1: Who Really Had the First Written Language?

In this podcast episode, the hosts discuss the discovery of ancient clay tags in a tomb in Egypt. These tags depict different towns, numbers, and symbols, and are considered to be complete hieroglyphs. The tomb is believed to belong to a king known as the Scorpion King I, who is thought to have united Upper and Lower Egypt. The discovery challenges the commonly accepted belief that the Sumerians in Mesopotamia were the first to develop writing. The hosts also discuss other artifacts found in the tomb and the practice of mummification in ancient Egypt. Welcome to Inland Quilt History, where two completely unqualified, yet passionate hosts retell a story from history. I'm Emily, and this is my wonderful co-host, Morgan. So, since this is our first podcast episode, we should probably introduce ourselves. Should we? I think we should. You go first. Okay. I'm Morgan. I live in a place at a time that is the present and also history. Yes. Everything is history. Yes. But I guess as far as any history qualifications I have, I took history in school. I took a few history courses in college. I did take a prehistory class that really was taught by an archaeologist. Oh, also, fun fact. His specialty was salt. That's a fun fact. He studied salt. He was telling us, you can tell about different foods that people ate at that time, and what are certain minerals that were around at that time. I was like, that's neat, but it's also salt. Wild. Yes. And I have a sister who's an archaeologist. So, I am qualified by proxy, I guess. You're the most qualified of the two of us, only by that. All right. Yeah, so I'm Emily. I, too, am unqualified to be doing this, but we're going to have a good time doing it. I'm sure y'all can tell. I'm southern. She's southern. We've been friends for 20 years. This is just how we sound. I still live in the south. So, get ready. Yeah. Yeah, I still live in the south, so this is, every accent's a southern one now. So, sorry about that. Yeah. So, are we ready to get to it? Let's do it. Would you like to describe our disclosure? Oh, yes. Full disclosure. We have taken some creative liberty with the scenes and the characters. So, there will be some truth sprinkled into the scenes that we talk about. But, like I said, everyone's going to have a southern accent. We only know one. So, and it's Appalachian. Sorry. And if you say Appalachia, I'm going to throw in Appalachia. That's how you remember it. It's Appalachia. All right. So, with our first one. What are we talking about today? Well, since it's our first episode, we decided that we were going to go with first. So, I'm delving into the oldest written history to date. And mine's a little bit of a controversial topic, and you'll kind of find that out in a bit. I love controversy and drama. Give it to me. I don't want to be in it, but I want to know it. So, okay. So, we're going to set the stage, and we're going to do this, darn it. Okay. Let's do it. First episode. First episode. Are we ready? Yes. The year is 1988. Dr. Gunther Dreyer, the consultant for the German Archaeological Institute and his team of archaeologists. Ooh, archaeologists. That's okay. Keep going. are excavating in an ancient cemetery in Abydos called Umm el-Kaab in the tomb referred to as UJ. Again, these are way above my accent. This cemetery has been used during the pre-dynastic period from the beginning of Nakata I through Nakata III. Dr. Dreyer had been excavating in Elephantine, Wadi Gharawi, and in Abydos for the last decade, so the unforgiving landscape of the desert was no stranger to him. But what he and his team would find that day might have rewritten history as we know it. Keep digging, boys. We're going to find something good today. I can feel it in my bones. Sir, we found something. How quick. It seems to be a group of clay wine vessels. My God, you're right, Jenkins. Good work. Let's see if anything else is in there. With any left, we might find a mummy. The team keeps digging as Dr. Dreyer watches. Dr. Dreyer leans into a small pit of the partially exposed chamber and picks up a small square object with a hieroglyph on its face and a hole in the top corner. It had been found next to pottery and other various objects. What is this? It looks like a tag of some sort. I see the hole where it had been tied to something. Maybe even one of those jars. It's even got a hieroglyph on it. But how can that be there? The tomb dates back to the pre-dynastic period, well before the time of known completed hieroglyphs. Ava, look, there are more. And more there was. Did you like that? See, Emily said we only have one accent. I tried to do another one, and it didn't go. It sounded like you were from New York. That's what I was going for. Okay, good. It just took me so off guard. Sorry. You're fine. I loved it. It was the best. Okay. Thank you. So, how are you feeling about this so far, Morgan? I feel good. The hieroglyphs are cool. The hieroglyphs are cool. Jars are cool. Jars are cool. I would like to state there was no mummy, unfortunately. No mummy. No bones. No bones. No bones. I love bones. I love bones, too. And alas, there were none. And I will tell you why. It was robbed in antiquity, which is very, very common for older, well, for tombs in general, but especially from this time point because of how old they are. I mean, most people know the pyramids, and they think that Egypt is like one, kind of one time and place. Like it's just like a boom, it's there. But this, let's take just some fun facts, this tomb was created roughly 1,000 years before the pyramids were built. Well, damn. I know. And the time of Cleopatra was closer to the iPhone than the pyramids being built. Yeah, that's just, it's wild. It's so wild. Wild. So we're talking this tomb is from about 3300 B.C., and it is about 9 by 7 1⁄2 meters and contained 12 rooms, and they found a ton of stuff in here. Now, I did say it was robbed in antiquity, but a lot of the things had been left behind that I guess they just weren't, I guess, easily stolen or weren't really worth anything. But they're worth a lot to us. Thank goodness they weren't worth anything then. So what they found was a collection of steel impressions, carved ivory knife handle fragments showing animals, stone vessels, cedar box for clothing storage, an ivory heka scepter, which is the, like, crook hook thing that you see most pharaohs with. Okay. And there was approximately 2,000 vessels, 400 of which were imported from Syria and Palestine. And what was in them was the remnants of wine and preserved grapes and grape pips. How drunk do you think you're going to get on those if you drink them now? I don't know, but I want to try. Someone tell me not to drink the ancient grapes. That's probably the best aged wine you've ever had in your life. I was about to say, Ayo, want this 5,000-year-old wine aged to perfection? Absolutely. Yes. Would it just be, like, straight up, like, sugar alcohol at that point? Yeah. Like one sip and you're gone. You're gone. And that wasn't even the most interesting thing found in this tomb. Oh, man. The most interesting thing was those little clay tags that they found. There were over 150 different sized ivory and bone tags. Oh, they weren't clay. I'm sorry. I lied. Ivory and bone tags. You liar. I'm a liar. I'm sorry. We're ill-equipped. Each of these. So each of these depicted different towns, numbers, shrines, animals, all sorts of things. And the reason that they were so important was the fact that they were so complete and they weren't just, like, the ancient equivalent of chicken scratch, you know, when writing is in early development. It's kind of just, like, there are some sick people here. No, these were, like, actual completed hieroglyphs. They had meaning and all that. And it was found in a tomb of a king. They hadn't been called pharaohs just yet. In a king known as the Scorpion King I. There were two in that time, Scorpion King I. So not Dwayne Johnson. Not Dwayne the Rock Johnson, unfortunately. I will take anything he gives. Anyway. Just kidding. I'm a happily married woman. But so they were completed and buried in a time that they didn't think that hieroglyphs had started. We're talking about the time that the Sumerians in Mesopotamia were writing. So I don't want to, like, you know, bury the lead here. But I'm going to talk about the Scorpion King for a minute. Okay. He is thought to be the first king to bring together the upper and lower Egypt. I kept wanting to say north and south. Upper and lower Egypt. Because there are, I guess, basically, this would be, like, the chicken scratch. But, like, on trade routes, you can see a scorpion etched into a lot of the trade routes on the way, you know, on back a little scorpion. And he's on a little box that has, like, an X in it. And you can see those in that little thing that I sent you. So, like, a way marker. Kind of. And it seems like the scorpion is always doing something, like, defeating his enemies or something like that. And that box is representative of royalty or, like, a royal family. So it's, like, the box with the little X in it. What is it that makes them think that this tomb belonged to Scorpion I was a few things. The size, for one, it had 12 chambers. And the chambers are fascinating because there was the burial chamber, which was the top right one. And then all these other rooms are connected by these tiny little slots, which they thought the soul of the king could go through those slots, almost like doorways, to get to their wine and everything else that was built with or was buried with them. Okay. I see the slots. So he lost a lot of weight when he died. He went on the diet we all wish we could. Get real skinny real fast. Or at least I wish I could. You look like a nematode. But I bet you I'd fit in those pants from high school. Okay. Anyhoo, the contents. They were full of offerings, plus the evidence of a wood shrine over the tomb, so people could come and pay their respects, as well as that ivory scepter. Now, the offerings actually tie into those tags because some of the tags had town names, quote, unquote, you know, the symbol of the town. So someone from that town would bring that over and say, you know, this is an offering to the Scorpion King from this town. This is how you know it's from us and leave the offering. Some of the tags had, like, numbers so you could see how much of what was in it was in it. So it would be, like, five tallies or six tallies. Yeah, so that's how they kind of knew that it was. Okay. Oh, and they did see some of the scorpions on some of the clay pottery and stuff like that. Okay, and these are the tags that are in that document that have, like, looks like a jackal and maybe some herons, a lot of birds. Yeah, yeah. They're really cool. If you go down a little bit, you'll see the numbers, and then, like, there's a little swirly gig. That means a hundred. Okay. You'll see people with bows and arrows. I mean, these are full. Yeah, I've seen a bows and arrows. Hieroglyphs. I mean, you can tell these are elephants. I really like how they drew the penises. Yes. On the men. They absolutely have to be accurate when depicting people. I mean, because probably— This is not a lady. This is not a lady, or she would have boobs, obviously. Duh. Duh. I don't know. There's just—but, I mean, honestly, like, these figures, like, you can tell it's a bow and arrow. Like, I know nothing—you know, like, sometimes when you watch, like, something, and they're like, you can see the shape here. No, you can't. It's like looking at an ultrasound. I don't know what I'm seeing there, but I'm going to trust you on it. But, I mean, you can tell, like, this is a man with a bow and arrow. Yeah. Like, that's what it looks like. I don't know what that thing on the bottom right is. It looks like an elephant nightmare. It might be. Ancient times were weird, man. Yeah, you never know. You never know. Anyway. It's an ancient cryptid. Sorry, audience, we're really into the paranormal, too, so you're going to get some weird things thrown in here. Yes. But if you keep scrolling down, you'll see it's kind of towards the end of them, the towns and what their symbols are. Okay. They're really cool. It looks like maybe page 29. I don't have a page in there. Okay. City of the Ocklers. Okay, I see. Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is so cool. City of the combatants slash wrestlers. I do not want to go to that city. I am not a fighter. I mean, I could. I could. I bet I could take them. No. I couldn't. I'm a blue belt in jujitsu. I bet I could. You don't even know what this is. I could go to, like, City of the Ock Bush. That just sounds like I could do some gardening there. I'd be all right there. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. And I see the City of the Shrine that looks like a scorpion on it. It does. Yeah, so he is thought to be the first one to unite everyone. Oh, okay. Which is fascinating. I will say, so here's where it gets a little controversial. I'm going back to the Mesopotamians. So it is commonly accepted, and we learned this in school, Morgan, that the first people to write were the Sumerians in Mesopotamia in the Persian Gulf. And they were responsible for the, tell me if I'm saying this right, cuneiform? I think so, yes. Cuneiform, which was developed around 3400 BCE. So this was about 100 years before the burial of Scorpion I. But as we all know, language and things take a lot of time to develop, especially in ancient times. And with the labels marked with hieroglyphs being from 3400, they give a range of like 3400 to 3200 BCE. It's very possible that this is just as old, that, well, that the Egyptians came up with it either right at the same time, independently, or a little before. Oh, okay. Interesting. Yeah, so instead of the Mesopotamians, the Sumerians coming up with it first, it could have been the Egyptians. Well, look at that. I know. They're well-to-do trailblazers, ain't they? And do you want to have some fun facts? I would love some fun facts. So the pyramids were built between 2550 and 2490 BCE. They didn't start mummifying bodies until about 2600 BCE. So they were only mummifying bodies for 50 years before they started building the pyramids. Oh, wow. Is that not wild? That is wild. Before what they would do is just bury the people and let the, like, the sand would just naturally mummify them. But the Egyptians started artificially mummifying them in 2600 BCE, which I didn't know that. In my brain, the Egyptians were just mummifying people from day one, and they weren't. I guess what they've kind of figured out is that they would see that they were able to mummify through the sands and stuff that's naturally, and it inspired them because they were like, oh, crap, Uncle Jimmy, he's still around because his body hasn't, like, deteriorated yet. We should probably do something a little nicer. Instead of just throwing him into the desert. Maybe we should do something about this. Poor Uncle Jimmy wasting away in the desert. Wasting away in the desert. And then they were like, okay, let's at least wrap him up. We got all this extra bed linen, you know, by myself. No one wants to sleep in it anyway. It's all ripped up. So one last little thing about the tomb is another little theory is since the grave was robbed in antiquity, some believe that the actual name of the king was on other jars that had been stolen. Ah, okay. So my guess is that they called him the Scorpion King, but that wasn't his real name. He was just symbolized as a scorpion. Okay, neat. Also, for our listeners, if you hear a random man's voice, that is my boyfriend Kyle. Ignore Kyle. He does that. It's okay. Anyway, okay, so Scorpion King, yes. Scorpion King. Scorpion King. And that is about all I have on the possible oldest written language thing. So, yeah. Yay. That was super interesting. And that's, I love it when, like, you learn things and it's like it's kind of rewriting what you know a little bit. Yeah, yeah. And if it is older than the cuneiform, like, that's really, really interesting. Right? Like, I wonder why, like, that's not as well known. Maybe cuneiform just sounds better, so it got more popular. Maybe. I mean, I haven't really dug much into that, but, I mean, hieroglyphs are kind of hard to wrap your mind around because they're written as pictures. And the only thing that really wasn't written as pictures were the little tally marks on some of the tiles. And, I mean, that's kind of self-explanatory. But even, like, how do you know that the little swirly dude means 100? Like, maybe it was just easier to kind of wrap your brain around what the Sumerians were doing. Yeah, I mean, maybe. Because, yeah, hieroglyphs are hard because, I mean, they're pictures. Yeah, there are people who spend their whole lives just learning, and then you're going into, like, really, really new hieroglyphs. Well, that was going to be used. Well, and my next question was, is this set of hieroglyphs that would sound like Mesopotamia? And so, no, never mind. Egypt. So it sounds like this is where, like, the Egyptian hieroglyphs that we all know about, like, this evolved from that. Because, like, you could see, like, the early signs, especially, like, all the storks and the herons, and the way that people are drawn. It's very, like, in profile. So that's really interesting, like, to see the evolution of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Yeah. And, like, any other thing that people do, just people in general, like the mummies, the way that they mummified, and we were watching a show about this a few weeks ago, the way that the people were mummified was totally different than the way that the last mummies were mummified. The first and the last ones are totally different. The first hieroglyphs and the last hieroglyphs are totally different, but there are notes of the way it's done before in the next generation of it. Okay. It's fascinating. It's super fascinating. Well, thank you. That was so interesting. You're welcome. I felt like I was geeking out the whole time. I was like, oh, my God, I was, like, calling my mom, mom, do you know how old these things are? Mom. Oh, my gosh. It reminds me. We'll talk about my episode next week, but when I was researching my episode, I was, like, laying in bed with Kyle, and he was literally falling asleep. I was like, did you know this and this and this and this? And, oh, my gosh, I literally couldn't stop talking. And then now I'm currently researching my next couple episodes, and then, like, last night my mom was making Easter dinner, and I was like, mom, did you know about this and this and this? And then, like, she was like, okay, hang on, like, give me a second. I've got to do this thing. Okay, now keep telling me. And I was like, okay, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was doing that because my poor mom was just trying to drop my kids off with me at our meeting point, and I was on the phone with her, and I was like, did you know that in 19-da-da-da this happened, and then she went through this, and then this happened, and da-da-da, and it was like, oh, my God, and then there was a thing, and then ah. She was like, okay, your kids are talking to me. I'm going to hang up. Yeah. Like, okay. That's so funny. That's so funny. Well, yeah, this is so interesting. Thank you for sharing about the first probably maybe written language. Yeah, the first maybe very well could be written language. Neat. Thanks for chatting with me and geeking out with me about it. Yes, we are each other's geeks. Like, every week we have a standing date of watching Expedition Unknown, and every week if something is super old, I get nauseous. It literally fucks me up. Like, I start experiencing, like, out-of-body sensations. I start feeling like I've never done acid in my life, but I feel like that's what it feels like. Exactly. Like, when I think about how old things are. Yeah. And then you hear me gagging in the background, because for some reason old things make me nauseous in, like, an anxious way. I don't know why. I will, because we always video chat, and then it will be like, this is, like, 5,000 years old, and I'll just hear her go, I don't know what's wrong with my brain. It's okay. No, like, gosh, what was it? I can't remember what the episode was, but it was a few weeks ago that we were watching it, and it was just talking about, oh, I think it was maybe the Knights Templar episode. Oh, my gosh. And that, it fucked me up. Like, straight up. It was one of those. And I was like, it's so old. And then when we're talking in terms of, like, comparing and contrasting, that is a small baby child compared to what we just talked about, how old this tomb is. No, I was fucked up. Walking around with billing. Yeah. No, like, when you were saying how old it was, I was like, I'm fucked up right now. I'm fucked up. I started, like, 1,000 yards staring, like, out of body, like, oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. I had to, like, walk away three times just to, like, chill when I was researching it. Oh, man. But you know what? Like, we got that out of the way. Yeah. Mine isn't, I mean, it's so old, but it's complicated, and we'll talk about it. Yeah. I am very excited. Yeah, I am, too. All right. So I don't know how to end this, these kinds of things. I would say that if you have a topic that you want us to go over to discuss, then you can email us at illequippedhistory, that's the name, illequippedhistory at gmail.com. There are no, like, lines or dashes or anything. No spaces. No caps. Yeah. Yeah. We also have an Instagram page, illequippedhistory. Also, before we end, we wanted to shout out the person who made our intro and outro song. Tango Studios is the production company that made our intro and outro song. He is wonderful, and we literally cannot shout him out enough because he took our completely unhinged idea about what our intro and outro should be and just absolutely nailed it. So thank you for making it. We sent him, we spent, like, two hours listening to YouTube videos, and we were inspired by 80s Japanese city pop, and we were like, we want this. And then he did it. Yeah. It is something that was unique and fun, and he's really great. And what she's not telling you is that we were going to start out with, like, flutes and drums from, like, the Civil War, and then we realized those are way too high-pitched. So we went, the poor guy was like, okay, I can get behind flutes. And then we ended up with 80s Japanese pop synthesizer-sounding stuff. Yes. Yes. But, yeah, he did an amazing job. Can't shout him out enough. I'm sure you could Google, like, he does music production. Send business his way if you need any kind of theme song or anything. We have no promos for you. No. We are not sponsored. No, we are not. We just want to shout him out because he is so great. He's wonderful. Okay. So email us if you want us to talk about a topic, and we will see you next week. Okay, bye. I don't know how to end this. I don't either. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.