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We are well accustomed to the written word as a primary method of communication in our culture. Its primary elements, the characters of the modern alphabet, were once quite literal symbols of everyday objects which were gradually abstracted to the letters of the alphabet. While cave paintings, dating as far back as 20,000 B.C. are the first evidence of recorded pictures, true written communication is thought to have been developed some 17,000 years later by the Summerians, around 3500 B.C. They are known to have recorded stories and preserved records using simple drawings of everyday objects, called pictograms.

As civilizations become more advanced, they experienced the need to communicate more complex concepts. Around 3100 B.C., Egyptian hieroglyphics incorporated symbols representing thoughts or ideas, called ideograms, allowing for the expression of more abstract concepts than the more literal pictograms. A symbol for an ox could mean food, for example, or the symbol of a setting sun combined with the symbol for