Writing is the technology that made civilization possible. The first episode reveals how and when writing was invented; what is common to all writing systems; and how writing was invented to keep track of things. Modern knowledge of history and the look of the world today - so dominated by the written word - would not have been possible without cuneiform and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic, Chinese pictographs, syllabaries and the amazing invention of the alphabet. The invention of writing 5,000 years ago may be more important than the invention of the wheel.