The oldest known writing comes from Mesopotamia and is five thousand years old.
Why it is true
The Sumerians developed cuneiform writing around 3400 BC to record commercial transactions and administer cities.
Source: British Museum
Would you rather be asked first?
This is the reading side of the site, so the answer is in the sentence above — that is the whole point of it. Test yourself works the other way round: the question comes on its own, and the fact and the explanation only appear once you have answered.