Writing

Writing is common to most human cultures across the world as a way of communicating messages and information.

Read on to discover:

• What is writing?
  Why and how did people start recording information?
• Historic writing
  Find out how the earliest writing developed in different parts of the world.
• Decipherment
  How we discovered the lost languages of the past.
• Literacy
  The value of being able to read and write.

The British Museum collection contains thousands of objects with writing on them from different periods and cultures, made from a variety of materials.

As well as representing the enormous variety of scripts from history, the collection includes some of the great texts and records of the civilisations that developed them. As a result, the collection not only illuminates the history of writing, but holds a library of humanity’s memories.

More information about objects featured here (from top)

Tablet recording the allocation of beer, southern Iraq