Stone to Silicon

Communication · c. 3,250 BCE

Egyptian hieroglyphs

Egypt develops its own picture-and-sound script, carved on monuments for 3,500 years.

Labels from tomb U-j at Abydos, dated to about 3250 BCE, already use signs for sounds, and hieroglyphs mixed logograms with a set of about 24 one-consonant signs. Those consonant signs later inspired the first alphabet.

See it in the living treeWikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

What it led to 2

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Share of people living in cities Latest: 57.5 % (2025) Source: Our World in Data

World GDP over a million years Latest: 41k billion 1990 international $ (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, Estimating World GDP, One Million B.C. - Present; Wikipedia: Gross world product (DeLong table, cross-check)