The Secret History of Writing, a three-part BBC 4 documentary series presented by Lydia Wilson.
Wilson, an academic and journalist who is also the editor of the Cambridge Literary Review, started off by looking at the moment when writing with pictures transformed into writing with words, a quest that centred on the Rebus, a puzzle or pun in which pictures are used to represent words.

So who did create writing as we know it? As Wilson discovered, this was an entertainingly fraught topic that continues to be debated passionately by Egyptologists and specialists in Mesopotamian culture. The fascinating story that finally unfolded revealed that while some things stay the same (a hieroglyph on an Egyptian sapphire mine turned out to be a series of complaints about weather and working conditions), the smallest moment can change the world.

Series 1: From Pictures to Words | Click here to watch
(59 min; 2020; English)
Director: David Sington

The hunt for the origin of writing reveals the link between ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and the letters we use every day.

https://www.documentarymania.com/player.php?title=From+Pictures+to+Words