The advent of the written word and the development of the materials on which those words were written has had a vast impact on the development of our modern society. One could make the argument that without the tools to keep written records, chemistry and chemical ideas would never have proliferated across the globe and flourished as it does in the current age. The methods by which knowledge have been recorded have changed both by time period and geographical region, and have included substrates of recording such as clay tablets, papyri, bamboo slips, parchment, and paper. Local availability has historically driven the usage of different writing materials, with multiple types of writing materials sometimes being used concurrently in the same geographical areas. An overview of the historical evolution of writing materials will be examined, from the initial development of various materials to their ultimate extinction. This discussion will encompass the worldwide development and use of popular substrates to record written records, from clay tablets in the 4<sup>th</sup> century BCE in Mesopotamia to the dominance of paper in the modern era.

Development of writing materials from Mesopotamia to the modern era

ACS Spring 2022

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