I was watching a TV documentary on the Mayan culture and one of the points that was made is that Mayan writing is one of only 5 original writing systems in the world. Does anyone know what the other 4 are ? I was thinking things like Egyptian Hyroglyphics, Chinese characters etc. Am I thingking in the right direction? Any help in this matter would be appreciated.
Writing almost certainly was developed independently in:
- Mesoamerica (the Maya, et al)
- China
- the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia
There is also evidence that it developed independently in:
- the Indus valley
- Egypt
… but that’s a more recent, slightly less established belief.
I think the understanding of Mesopotamia is that writing evolved from simpler means of marking wrapped goods and representing said goods abstractly in that day’s equivalents of ledgers, ship’s/caravan’s manifests, bills of sale, etc.–so a mark in clay came to indicate wheat, which later became the symbol for wheat in extra-trade writings, etc.
In China, I believe it developed more from oracular works (the earliest written symbols are on oracle bones, etc., used for divination).
I’m pretty sure that Sumerian (Mesopotamia) writing is the earliest recorded writing system in the world, and it did arise from merchants and bookkeeping. Sumerians did a lot of trading because of their strategic location between the Tigris and Euphrates, which were ancient thoroughfares.
A fun cite for this is the Cartoon History of the Universe (1st collection, vols. 1-7), if anyone’s interested.