Cistus labdanum, nutmeg, incense
Uruk, Mesopotamia - in the south of today's Iraq - 5000 years ago, the birth of writing. To better handle the flow of goods and foodstuffs in the city-state of Uruk, Sumerians used the tip of a dried cane to write nail-shaped signs on clay tablets. They matched these symbols to sounds or words, inventing the first writing system. An unprecedented invention, writing is a formidable creative act: an idea is materialized by symbols to which a meaning is assigned. Writing fixes language on a lasting medium, capturing spoken words that would otherwise vanish.
