Paper or Ink?

[Grey Fox]

You should.

[Eddie Teach]

While you are inventing "ink", my chariot horde is raping your cities.

More like, your chariot horde is getting pwned by my pikemen. 

[Caliga]

  You do not need ink in order to write.  The Romans were in the habit of writing on wax tablets with a stylus and then rubbing out mistakes/changes when needed.

[Malthus]

While you are inventing "ink", my chariot horde is raping your cities.

More like, your chariot horde is getting pwned by my pikemen. 

" ... mustered by the mighty power of indentures written in INK!"

 

[Malthus]

You do not need ink in order to write.  The Romans were in the habit of writing on wax tablets with a stylus and then rubbing out mistakes/changes when needed.

That isn't all they did, however. Romans most certainly wrote letters in ink - there was a large find of these, well preserved, up by Hadrian's Wall.

[Caliga]

That isn't all they did, however. Romans most certainly wrote letters in ink - there was a large find of these, well preserved, up by Hadrian's Wall.

Oh, I know.  I think they used the wax tablets as like scratch pads.  But my point is that they still could have been capable of writing had they not had access to ink.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

Squid or Cuttlefish ink was used for writing before the invention of synthetic ink.

I have this image in my head now of Shakespeare holding a squid over his pages and squeezing it in iambic pentameter.

[Malthus]

That isn't all they did, however. Romans most certainly wrote letters in ink - there was a large find of these, well preserved, up by Hadrian's Wall.

Oh, I know.  I think they used the wax tablets as like scratch pads.  But my point is that they still could have been capable of writing had they not had access to ink.

Well, certainly; even earlier, there were clay tablets with writing. Same idea only permanent. 

The earliest use of inks was certainly not for writing BTW, but for body-painting, tatooing and decorating walls (and presumably fabrics).