contracts.
The Egyptians thought literacy was divine; a benefaction which came from the baboon-faced god Thoth. In fact the earliest known script β βcuneiformβ β came from Uruk, a Mesopotamian settlement on the banks of the Euphrates in what is now Iraq. What did it say? As Tim Harford describes, cuneiform wasnβt being used for poetry, or to send messages to far-off lands. It was used to create the worldβs first accounts. And the worldβs first written contracts, too.
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Sources and related links
Felix Martin - Money: The Unauthorised Biography London: Bodley Head (2013) pp39-42Β
William N. Goetzmann - Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible Woodstock: Princeton University Press (2016) pp19-30Β
Jane Gleeson-White - Β Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance (London: Allen & Unwin) 2012 pp11-12
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