First existing advertising

An advertisement for a bookseller was found among the rubble preserved at Pompeii, near Naples, Italy, dating to c. ad 79. However, according to Rachel Barker and George Charles Angelopulo in their book Integrated Organizational Communication, Babylonian inscriptions dating back to 3000 bc could be considered the first “written” advertisements, when merchants displayed the symbol of their trade over their doors. In an incorporeal sense, "advertising" can be said to have emerged c. 7,000 years ago, when bartering and oral face-to-face "salespersonship" would have been used by traders exchanging food, weapons and clothes.