In retrospect, it might seem surprising that something as mundane as the desire to count sheep was the driving force for an advance as fundamental as written language. But the desire for written records has always accompanied economic activity, since transactions are meaningless unless you can clearly keep track of who owns what. As such, early human writing is dominated by wheeling and dealing: a collection of bets, bills, and contracts. Long before we had the writings of the prophets, we had the writings of the profits. In fact, many civilizations never got to the stage of recording and leaving behind the kinds of great literary works that we often associate with the history of culture. What survives these ancient societies is, for the most part, a pile of receipts. If it weren’t for the commercial enterprises that produced those records, we would know far, far less about the cultures that they came from.

* mundane: 세속의 ** prophet: 예언자