In ancient times, what were professional writers called?

In ancient times, professional writers were commonly called scribes.

Scribes were trained specialists who wrote, copied, and preserved texts before mechanical printing existed. Their work extended far beyond copying books: they recorded laws, taxes, contracts, religious ceremonies, royal orders, business transactions, and historical events. In many societies, literacy was limited, so scribes held an important position in government and religious institutions.

The profession first became especially prominent in ancient Mesopotamia, where Sumerian scribes wrote cuneiform on clay tablets. Ancient Egyptian scribes used hieroglyphic, hieratic, and later demotic scripts, and often served as administrators in the royal bureaucracy. In Rome, the Latin term scriba referred to a clerk or public notary.

Scribes were not always authors in the modern sense. Some composed texts, but many copied or recorded words dictated by others. They trained through apprenticeship and had to master writing materials, specialized scripts, arithmetic, and formal conventions. The word “scribe” later remained important in Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and medieval monastic traditions.