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History of Writing - Where the Story Begins - Extra History (Patreon)

Published:
2016-06-03 12:00:35
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

For 5600 years, writing has given us the ability to transmit thoughts over generations and make vast strides in understanding.

Files

Previews only

The History of Writing - Where the Story Begins - Extra History

How did the ancient civilization of Sumer first develop the concept of the written word? It all began with simple warehouse tallies in the temples, but as the scribes sought more simple ways to record information, those tallies gradually evolved from pictograms into cuneiform text which could be used to convey complex, abstract, or even lyrical ideas.

Comments

Bright Ops

I would love to see a series done on the first human city (Or at least the oldest that we know about) and the impact that it has had on Human development to this day. I would -love- to know what sort of influence is still hanging around 5600 years on.

Danny Michaelis

Great work everyone! I would love to see more one-offs or maybe mini-series about ideas. I'd love to know how counting and numbers evolved. How and when did the arabic system overtake the roman numeral?

Nicholas Russell

More multi-part series based off of this kind of idea I am totally behind. Like this episode reminded me a lot of James Burke's Connections. That was a series where he could start exploring the origins of money and seeing how that led to radar technology in a single episode. Awesome episode man.

eisprinzessin

I think stuff like this is a great addition to Extra History.

Robin Uney

I loved this episode, and I can see a lot of promise in the one-shot format, even if only to gauge interest in a particular subject or theme. I'd love to see an episode sometime on the migration of ideas. How ideas spread, through which vectors and how commonly held ideas got their rocky starts.

Matt Lakits doesn't have the mental energy to update their Patreon name anymore, but still listens to every episode avidly!

Very insteresting episode. Clear, self-contained, not too much information but not sounding oversimplified (afaik) either. A follow-up on the invention of the alphabet would be nice! You could also make a call-back to the Palmyra episodes and the current situation of Syrian antiquities, with the Ugaritic alphabet and all that. (obvs, Palmyra=/Ugarit, but you know what I mean)

NVixen (Veronica)

This is great! It's like a treat for the mind. :3

shadowscribble

Lovely episode. Nice break from the meatier stuff. I loved the way my college history teacher presented the adoption of writing; "Suppose you have to inform the pharaoh a levee has failed, and when asked where it is and you (going on memory) rattle off something like directions you'd get out on a country road (cross the channel, down three farms, turn left at the big rock). So he sends his people out to fix the levee. They follow your instructions... to the middle of field. The pharaoh's embarrassed, you're dead."

Keith Richards

This reminds me a lot of the stuff you learn studying Japanese Kanji... always a huge backstory for each character, starting off as an abstract drawing of grain, then the grain coming to be associated with 'life', life being associated with 'blue,... hence the modern symbol for 'blue' is also associated with the idea of 'young', and so on. I would be very interested in seeing a contrast between the evolution of modern pictographic writing systems (i.e. Chinese and its derivatives) and phonetic ones. (e.g. Latin and Cyrillic.) It would probably also warrant mentioning Korean hangeul, which is a pretty clever merging of the two concepts.

Tower Lachesism

This is all Extra History that doesn't get talked about elsewhere so it'd be a fantastic addition to the mix and fit right in here! If you could manage to grab an idea that segues the series into each other that'd be pretty impressive to boot but as distinct entities to punctuate between big arcs of history works well too!

Dave Langlinais

SO - since you asked for feedback - I like this One-off about ideas." Greatly like it, in fact. One caveat, though: seeing how you guys already pull off such amazing multi-episode feats about people and/or events in history (and are really good about hitting your weekly deadlines, albeit sometimes it's a close call), I would add a word of caution about allocating too much attention toward these new One-off episodes - since everything you do requires (what I'm sure is a vast amount of) research - that's got to eat up a LOT of your resources. Namely, time. So, please, DO make these One-off episodes! But DON'T do it at the expense or sacrifice of what you already have been doing so goddamn well!

Hasan Mahmood

I for one totally back this. Keep up the good work.

Robbie the Gnome

It's an excellent episode and a subject that does not get spoken of much. I like the one off ideas to cover topics that you couldn't otherwise make into full 6 episodes or just want to give a taste for in order to qauge interest.

Jeffrey Schneider

Great episode. I love the idea about the history of ideas :)

Brian Rose

So wait now, are you guys still doing a series on Writing after the series on the Gracchi?

Matteo Cina

Honestly, did not enjoy this. I guess it could be cool to do the "history of ideas" but maybe try something like "Democracy" or "revolution" opposed to "writing"

Amy Reynolds

Fantastic episode! I had a blast and I'd love to see you guys delve more into this and similar subjects.

SideShot

oh it certainly was interesting to hear the logical steps that went into the development of writing. I also like seeing these one-offs so yeah, keep it up!

pm

Very interesting! How about the history of math? That goes hand in hand with the idea of the beginnings of writing and the abstraction of ideas.

Forrest Venable

Definitely interested, but something newer might give you more resources to build a narrative around

Paul Lenoue

Keep doing these one offs! Will there be a poll for us to choose which one-offs will be next?

Nessf

Definitely interested in more history on ideas - and one non-patron friend just reported to me that so is she.

Nessf
>>1911577

Were they ever? I thought History of Money was one of the ones coming up later, not Writing.

Laura Galm

Neat idea, what other videos were you thinking of? I was thinking about suggesting Bread and Beer for a series topic. But I am not sure it has enough....meat on it. Damn Puns.

Platus

This was really great. It was actually really disappointing when you said at the end that this was a one-off. I would love to see this topic explored in more depth - not only with the development of alphabets and literary education and all the other stuff that goes into the widespread adoption of writing systems, but also stuff like the development of the codex, the printing press, even how things like typewriters and word processors (and the adoption of the QWERTY letter arrangement) changed the way people think about the written word. I already know that modernist poets like, for instance, Ezra Pound had their poetry writing hugely affected by the adoption of the typewriter, but I'd love to see the topic explored in more depth - especially if you can put it all in the context of the history of writing as a whole. The tiny Marshall McLuhan that lives in my brain would be eternally grateful.

JaxiFye

Please do more of these! I would love one on the history of maps or just the history of whether the world is round or not (or shaped like a pizza) (or carried on the back of 4 elephants who in turn stand on a turtle)

Josh Kendall

I like episodes about ideas, but I like the one off format so that more of them can be covered, as it appears to me that there isn't as much specific detail needed as in the history of events.

Alexander Vornoff

I love stuff like this. The human stories behind so much of history are endlessly fascinating and give me so much to think about. Every now and again though I like to dig into the history of ideas and technology. It gives me a new angle to think from. As another reason why another history of writing episode would be welcome, consider the fact that Egyptian hieroglyphics are the only written language to use a phonetic alphabet, ideograms and pictograms all at the same time. Or the fact that Korean Hangul characters are stylized representations of the movement of the lips, teeth and tongue to form sounds. There's so much to dig into.

Aaron hutchinson

I liked the episode. I liked learning about the development of something so profoundly used. Along with fire & the wheel I feel that it's one of the most important innovations we've created.

Anonymous

This is pretty cool... Why you not only do these episodes on ideas, but also individual inventions, such as gunpowder.

Anonymous

This is pretty cool... Why you not only do these episodes on ideas, but also individual inventions, such as gunpowder.

TerraN0va

I absolutely loved this episode. Examining such "basics" makes you just the more aware how much of our culture is owed to the written word, to history and the learning of generations before our own.

TerraN0va

I absolutely loved this episode. Examining such "basics" makes you just the more aware how much of our culture is owed to the written word, to history and the learning of generations before our own.

Anonymous

Yes, more of this sort of thing please. Maybe an episode (Or a series...) on how we all came to accept the nation-state as pretty much the only legitimate form of government.

Christoph Taege

Great episode! Please look into more of these!

Batman O'Brien

Love it. But now I want an extra history channel dedicated to philosophy and all ideas.

Rebecca Holt

I love this idea! More please!

ExtraCredits
>>1910502

I've actually been researching that a bit on my own, just for fun! If I feel like it'd make a good episode I'll definitely pitch it to the EH crew. -Soraya

ExtraCredits
>>1910685

Oh, man - that would be rough. I feel like you could take a swing at it by focusing on one specific idea, though!

ExtraCredits
>>1910759

Glad you enjoyed it! The invention of the alphabet is definitely something we'd like to do if we go further down this particular path.

ExtraCredits
>>1911086

"Don't kill the messenger, because the messenger isn't even in the room with you and he's prepared to run really fast."

ExtraCredits
>>1911096

I accidentally clicked on your name instead of the reply button and saw your profile pic... WHAT? JUST... WHAT?

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>>1911128

I WOULD LOVE TO TALK ABOUT HANGUL. There's a tiny museum in the Seoul airport where you can learn a bit about Korean history, and one of the mini-exhibits there was about the invention of hangul. Since I was stuck there for a few hours anyway, and I'm a huge nerd, of course I went to that museum and drank in everything I could - with the hangul exhibit being my favorite. Obviously, a few hours in an airport museum isn't enough to make me knowledgable, but I'd love to research more about it. -Soraya

ExtraCredits
>>1911329

One-off episodes fall into the gap between main series - basically, we allot 6 weeks of art time, plus one week of "Lies" time, to each series, but not every series turns out to be 6 episodes long. In those cases, we do little one-offs to fill the gap before the next artist takes over and begins a new series! We also use them to give James a breather, as I can step in an write one-offs (in fact, next week's episode will be one of mine!) So I think we've got a pretty good schtick going here, but I have to say, I tremendously appreciate you recognizing how much extra time and research goes into learning about a new subject well enough to write about it. Not everyone does understand that! -Soraya

ExtraCredits
>>1911534

Yeah, I think the one-offs have an important role fulfilling both of those needs! Some historical events or characters just aren't very well recorded, which means there's not enough information about them to carry a six (or even four) episode main series... but in those cases, a one-off lets us talk about them regardless! And we totally do use them to gauge - or incite! - interest in a related topic that maybe doesn't get much love.

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>>1911571

Glad you enjoyed! Guess we're gonna have to start figuring out what other ideas we can cover. :)

ExtraCredits
>>1911577

Oh! Brian! Now I understand your question from the other post! I suppose Arthur's cleared that up for us, though. :)

ExtraCredits
>>1911583

History of democracy would be a lot of fun. It seems some folks did enjoy the history of writing, enough so that we'll probably try other ideas, but we'll be sure to mix it up so hopefully everyone finds a topic that interests them.

ExtraCredits
>>1911787

I spent way too much time looking for the perfect example of Sumerians making a word by combining other words before I finally settled on "food + water = fish"... so yeah! This was a blast for us, too.

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>>1911933

Yeah, I remember having the briefest introduction to this back in middle school, but it was basically "scribes invented writing to keep track of goods coming into the temple." I didn't even realize how much more detail we had available until I saw this script!

ExtraCredits
>>1911985

I looove the history of math and the history of the sciences. We'd probably have to pick a particular topic within that broad field, but I would adore the chance to talk about it. -Soraya

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>>1912129

Yeah, we probably wouldn't do a full series with most of these "history of ideas" approaches. There might be a few that have a meaty enough story, but generally I think one-offs like this would be best suited.

Hasan Mahmood
>>1911508

I shall also throw the idea of a future subject for one of these videos at you: The Concept of Zero

ExtraCredits
>>1912192

No, unfortunately, one-offs are something we can't put up for a vote. Basically, when we do a vote on the main series, we're often putting up topics that we don't know much about yet and will have to research from scratch, which takes quite a lot of time! With one-offs, we choose the ones that we already know something about, and/or have access to sources for already, so it's a lot easier for us to do them on a shorter schedule. But we'll keep trying to find interesting ones!

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>>1912396

Ha! We hadn't really gotten so far as to *plan* others yet, though I'm sure James has a few ideas floating around in his brain (like always). This seems to be very well-received so far, so we'll probably start thinking about it a bit more proactively now!

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>>1912400

We can always come back to those - either as separate one-offs, or as a main series if the vote goes that way! After all, the Early Christian Schisms started out as an idea for a one-off to supplement the Justinian & Theodora series, but it became a series in its own right. :)

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>>1912434

In my first scan, I read this as "history of pizza..." and now I really want pizza. And the history of pizza. Drat.

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>>1912464

I think that's often the case with early history especially. A lot of these things are poorly attested, and in some cases there's still a lot of argument about what's history vs myth. But yeah, unless we find a topic that really does have a lot of meat to it, we're happy to keep approaching these as occasional one-offs! And we'll also continue to do one-offs like our previous ones on Odenathus, Mary Seacole, or the Sanitation Movement.

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>>1912494

You could do an entire series on the history of languages - and I'd bet that there is either a YouTube channel or podcast doing it! I recall James mentionining once that he was listening to some podcast about the English language, though I don't know if that was a focus or a digression for that podcast.

Josh Kendall
>>1912464

I loved all of those, and you guys can make any topic interesting. Just keep doing what you're doing

Mask

I want Fishing and Pottery next. You know, the things required to get writing.

Ben

This was fun. Enjoyed it a lot!

Nicholas Russell
>>1910668

That I'd recommend. The whole series is available on youtube so if you do a search for it you'll probably find it.

Byron Becker

The Sumer didn't invent writing - it was Walpole!

Robert S

what a lovely piece! I would certainly be interested in hearing more about the history of ideas, as we wouldnt have much of a society to learn about without them.

Robert S

Also, if you continue with writing, are you going to cover ea-nasir the dodgy copper merchant?

Tsp1721

I want to preface my thoughts on future episodes on the "history of ideas" with how I liked the episode itself. While I came into the episode very skeptical, I believe you guys did an admirable job on this topic. It is a truly massive subject and always an ongoing debate. My one real problem is that it claims in it's title to discuss a topic much larger than what is addressed. Not to say that it didn't discuss the "history of writing", but it covered a rather small sub-topic (as it should given it is a one-off). It could mislead many in what exactly you are looking to tackle (and is why I came into the episode very skeptical). I would tighten the title next time you do something like this, such as naming it "The Beginnings of Writing: Sumer" or some such. That said, I enjoyed what you did discuss in the episode and I think it was well constructed._______________ On the topic of more of these 'histories of ideas', I absolutely love the concept, but am cautious about it. History is much more than the events, dates, or even perceptions of the various civilizations studied. In history there is much more behind the scenes in ideas that contain many layers, and these ideas touch on an incredibly wide range of topics. It would be an amazing way to connect periods of times, as ideas (such as Freedom or Revolution) tend to continually pop throughout the course of history. Studying these ideas in little one-offs would be a great way to attempt to tie the history talked about in the many series that have been, and will eventually be made. However, my word of caution comes with the scope you attempt to tackle these topics. Such as with this episode on writing, most of these 'history of ideas' concepts will be MASSIVE in scope, and would require multiple 6 episode series to really cover. I would suggest to look at rather specifics aspects of ideas in each of these one-offs, and over time you could accumulate quite a repertoire of topics on a specific idea. I do not mean to say you should not at the very least attempt these, even when trying to tackle it in a much bigger sense. I think that discussing these histories is more important than keeping it completely grounded. I just hope that these one-offs will not try to tackle something too big, and thus will inevitably fail in an educational and introductory manner due to information oversimplification and overload. I hope you take my suggestions to heart, from one historian to another, and keep making these episodes the best they can be.

pm
>>1911985

An oldy but a goody is the history of the invention of (modern) Calculus, Newton and Liebnez. Always a crowd pleaser. It'd be interesting, but I'm unsure how familiar the audience would be with the story (it might bore them if it were too familiar), Or there's Turing, building the Bombes (primitive computers) to decrypt the Nazi Enigma. I'm guessing you're looking for topics with a human component so they don't become too abstract and lose people?

Russell Uresti

So, as someone who's generally inquisitive, I like the idea of a History of Ideas. However, I'm not 100% sold. I'd like to communicate what I really like about Extra Credits: History and then you might be able to see where I'm coming from. I think the reason Extra Credits gets the attention and praise that it does is because of the way in which it talks about history. Most courses on history talk about events and dates and barely names the people involved. EC talks about the people - their motivations, fears, desires, etc. What's great about this, and why I think it works, is that it allows you to become emotionally invested in that person. You begin to care about the people themselves and it no longer feels like the events happened to some stranger or even the concept of a person in the past, but rather a living, breathing person that we might know. Next, most EC topics follow the arc of an actual story. You're presented with a protagonist, an antagonist, minor trials and tribulations that all seem to add up to a climactic event. Character come in and out, the protagonist faces opposition and, through luck, skill, and determination, manages to overcome even the most challenging odds. This method of conveying historic events, combined with the off-hands facts and humanizing details about an individual, is what makes the EC format work so well. We see this format work well with Justinian, Hannibal, Yi, etc. And that's what makes me worry about topics that are just abstract ideas. There's no one to root for. There's no room for true emotional investment. The only way I think this works is by tying the idea (let's say the idea of Democracy or the abolition of slavery) to the people throughout history that championed it and the challenges those individuals faced - often losing their individual fights but the idea surviving beyond them to eventually be realized. I think that would allow us to see that certain ideas that we take for granted now may not have even made it here if not for certain people and events and then allow us a new perspective and a greater appreciation for those ideas.

Curtis Fric

The Wheel: These ancient people accidentally rolled an egg down a hill and realized circular things moved on their own. The end! -- But seriously I am a fan of the idea to explore an individual idea such as writing through a historical perspective!

Daikaiju

This is an excllent approach for broader subjects. More!

Moses Lambert

Absolutely fine - looking forward to more like this.

John Rushing

I know you guys probably have a lot of ideas for future topics in this vein, and I think this video proves you can do it well enough to start. Looking forward to more.

Porcupine

Can't seem find my +1 button - where do I click for MOAR...?

Dani McKenzie
>>1910668

It's a fabulous series (thought you'll laugh at the clothes and hairstyles). His facts aren't always accurate, but imnsho, this is one of the very best ways to teach the intersection of science/math, history, and the arts.

Dani McKenzie
>>1911275

My suspicion is that someone on the original Civ team was a James Burke fan..... (yes, I think there's a huge tie between Civ and Connections)

Dani McKenzie

What all the others have said. Have 1 more request. Any option of posting the sources used for the episodes? Would be a starting point for any rat holes I want to go diving into. :-)

Karl Andersson

This is great! More idea contents! :)

Slobodan

Is good, wan't moar! :3

ExtraCredits
>>1915452

I thought about adding "Sumer" to the subtitle of this series, but I didn't. It's always a fine line with YouTube titles. I try not to fall back on clickbait titles ("The Weird Way Writing Began!") but I do want our titles to be evocative and appealing in ways that honestly reflect the content. Here, I was afraid that not only would adding "Sumer" bog down the length of an already-long title, but it would also put off people who aren't already into this topic, who have never heard of Sumer, and whose reponse to a title that said "History of Writing: Sumer" would be "I don't care about Sumer, so I don't care about the history of their writing." Whereas leaving the title more broad helps them to understand that this piece of ancient history connects to the type of writing they know and use today. That being said, you'll notice that "ancient civilization of Sumer" is the first thing emphasized in the video's *description,* which is my way to off-set the vagueness in the title. ____________ Our episodes are always treading a fine line with approachability: we want this series to engage people who aren't into history, and that means we focus a lot on finding narratives that can move things forward. Going much deeper than this on the topic of writing for this era specifically wouldn't really have worked because we didn't have much of a narrative to tie it to. Obviously, a more thorough historian could write multiple books about this subject that we've covered here so briefly! But if EH qualifies as a good, responsible introduction to the topic, then we're happy. If it inspires someone to look into it more and find those historians who've given the topic the detailed treatment it deserves, then we're *thrilled.* _______ Finally, having these one-offs as an option allows us some flexibility when it comes to how deeply we think a particular topic should be covered! After all, patrons voted to make the "History of Paper Money" a full series all on its own, so that one's going to get the more thorough treatment. (But don't ask me how James is going to carry the narrative from China to Europe because I have NO idea, haha!) Anyway, since that one is also the history of an idea, but given the longer form treatment, I'll be curious to hear what you think of it when it comes out!

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>>1915845

I totally get that. Our efforts to bring a narrative layer, with protagonists and antagonists and all that, are part of the usual structure of the show, and I think part of what makes it so watchable. It's going to be an interesting thing to grapple with though if we ever want to do ancient history (and we do) because so often, the notable people from that era are so shrouded in mythology that we're not sure what, if any, historical reality they occupied (hello, Gilgamesh!). With later inventions, even if we do history of ideas, I think we can have the best of both worlds: explore a new idea and find characters to fall in love with. (We'll see if that's true when the History of Paper series comes up this winter, I suspect). But we'll have to keep poking our way around ancient history to see what approach makes the most sense for this show.

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>>1915413

This is it for writing (for now!) Ea-nasir sounds like a real jerk, though. Shame on him and his dodgy copper!

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>>1916602

I remember watching some cartoon when I was a kid where a guy got stuck in a hollowed out log and got accidentally kicked down a hill. While he's getting banged around a little idea pops up over his head: the wheel! That's a really poor description because I barely, barely remember it but I always think of that poor cartoon man when someone mentions the invention of the wheel.

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>>1918360

We're gonna have to feel our way through a bit to keep improving the approach, but so far it seems to be doing well, and I'm really glad you enjoyed it!

John Rushing
>>1918360

Absolutely. It was obviously different from previous videos/topics, but an imprecise subject is going to have a more subtle video. I think all us viewers understand that. Cheers, guys. Keep on keeping on.

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>>1918944

No, James wants to take the "teach to fish" approach on sources for Extra History. From time to time he'll recommend a source that stood out to him (and feel free to keep asking for series if you're having trouble finding your first rat hole), but only as a starting point, not a full list.

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>>1910668

I'm not about to judge a person for taking a new approach to make ideas and research interesting so more people can share in them. And I don't mind doing my own fact-checking either. :)

Matthew Foweraker

It's such a strange idea that we all swallow so easily. I absolutely want more of these sorts of videos.

Martin Ockovsky
>>1911096

Yeah ^^ when I posted it on my Facebook, my friends said that I won't be coming back. You see, I love penis. The word and the shape. I use it a lot. I call myself Penis aggregator because everyone knows that I like them, so everyone is sending me any penis related jokes, articles, etc. When there was made a giant penis in the snow in Sweden (if I remember correctly) they asked "so you were in Sweden?" I get that a lot. Sorry for sharing :D

Gabriel Baron

Love the concept! More idea videos pls :)

Mikkel Kaas

Very interesting video. It's an interesting thoughtg, how something that seem so basic to us, really have to be developed over millenia, to get to where it is today. And how writing today is still developing, with texting and chatting introducering several new words and abbreviations.