the History of Mass Media

4000 B.C. – Sumerian stamp seals

4000 BCE

Cylinder Seals. ... Cylinder seals were invented around 3500 BC in the Near East, at the contemporary site of Susa in south-western Iran and at the early site of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia. They are linked to the invention of the latter cuneiform writing on clay cylinders.
http://www.crystalinks.com/sumercylinderseals.html

3100 B.C. – Sumerian “writing” system on clay tablets

3100 BCE

First developed around 3200 B.C. by Sumerian scribes in the ancient city-state of Uruk, in present-day Iraq, as a means of recording transactions, cuneiform writing was created by using a reed stylus to make wedge-shaped indentations in clay tablets.
https://www.archaeology.org/issues/213-1605/features/4326-cuneiform-the-world-s-oldest-writing

2000 B.C. – Phoenician alphabet

2000 BCE

The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad consisting of 22 letters, all consonants, with matres lectionis used for some vowels in certain late varieties. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet

1900-1800 B.C. – Semitic alphabet in Egypt

1900 BCE

Newly deciphered Egyptian symbols on a 3,400-year-old limestone ostracon from Luxor’s Tomb of Senneferi appears to be the first written evidence of the ABC letter order of the early Semitic alphabet, according to a University of British Columbia Egyptologist. https://www.timesofisrael.com/first-written-record-of-semitic-alphabet-from-15th-century-bce-found-in-egypt/

600 B.C. – Egyptian papyrus scrolls

600 BCE

Papyrus, writing material of ancient times and also the plant from which it was derived, Cyperus papyrus (family Cyperaceae), also called paper plant. ... Paper made from papyrus was the chief writing material in ancient Egypt, was adopted by the Greeks, and was used extensively in the Roman Empire.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/papyrus-writing-material