The “@” symbol seems like a modern invention, but its origin dates back to the Roman Empire. Today, we use it in Internet for emails and social networks, although its history is much older and more surprising.
The at symbol first appeared in a Bulgarian document in 1345, and later in 1536, as a unit of measurement in a transaction between Seville and Florence.
Derived from Arabic “ar-rub”its word was used to define a room, the symbol came to reference an amphora, the unit of measurement that was used in the Roman empire alluding to that Its vessels allowed a capacity close to 25 centiliters or, what is the same, a quarter of a liter.
Over time, the arroba crossed the Atlantic and in the Anglo-Saxon world it became popular as a commercial unit, representing the price per unit. Although it did not appear on European typewriters, it was included in some American versions for commercial use.
Finally, in 1971 Ray Tomlinson, the creator of email, chose this symbol for the new messaging medium, since it did not interfere with other protocols of ARPANET, the precursor system of the modern Internet.
In fact, the keyboards of the first computers already had the at symbol, since its design was inherited from typewriters, which, as we mentioned, already used it. Thus, the arroba made its journey from commercial wine transactions to becoming the digital symbol that is essential today in emails and social networks.