INVENTION OF WRITING AND ITS IMPORTANCE TODAY

THOTH - EGYPTIAN GOD OF WISDOM AND WRITING 

We rarely think about the fact that writing is a powerful tool; therefore, we take writing for granted. Reams of Black heritage have been lost because records have been destroyed, or accomplishments weren't ascribed to the right people, or the history was not written down. Although we are constantly writing texts or things for work, we seldom write down what is truly important. We rarely write about what we create. We don't write down our thoughts about life, philosophy, or our hopes and dreams.  We don't write our autobiographies. In short, we leave nothing for posterity. Please do not take the gift of writing for granted.

Videos about Origin of Writing in Africa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUGc2W06rgo Origin of writing in Africa part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bpsIFT4uJo Origin of writing in Africa part 2


More traditional explanation of the origin of writing.

There is not a unique origin of writing; it was independently born in different parts of the world. It seems the first people who wrote were the Sumerians and the Egyptians around 3500-3200 BC. It is not clear which of those two peoples invented writing first, although it seems the Egyptian writing had some Sumerian influence and not vice versa. They were peoples who had known agriculture for some millennia and who felt the need for a system of notation for agricultural products. Usually, sovereigns imposed taxes on their own subjects as agricultural products. They used these resources in order to pay for the construction of palaces and temples, to maintain the army, the court officials, the court, etc. Also in the trade exchanges people felt the need to be allowed to annotate goods. The same is valid for the offers which were brought to the temples. The invention of writing closely followed many other innovations typical of the Neolithic age, such as the construction of cities, the use of bronze, the invention of the wheel, the potter's wheel and the loom for weaving. In this period, agriculture and breeding spread and it was always more important to be able to indicate goods and persons in account documents and in commercial transactions. FROM http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/writing/writing.htm