Centers of Progress

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.

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.

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.