• blargle@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    This is kind of how I feel about the idea of the very first writing being chiseled in stone or engraved on clay tablets. If there was a much older civilization that never did that but invented paper and pencils instead, we’d probably never know it.

    • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 days ago

      Writing on the ground is probably No. 1 then maybe carving with a stone into wood/bark as No. 2 but yeah, lots of stuff we will never see or know about because they werent preserved.

      • deo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        Or because it’s not immediately recognizable as writing. I wonder how long it would have taken archeologists to figure out the quipu was actually a knot-based writing system without the Spanish mentioning their use by the Incas in their records of the invasion.