To put it briefly, it saved money. But I think that answer is a little short for us. Let’s look a little deeper into the nitty gritty of why that is. To begin with, you should know that writing dates back to approximately 3300 years BC. This is the period from which the first traces of writing have been found in the temples of the cities of Uruk, now in present-day Iraq. At that time, the Sumerians wrote on clay tablets. But this writing was composed of pictograms or symbols representing a word or concept, not like the alphabetic writing we use today.    See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.