The signature’s days are now numbered in some official documents in Australia. But the signature as a personal brand has a long history and it’s hard to see it going anywhere fast
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Some time around 3000BC a Sumerian scribe called Gar Ama stamped his name on the back of a clay tablet and produced what is now the oldest known signature.
But signatures really came into their own after the English parliament pass the Statute of Frauds Act in 1677, making them mandatory on legal contracts, replacing the seal or the X. For hundreds of years since, every legal document was accompanied by a signature.
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