It appears that writing was developed in both the Nile and Mesopotamia regions around 3000 BCE. In Mesopotamia this writing appears with a writing system of symbols called cuneiform. This form of writing was used by many different languages in the Mesopotamian region. There was also a form of proto-cuneiform that existed for several hundred years earlier which is similar and appears to be a type of inventory system. Around 1750 BCE Hammurabi burned down the kingdom of Mari in northern Mesopotamia and one result was the storehouse was buried. The discovery of this storehouse in the 1930’s has provided historians with about 25,000 tablets of diplomatic writings of that kingdom.

(The Great Courses – The Origin of Civilization)