This same paradigm of the use of script is seen in other ancient cultures. In ancient Egypt the god Thoth (not surprisingly, the patron god of scribes) created script. Thoth "was considered skilled in magic and became the patron of all scribes throughout the nation. Thoth appears in the Horus legends and was depicted in every age as the god who `loved truth and hated abomination'" (Bunson, 264). This association of the scribe with truth, with writing as truth, remains a constant in other cultures.
In China, script began during the Shang Dynasty around the year 1200 BCE through the use of oracle bones in the practice of divination.
In China, script began during the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE) around the year 1200 BCE through the use of oracle bones in the practice of divination. Questons were carved into the shell of a turtle or bone of an animal and that object would then be exposed to intense heat. The resultant cracks in the shell or bone would provide the diviner with an answer to the question posed. This answer, however, came not from the mortal diviner but from the divine realm and, thus, was irrefutable truth. From this beginning, script evolved into the written expression of the spoken language of China which, once set down, became the truth, as in the truth of historical events as interpreted and set down by a writer such as Sima Qian or the records of the court or those of merchants' transactions.
As trade connected tribes of diverse languages, some mutually intelligible mode of record and communication became desirable. Presumably the numerals were among the earliest written symbols, usually taking the form of parallel marks representing the fingers; we still call them fingers when we speak of them as digits. Such words as five, the German funf and the Greek pente go back to a root meaning hand; so the Roman numerals indicated fingers, `V' represented an expanded hand and `X' was merely two `V's' connected at their points. Writing was in its beginnings a form of drawing, an art. (76).
This art of script would come to produce some of the most meaningful pieces of writing in the history of the world. From The Epic of Gilgamesh to the Hymns of Enheduanna to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the great Greek epics of Homer, The Mahabharata of India, the Aeneid of Virgil and, more modestly, the letters written by the people of Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Greece, India, Rome, and all the other nations of the ancient world, script has communicated the most important, most heroic, and also the most practical and basic, aspects of the human condition.
Mark, Joshua J. "Script." Ancient History Encyclopedia. Last modified September 02, 2009. https://www.ancient.eu/script/.
Mark, Joshua J. "Script." Ancient History Encyclopedia. Ancient History Encyclopedia, 02 Sep 2009. Web. 18 Apr 2019.