Centers of Progress: Uruk (Writing) - Deepstash
Centers of Progress: Uruk (Writing)

Centers of Progress: Uruk (Writing)

Curated from: humanprogress.org

Ideas, facts & insights covering these topics:

5 ideas

·

8.31K reads

46

Explore the World's Best Ideas

Join today and uncover 100+ curated journeys from 50+ topics. Unlock access to our mobile app with extensive features.

The First Writing System

The First Writing System

Uruk was the world’s first large city and completely changed humanity’s ability to store, exchange and replicate information by creating the first writing system in 3200 BCE.

The invention of writing made the unreliable and fallible human memory obsolete and revolutionized how we process information. The earlier form of dictating information orally from generation to generation quickly became a thing of the past.

296

2.64K reads

Ancient Uruk

Ancient Uruk

In the late 4th millennium BCE, Uruk had 10000 inhabitants which increased to 50000 in the decades after that, making it the largest city in Mesopotamia, and in the Sumerian civilization.

The people of Uruk were highly civilized and worked in various professions like ambassadors, priests, stonecutters, cooks, and jewellers.

239

1.75K reads

Writing with symbols and pictographs

Uruk was the first civilization to introduce written record-keeping, using symbols, pictographs, and eventually words. The Sumerians were an innovative civilization and improvised this symbolic language into complex documents, epic poems and literature, along with lists and genealogies.

Writings were mostly on reeds and clay, slowly forming a complex language of letters based on ‘wedge-shaped’ markings, known as cuneiform.

239

1.4K reads

The Sumerian culture

The Sumerian culture used to worship the sun and revered the cow, which is associated with motherhood. The Sumerian Sun God was called Utu, with the revered King Enmerkar ruling Uruk for more than a hundred years according to the scriptures. The Sumerian legend is preserved in the epic ‘Enmerkar and the Lord Of Aratta’.

230

1.23K reads

World-Changing Invention

World-Changing Invention

According to the ancient Sumerian writings, the mythical king Enmerkar is credited with the invention of a written language, leaving a permanent mark in history and all the human literary output from that point onwards.

The preservation of ancient writings has provided humanity with a way to travel through time, with the writings being like artefacts from the past with deep insights and information of that time.

228

1.28K reads

IDEAS CURATED BY

briannax

🌄 ☕️ 📖 ❤️

Brianna Simons's ideas are part of this journey:

Centers of Progress

Learn more about writing with this collection

The historical significance of urban centers

The impact of cultural and technological advances

The role of urban centers in shaping society

Related collections

Similar ideas

Read & Learn

20x Faster

without
deepstash

with
deepstash

with

deepstash

Personalized microlearning

100+ Learning Journeys

Access to 200,000+ ideas

Access to the mobile app

Unlimited idea saving

Unlimited history

Unlimited listening to ideas

Downloading & offline access

Supercharge your mind with one idea per day

Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.

Email

I agree to receive email updates