Historia de Costa Rica

The writing is a system of chart of a Langue, by means of sign S registered or drawn on a support.

The invention of the writing by the man corresponds in the passing of the Préhistoire to the Histoire in a transition several millenia.

Old archaeological documents as the tokens of the valley of Indus seem to indicate that certain men of the first urban civilizations succeeded in appearing (to transcribe) the quantities and some other elements like the proper names or the titles, before starting to transcribe the languages. Can one deduce from it that the man learned how to count before inventing any written form? It is not impossible. If the writing, like the history, “starts with Sumer” (to quote Noah Kramer), i.e. if it is attested starting from an approximate date (towards -3.600, in Sumer), this does not mean that it was unknown before (see controversies).

The man most probably did not write “spontaneously” on clay shelves without preliminary tests. He does not fix the writing for eternity (he thinks) only as from the moment when he controls it sufficiently.

History of the writing

The writing in a strict sense (transcription of the word) has existed for approximately 5000 years. It appeared in forms different in a handle from urban civilizations: Egypt, Mésopotamie, China, India and, more tardily, Mésoamérique. The semiotic history of the Humanité does not start with the writing, but with graphic arts (Grotte of Lascaux for example but well of others also in the world in Africa and America), and, perhaps in the past still with the ornaments of ornament (collar of shells for example). According to number 5 of the review " Great secrecies of the archéologie" (August-September - October 2007), the writing would have appeared in Mésopotamie towards 3500-3400 and Egypt towards 3300 before JC.

One allots to the writing the following origins:

The transactions between distant regions required the installation of contracts. These contracts were clay hollow balls locking up of the calculi, of the small clay shapes (clay) symbolizing numbers under three aspects…:

of the spheres,
of the cones,
of the cylinders

… to which one added with the conventional forms to indicate the exchanged things. In the event of dispute, one broke the dry ball, on which one had affixed his seal for control, and one compared the quantity of calculi and the delivery.

These transactions becoming increasingly complex, the system of calculi was kept but, to remember the content of the contract, in addition to the seals one indicated by signs on the outside of the still fresh clay ball, the container of this ball, so much in quantity (the number) that in quality (contracted things). For these signs, one used a rather fine stick named Calame, whose one cut an end in corner or skew and leaving the other cut of square: there was the means there of drawing a corner, a round and a cone, representing these calculi and to draw the conventional forms. One ends up quite simply flattening this clay ball and drawing (to write) on his two faces the contents of the contract: what, how much and when, and always using this small stick.

It is also the origin of the wedge-shaped writing (of which the drawing has as a base the shape of corner) by forsaking the round and cylindrical form.

Historia de Costa Rica

History of the writing

Written forms