Скачать или смотреть The first thing humans recorded wasn’t words.

This symbol is older than writing.

Long before letters, humans carved simple tally marks into bone and stone.

They weren’t recording words.
They were recording how many.

Before writing preserved language,
tally marks preserved quantity.

Humans learned to count
before they learned to write.

📚 REFERENCES

📚 [Tally marks & early record-keeping before writing; historical overview of counting notations]
Ifrah, Georges. The Universal History of Numbers: From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer. Trans. David Bellos et al., Wiley, 2000, pp. 17–35.

📚 [Ishango bone as early tally/counting artifact; description and interpretation]
Pletser, Vladimir & Huylebrouck, Dirk. “The Ishango Bone: A Remarkable Prehistoric Artifact.” ISRN Archaeology, 2012, Article ID 327368, pp. 1–7.

📚 [Prehistoric notation systems and the idea of “external memory” preceding writing]
Schmandt-Besserat, Denise. Before Writing, Volume I: From Counting to Cuneiform. University of Texas Press, 1992, pp. 1–21.

📚 [General reference on tally marks and prehistoric counting practices]
Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Tally.” (entry).