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@ Learning Producers
2025-01-10 19:42:28
Cuneiform is mankind’s first writing system created by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia, what is now Iraq. (The word “Sumer” means land of civilized kings). Despite being developed 5,000 years ago, its parallels to Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays will blow your mind! The most striking is how both breakthroughs materialized from the fundamental need to track value exchange–from primal grain tallies to now exchanging bitcoin.
Let’s begin with the fact that the styluses used by these archaic scribes were crafted from reed plants. Their stems were strong because of attachment points called nodes! These were the resilient, ring-like parts of the stem that joined it together with the rest of the plant. Similarly, although symbolically, lightning nodes are powerful on nostr since they allow us to zap each other with sats. An approach stemming from the need to modernize how we interact on social media, trade in networks and conduct business—It’s not surprising cuneiform came about as a way for merchants and farmers to track economic transactions and agricultural inventories!
Another parallel involves how both share everlasting marks. The Sumerians used their styluses to press wedge-like symbols onto wet tablets. They then would bake them in the sun, leaving a permanent record of the documentation. If an error was made, it could not be changed. Likewise, on nostr there is no delete function. Once you publish a note, including any typos, it is preserved for history.
Lastly, the proto-writing that emerged in Mesopotamia which led to Cuneiform was in the form of bullae (bulla: singular). These were spherical clay envelopes encased with tokens representing a transaction. They were sealed with unique markings representing the parties involved for authentication. In other words, cuneiform cylinder seals were effectively early public key cryptography! The seal itself being the private key and its impression being the public key. Just as us nostriches use our nsec to sign our notes with integrity and verify value-for-value with our npub.
<img src="https://blossom.primal.net/24334fa1a0ecb656c490e819b3837392f0496fee6d05b94554a687c6605221dd.png">
*Rare bulla seal (shout out to Conny Waters from ancientpages.com)*
<img src="https://blossom.primal.net/f3c075da3b455cc9ff9c20b8847204e9fec121cf0646b11b65269945453c9e4e.png">
*Sumerian cuneiform tablet (source: britannica.com)*
At the end of the day, maybe we’re not so different from our ancestors after all. The evolution of our writing technology over the course of our history is more than innovation born of necessity. Across millennia, 3025 BCE to 2025 AD, it's man telling the universe– we will be remembered– beyond space and time. As our ancestors stacked their clay tablets, we’ll stack our sats! Onward nostr! The new land of civilized kings.
<img src="https://blossom.primal.net/9f2790be2aa29d692eaf8a36c44c63d78524561592bd68c73071ce6b51905aa7.png">
*Mankind's Innovations in Writing Technology by Learning Producers, Inc.*