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Comment by mhurron | Hacker News Reader

> About 3200 years ago, two armies clashed at a river crossing near the Baltic Sea. The confrontation can’t be found in any history books—the written word didn’t become common in these parts for another 2000 years

I think they got their math or information wrong, written word not being common for another 2000 years after 3200 years ago would mean that writing didn't become common in Germany until ~800 CE.

Writing not being common in Germany until about 2000 years ago or 1200 years later (than 3200) would be more correct.

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Fro Wikisources:

RUNES, RUNIC LANGUAGE AND INSCRIPTIONS. The art of writing with an alphabet appears to have been introduced into Germanic Europe in the Iron Age. ... The Iron Age is supposed to have existed from circa 200 to circa 650, and it is to the close of this epoch that the beginning of the writing on Scandinavian memorials is attributed.

What we think of as writing is hard without the right technology. You need parchment/vellum/papyrus, and something to make ink, and something to make pens with.

None of this is trivial. And it's not obvious until someone invents it, or is told how to do it by someone else.

So you can have an alphabet - but if it's only ever engraved into rocks, that guarantees that whatever gets written is really, really important to someone, and there won't be a lot of diarising, philosophising, or gossip, or even recording of battles.

The fact that we can buy pens, paper, and digital keyboards so easily we take them for granted is actually kind of amazing.

> [...] but if it's only ever engraved into rocks, [...]

You can engrave into wood much easier. Won't last for as long as rocks, though. That's why we see less of it.

800CE seems about right for Germany. Prior to that there's very little text being found besides small/simple inscriptions.

Eldar Futhark [0] would be the earliest Germanic tribe writing, and spanned from 2nd to 8th centuries. However, I don't believe that any literature was found, just inscriptions.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Futhark

"Common" though?

It doesn't seem particularly likely to be incorrect. That area of north-east Germany was kind of a backwater in late antiquity, with the Romans stopped well short of penetrating that far, and many of the tribes that had been living there migrating further west, and replaced with the Wends, a branch of pagan Slavs.

800 CE would be about the time that that area of Germany became part of Charlemagne's empire, and Christian missionaries started making inroads around the Baltic.

Charlemagne himself could read, but not write.

There's a joke about

    chmod u+w Charlemagne

there, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.

chmod 500

Because it's certain he could execute as well....

(In fact, let's make it 510. The group can't read or write but they don't have problem executing either.)

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