My calligraphy books and teachers say that the first Western written records were for inventories and commerece.  They were scratched into clay .  Paper was next, as papyrus, used initially for inventories and only later for monuments.  The Trajan column's lettering was initially drafted onto the marble using a brush, the letters then being cut into the stone with a chisel. Part of our class involved reproducing the letters as a brush script. 

The early Greek letters were incised, again because they were using clay tablets, and only later went to a pen or brush form.  The Greek brush alphabet was the basis for the later Roman alphabet.  You can tell the Roman alphabet was based on the brush version of Greek because of the round letters--incised alphabets don't use round forms, and instead are more angular.

Some who wander are lost.