With the development of agriculture and animal husbandry in the Neolithic period (ca. 7000–3000 B.C.E.), humans began to construct more complex societies that required systems of organization and communication. Around 3000 B.C.E., the Sumerians in Mesopotamia invented writing for administrative purposes. Early writing was cumbersome and limited to a select group of scribes, but as writing became less complex, more people learned to read and write. Although literacy was still restricted to the priests and elite members of society, this larger audience prompted the recording of cultural, political, and religious documents such as myths, laws, scriptures, imperial propaganda, poems, and personal letters. Ancient Egyptians developed writing soon after the Sumerians, possibly after seeing how it was used in Mesopotamia. All successive civilizations in the Near East, such as the Hebrews, Assyrians, and Phoenicians, followed with written forms of their own languages.