Cuneiform
Cuneiform, the earliest known script, wasn鈥檛 used for poetry, or to send messages to far-off lands. It was used to create the world鈥檚 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 鈥� 鈥渃uneiform鈥� 鈥� 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 wasn鈥檛 being used for poetry, or to send messages to far-off lands. It was used to create the world鈥檚 first accounts. And the world鈥檚 first written contracts, too.
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Sources and related links
Felix Martin - Money: The Unauthorised Biography London: Bodley Head (2013) pp39-42聽
William N. Goetzmann - Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible Woodstock: Princeton University Press (2016) pp19-30聽
Jane Gleeson-White - 聽Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Created Modern Finance (London: Allen & Unwin) 2012 pp11-12
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