ostensibly to prevent tampering but it obviously doesnt

IIRC, the oldest example of human writing is a *beer tab.* <:slurpgon:583424900732157956>

Some ancient places have graffiti

First commercial secrets protection ever.

I'd look into it

Shows at the very least even soldiers could write to some extent

or that the scribes were malcontent

Their names, and that's it.

🤷

if you consider the greeks

they were pretty special

because of their class systems

freemen were all basically minor nobles compared to other societies

And if you want the first evidence of script, then the romans and co don't come close to the Olmecs

so they had the time and resources to learn things like writin

Don't get me wrong, it was a oral skill you had to be taught or passed down by a father

Oral skill

Holy father?

Don't.

also

this is only for europe

It was a privilege but it still did escape the elites of the time

in places like japan

people *really* didnt know how to read and write

Everything was based on caste though no matter where you look

some places have bigger upper castes than others tho

~~Then they stole Chinese writing system.~~

Yep

lol

The chinese had like forty jillion alphabets lol

chinese writing system is one of the worst on earth

They still do

China used to be dozens of independent states and people's

its an archaic pictographic language

Then the Han happened

A lot to chose from.

not an alphabet

Their own computers don't have all the characters

Nowdays

No, now they have one composite of forty jillion alphabets

it still is