Abstract

Archeologist and expert of languages, religions and writing in Iran before Islam, but also of ancient Greece, Clarisse Herrenschmidt studies the history of writing, starting from the Uruk and Susa "calculi" up to the Internet. She compares the three writing systems and inserts them in their context. The comparison with the Internet as a new writing support leads the author to theorise on the rise of networks as a third graphic revolution, following the invention of linguistic (3300 B.C.) and economic-monetary writing (620 B.C.). Web writing appeared between 1968 and 1972, although it was invented in 1936 (Alan Turing's machine). By analysing the shared structures of the three writing systems, the author shows how they mould man's relationship with the world.