Possibly the first personal name ever written belongs not to a king but to an accountant.
Tablets from Uruk around 3200 BC read: '28,086 measures barley, 37 months, Kushim'.
The events
- Kushim, the first name in writingc. 3200 BC · Uruk, Sumer. Tablets from Uruk around 3200 BC bear the name Kushim, possibly the earliest recorded name of a person. All are accounts, such as '28,086 measures barley, 37 months, Kushim'; it is unclear whether this was an official, his title or an institution.
- Invention of writing in Sumerc. 3200 BC · Uruk. Scribes in the Sumerian city of Uruk began recording accounts with signs on clay tablets, which evolved into cuneiform. One of the world's first writing systems, it shaped Near Eastern culture for three millennia.
More amazing facts
- 3300 BC · 3200 BC Ötzi died in the Alps around 3300 BC, about when writing appeared in Sumerian Uruk.
- 3300 BC Cacao was first used not in Mexico but in Ecuador, 5,300 years ago. The South American Mayo-Chinchipe culture domesticated it, and only later did it reach Mesoamerica, the Olmecs and the Maya.
- 3300 BC · 1902 Malta's underground temple was found by builders, who at first tried to hide it. In 1902 workers cutting cisterns for new houses broke through the roof of the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum, later found to hold the remains of some 7,000 people.
- 3300 BC Ötzi, who died in the Alps 5,300 years ago, has 61 tattoos.
- 3300 BC Ötzi's last meal is known down to its ingredients.
- 3180 BC · 1850 A village older than the pyramids was uncovered by a storm.