From Pigeons to Email: How Sending Letters and Packages Evolved

Before mobile phones, pagers and computers were born, writing letters were one of the most basic forms of communication. Communication is a vital aspect of a person’s everyday living to be able to convey their thoughts and ideas, to answer queries and everything else that needs to be expressed. Just like every single thing existing in this world, the method of sending mail also has its own history; and it had a lot of different improvements over the years. Around the fourth millennium, cuneiform script was used. This was the time when paper wasn’t invented yet and the alphabet was never learned. Perceived as one of the earliest methods of writing, characters were written on stone or clay tablets and these were ‘written’ with the use of a common reed. For over 35 centuries, this method of writing and communicating was applied. This has been replaced during the Roman Era with alphabetic writing.

In the earlier days, people were using animals for sending mails. Most used were pigeons, hence the name ‘pigeon post’. Pigeons, specifically homing pigeons, have an excellent sense of direction and can easily find their way. For this reason, people chose pigeons when sending a note or message to someone. After composing the message in little scraps of paper they tied and attached this to the bird’s leg. Up to this present time, pigeon posts continue to be useful in the most remote places where electricity and Internet are unavailable. This method was also used in the military and navy to convey orders from one post to another.

Fast forward to modern civilization, there are a lot of different types of procedures on how to send a letter or a package to any parts of the world. Amongst the most popular options are through the postal service like USPS and FedEx. Shipping fees vary according to the size, weight and the contents of your letter or package, its destination and added taxes and fees of the destination country. There are many kinds of choices, including when you want the package to arrive to its destination. Overnight shipping or next flight-out shipping immediately ships your package once a flight is available and it is possible to reach the recipient’s doorstep anytime the next day. There’s also a one to five days shipping for deliveries which aren’t really urgent. This is the standard shipping wherein charges are minimal.

If you only need to send a letter or mail, the Internet is always available and can provide different options. Email or electronic mail is one of the most common methods via the Internet. Through an email service like Gmail or Yahoo Mail, you don’t have to write down on a piece of paper, use a stamp and spend money. Emailing is a method of sending a letter virtually and the recipient can immediately receive it in a matter of seconds or minutes.

We also have the Internet fax that a lot of people are currently using. With a service like the free fax, there’s no need to use a traditional fax machine to send office documents or a letter to your parents. These services are a lot cheaper and more practical especially for businesses. As long as a broadband connection is available, anyone can send an electronic mail or online fax. Sending mails are totally different from how it used to be during the earlier centuries. Now, there is a lot of new and exciting choices to get it done, some examples are through a post, email and online faxing service.