When you or someone you are caring for is seriously ill, it is recommend that you keep EOBs for five years after the illness or condition is alleviated. If you or the patient is claiming or has claimed a medical deduction, keep the explanation of benefits for seven years.
The earliest writing can be traced to Sumer, in Mesopotamia. This system did not use an alphabet, instead it used pictographs which are symbols representing familiar objects. This type of writing was called cuneiform, or wedge-shaped writing. Egyptians used hieroglyphics, also a pictograph system.
The Phoenician writing system, though quite different from that of Mesopotamia, still owes its development to the Sumerians and their advances in the written word. Independently of the Near East or Europe, writing was developed in Mesoamerica by the Maya c. 250 CE (though some evidence suggests a date as early as 500 BCE).