2000 year old technological marvel still in use today

You could make a drinking game out of headlines proclaiming the death of books.  But the book itself was just a change from previous writing and record keeping systems… and in many cases never fully got rid of the predessors.  Tablets, scrolls, and stone inscriptions are still in use today, they just aren’t the primary form of conveying written information.  Each time there’s a leap forward in written records it doesn’t totally displace the old system, it just expands who has access to writing of any form.

But getting to the book we know today wasn’t exactly a straight path either.  There were stops in between the giant stone block and today’s paperback.  Some alternate systems still persist even today.

Cuneiform was the earliest form of writing and lasted for 3000 years.  The exact appearance shifted over that time, but the basics stayed the same.  Take a wedge shaped stylus into clay to make marks.  Let clay dry (or fire for long term storage).  Then you had a hard, durable record.  Early tablets were primarily used for accounting purposes and then slowly came to be used to record other things.   While these can be broken, cunniform tablets still turn up today.  An archaeological team in Israel recently found cuneiform tablets with some of the earliest known legal texts on them. They’re roughly 3700-3800 years old.

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How Our Town Started, Lamar Colorado

Once upon a time, in 1886, there were a lot of people who wanted the American Dream. In other words, they wanted to make big pots of money, and/or own a nice piece of land. Strangely enough, one way certain entrepreneurs made money at the end of that century was in making towns. Air towns, … Read more