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Earliest Evidence of Writing Found in Southern Egypt
From the BASNY Explorer
Evidence of the earliest known writing has been found on clay tablets
in a southern Egyptian tomb belonging to King Scorpion, who ruled in
the south over 5000 years ago, just prior to the foundation of the
First Dynasty. Gustave Dryer, head of the German Archaeological
Institute that made the find said that the tablets record linen and
oil deliveries made about 5,300 years ago as tithe to King Scorpion
I, which indicates that although ancient Egyptians tried to avoid
death they never learned to avoid taxes. He also said the tablets
have been carbon-dated with certainty to between 3300 BCE and 3200 BCE.
The writings were in the form of line drawings of animals, plants and
mountains, and suggest that hieroglyphs evolved over time rather than
suddenly appear. Like many early chieftains, Scorpion took an animal
name for himself. Other early chiefs had names such as mouse, falcon,
elephant and so on. Each of the symbols stood for a consonant and the
scribes combined the symbols to create words. For example, the city
named Ba-set was written by putting together a throne, known as Ba,
and a stork, set. So far the team has found over three hundred
pieces with some writing on it and they have deciphered about two-thirds
of them.
Kent Weeks, the distinguished Egyptologist, said, “This would be
one of the greatest discoveries in the history of writing and ancient
Egyptian culture.”
The find challenges the present view that true writing originated in
Mesopotamia before it appeared in Egypt, but the issue is still
unsettled. In any event, we now know that a sophisticated Egyptian
civilization eveolved much earlier than previously thought.
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