Episode 246: The Oldest Known Song and Other Ancient Tales
Aug 2, 2026 · 11 min · 7 segments
Well behaved copper ingot merchants rarely make history. Be sure to like, and share with a friend! Music…
Aug 2, 2026 · 11 min · 7 segments
Well behaved copper ingot merchants rarely make history. Be sure to like, and share with a friend! Music…
So let's take ourselves back to the Bronze Age, which is anywhere from 3000 BC to 1 BC, which for those who don't understand BC, that's up to 5000 years ago.
Egypt during this time was known for hieroglyphics, but there was another hot new writing method sweeping the land in the form of cuneiform tablets.
On a small side note, it does seem that cuneiform was actually developed slightly before hieroglyphics, and the hieroglyphics actually probably take some inspiration from cuneiform.
But the hieroglyphics were pretty pictures, so that's what we think about.
There were specific people, which we would now term scribes, who were very proficient in cuneiform writing.
They would use a wedge-shaped stylus to make the cuneiform marks, usually on clay tablets.
These tablets were surprisingly often around the size of modern smartphones.
Ha ha ha, we've been holding info in our hands for millennia.
But interestingly, it seems that these tablets were often meant not to be preserved, that once the messages were received, the clay would be reused.
However, more permanent messages would be purposefully kiln-fired to make them sturdy.
It's thought that many of the tablets that have survived into the modern day were accidentally preserved by fires or the sun, something very hot to give them the durability to actually withstand the test of time.
So let's take ourselves back to the Bronze Age, which is anywhere from 3000 BC to 1 BC, which for those who don't understand BC, that's up to 5000 years ago.
Egypt during this time was known for hieroglyphics, but there was another hot new writing method sweeping the land in the form of cuneiform tablets.
On a small side note, it does seem that cuneiform was actually developed slightly before hieroglyphics, and the hieroglyphics actually probably take some inspiration from cuneiform.
But the hieroglyphics were pretty pictures, so that's what we think about.
There were specific people, which we would now term scribes, who were very proficient in cuneiform writing.
They would use a wedge-shaped stylus to make the cuneiform marks, usually on clay tablets.
These tablets were surprisingly often around the size of modern smartphones.
Ha ha ha, we've been holding info in our hands for millennia.
But interestingly, it seems that these tablets were often meant not to be preserved, that once the messages were received, the clay would be reused.
However, more permanent messages would be purposefully kiln-fired to make them sturdy.
It's thought that many of the tablets that have survived into the modern day were accidentally preserved by fires or the sun, something very hot to give them the durability to actually withstand the test of time.
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