Do we know how long it took for cuneiform to develop from counting cows and barley, to drafting official documents and contracts, to creating literature?
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...and then to register astronomical observations! The birth of science, no less.
And all because every year like clockwork, the Eufrates and Tigris blanketed an area of hundreds of square kilometers with a fresh coat of silt (from the Taurus mountains in modern-day Turkey) that was perfect as a rudimentary but cheap, easy and quick writing medium, pushing the point of a stick into a pancake of soft clay, then leaving it to dry and harden in the sun.