![confideal-banner.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmUVQQE5C39xCG6JNnvSCHr4VeuAyAa5dMQVAo9fRnm6gM/confideal-banner.png)

Contracts are older than a printing press and steam engines. They regulate transactions for over four thousand years. At least, as we know of. Of course, contracts changed along with the rise of states, expanding the scale of operations and technological advances.

The most recent ones led us to smart contracts. They operate on cryptocurrencies bypassing additional strands, institutions such as states or banks. Still, contemporary contracts use many ideas accumulated throughout centuries. Let’s take a look at agreements at different points in history and compare them to smart contracts of today.

It is often considered that written language emerged in Mesopotamia (region of contemporary Iraq, Kuwait, eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey) circa 3500-3000 BC. And the first written contraсts were not long in coming. Historical records date them back to 2250 BC.

### [Resteem, Upvote and Follow for More](http://steemit.com/@unbeaten)