When did people start to read and write?
About 5,200 years ago, the Sumerians were the first people
to invent writing. They drew picture symbols of goods bought and sold by scratching on the tablets of soft clay. Only specially trained scribes could read them. Over the next 200 years. they invented a pattern of symbols which were etched on to soft clay with a reed. This type of writing was called ‘cuneiform’ which means wedge – shaped.
