© 2004 Olga López
© 2004 Urantia Association of Spain
A couple of months ago, in the April 23rd edition of the newspaper “La Vanguardia,” I read an interview with Mario Liverani, an Italian historian and archaeologist specializing in the Ancient Near East. This interview focused on the emergence of writing, which the historian dated to around 3,200 BC in Mesopotamia. Here is an excerpt from the interview:
—And the writing? Is it known when it appears?
—Around 3,200 BC
—Where?
—Right there, in Mesopotamia. And, at the same time, it also appears in Egypt.
—In parallel and without contact between the two?
—They are two distinct scripts, with no mutual influence. There was contact, however, as we see Mesopotamian decorative motifs in Egypt.
—Can we attribute to someone the honor of being the inventor of writing?
—No. There are two theories… One holds that writing was a gradual invention. Another argues that such a complex, yet complete and coherent system must have been the work of a single human mind.
—And what do you say?
—Both are right: since prehistory there have been attempts to record things, and there comes a time when someone takes a colossal leap and methodically organizes those attempts.
—Was there a “prehistoric writing”?
—There were some small pieces of baked clay (or stone) with a sign engraved on them: a cross, for example.
Each little piece symbolized a sheep, and they were placed in a clay vessel, which symbolized a flock of sheep.
—A prehistory of writing, then…
—Then that sign of the little foot was used as an isolated sign, on some surface: a cross will mean “sheep”, then! That gradual process will lead to writing.
—What is the oldest known written document?
—The Uruk Tablets, from 3200 BC, in Mesopotamia. Signs were inscribed on soft clay tablets with a reed. This is cuneiform writing, or wedge-shaped.
—Why is it called that?
—Because the signs resembled small nails, wedges, due to the angle at which the reed hit the soft clay. The signs were stylized drawings, made with lines, and represented concrete objects, without verbs.
—What language did that writing contain?
—Sumerian. It then spread throughout the region and was used for Babylonian, Hittite (in Anatolia, today’s Türkiye), Canaanite (Syria)…
—Did the invention of writing alter the course of human history?
—It radically altered it! Writing involved a mental change. It involved a new way of conceiving the world. It involved ordering the world into a closed series of categories representable by signs: “sheep,” “female sheep,” “male sheep,” “reproductive sheep,” “non-reproductive sheep,” “pregnant sheep,” “non-pregnant sheep.”…
—Reality is “computerized.”
—Well, yes. It allows us to have it under control, and to do that, we need to simplify it. That was the achievement of writing! Writing wasn’t just a tool; it involved a mental revolution. It’s at the root of the great urban revolution.
—Do the big cities appear?
—Complex states, great civilizations: writing is the sine qua non instrument: how else to organize a complex economy? Those first written tablets record inventories, commercial transactions, censuses, administrative records…
—Where did writing spread?
—From Mesopotamia westward: Syria, Palestine… Also toward Iran. And also toward the Arabian Peninsula. And, two thousand years after that invention of writing, came the other great revolution…
—Which one?
—The invention of the alphabet! It was the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, around 1,200 BC. The other alphabets would derive from it: Phoenician, Iberian, Greek, Hebrew, Latin…
—The one I used for this interview…
—It was a brilliant invention! With just twenty-something signs, we could represent all the words. It did popularize writing, which until then had been limited to scribes, who had to memorize hundreds of words after many years of learning.
Once I read the interview, I began searching the Book for references to the origin of writing, which is located long before that date, in the time of the Planetary Prince. In Paper 66, “The Planetary Prince of Urantia,” page 746, when discussing the faculty for the dissemination and preservation of knowledge, presided over by Fad, we are told:
“Fad formulated the first alphabet and introduced a writing system. This alphabet contained twenty-five characters. For writing material these early peoples utilized tree barks, clay tablets, stone slabs, a form of parchment made of hammered hides, and a crude form of paperlike material made from wasps’ nests. The Dalamatia library, destroyed soon after the Caligastia disaffection, comprised more than two million separate records and was known as the “house of Fad.”” UB 66:5.9
That is, writing with an alphabet with a relatively small number of signs was introduced, I suppose for reasons of economy: it’s a system that allows all words to be represented by learning a small number of signs and combination rules. But the document goes on to say this, in the last paragraph of the cited page:
“The blue man was partial to alphabet writing and made the greatest progress along such lines. The red man preferred pictorial writing, while the yellow races drifted into the use of symbols for words and ideas, much like those they now employ. But the alphabet and much more was subsequently lost to the world during the confusion attendant upon rebellion. The Caligastia defection destroyed the hope of the world for a universal language, at least for untold ages.” UB 66:5.10
Following the loss of writing as a form of communication, the Book alludes to the “mysterious and sudden” appearance in Mesopotamia of the Sumerian people, the result of the union of Nodites and Adamites. In document 77, “The Intermediate Beings,” on page 860, paragraph 2, we are told regarding the Sumerians:
“…Without a trace of origin elsewhere in the world, these ancient tribes suddenly loom upon the horizon of civilization with a full-grown and superior culture, embracing temples, metalwork, agriculture, animals, pottery, weaving, commercial law, civil codes, religious ceremonial, and an old system of writing. At the beginning of the historical era they had long since lost the alphabet of Dalamatia, having adopted the peculiar writing system originating in Dilmun. The Sumerian language, though virtually lost to the world, was not Semitic; it had much in common with the so-called Aryan tongues.” UB 77:4.7
Document 69, “Primitive Human Institutions,” refers to the origin of modern writing, that is, the writing that gave rise to and has evolved to our present times:
“Modern writing originated in the early trade records; the first literature of man was a trade-promotion document, a salt advertisement. Many of the earlier wars were fought over natural deposits, such as flint, salt, and metals. The first formal tribal treaty concerned the intertribalizing of a salt deposit. These treaty spots afforded opportunity for friendly and peaceful interchange of ideas and the intermingling of various tribes.” UB 69:4.6
“Writing progressed up through the stages of the “message stick,” knotted cords, picture writing, hieroglyphics, and wampum belts, to the early symbolic alphabets. Message sending evolved from the primitive smoke signal up through runners, animal riders, railroads, and airplanes, as well as telegraph, telephone, and wireless communication.” UB 69:4.7
Combining what is said in the interview with what appears in the Book, we can understand the advancement that the emergence of writing represented in the evolution of civilization. In short, we could say that there was an attempt at its implementation, during the time of the Planetary Prince, and another emergence, somehow related to that one, carried out by the Sumerian people, I suppose thanks to their Nodite ancestry. It is clear that writing is an important element in the development of civilizations. It would be unthinkable to maintain an advanced civilization without any form of writing, although it is also true, as Mario Liverani says in the interview, that there have been cultures without writing.
What is a real shame is that the teachings of the Dalamatian era were ruined by the rebellion, which resulted in the failure to develop a single writing system and, by extension, a single global language.