There has always been a need to deliver letters and parcel boxes from one place to another. As the world gets faster, these systems get increasingly sophisticated with systems designed to keep packages safe.

For as long as there have been messages to send from one person to another that they cannot deliver themselves, there has been an intermediary to get the message across.

Once systems of writing were invented, the messenger’s job became even more important, and postal systems began to be developed in order to keep couriers and their cargo safe and ensure that the recipient would get their delivery as efficiently as possible.

Once civilisations started to form that spanned great distances, one of the first and most important pieces of infrastructure to develop was a postal service.

However, which was the first to be created and available to the general public?

The First Formal Delivery System Ever

There are countless informal systems for sending messages or items of value from one place to another, but the first formal postal system is believed to have originated in 2400 BC in Ancient Egypt.

Pharaohs who ruled over the Old Kingdom of Egypt wanted to deliver messages across the entire state, which spanned much of the River Nile up until the island of Elephantine as well as much of the Western Desert south of what is now Libya.

Because of the distances involved, a formal system for sending out decrees was needed, typically running along existing trade roads.

It is also the source of the earliest surviving piece of post, but due to primarily being used by the Pharaoh and the apparatus of the state, it is difficult to know how much it was used by ordinary people.

At some point in the fourth century BC, there was evidence that the postal service was used by the wider public, and the oldest surviving letter in existence is Egyptian in origin and dates back to 255 BC.

First Postal System Ever Established

The first recognisable postal system ever established is believed to be the Chapar-Khaneh, the Persian postal service used across the length and breadth of the Achaemenid Empire.

Also known as the Angarium, the Chapar Khaneh was the pride of the Persian King Darius the Great, although it originated with the previous ruler Cyrus the Great.

What Darius I did, however, was create the Royal Road, one of the first highways ever constructed, and a dedicated road designed to ensure post arrived from Susa to Sardis and Smyrna as soon as physically possible.

It did so by using a series of relay stations, wherein a courier rider would race at breakneck pace from one station to the next before passing the post to the next rider to do the same, allowing for an exceptional level of pace to be kept far beyond the possibility of a single horse or rider.

As each station has supplies, horses and riders, there is no need for a rider to carry anything but the bare essentials, allowing them to ride faster.

This concept would later be revived in the form of the short-lived but exceptionally influential Pony Express, but the core concept would be in the DNA of every postal and high-speed courier service ever after.

However, unlike the Pony Express, the Chapar Khaneh was only ever used for royal business, and was not a publicly available postal service, at least during the time of the Achaemenid Empire.

When the Persian Empire was conquered, first by the Macedonian army of Alexander the Great and later by the Roman Empire, the Royal Road and its parcel transportation network continued to be used, and was greatly expanded in the case of the latter.

The Cursus Publicus expanded the concept across the great breadth of the Empire, taking advantage of the extensive and high-quality road network the Romans created.

It was similar to the Chapar Khaneh in that it was intended for exclusive use by the military or government for important decrees and intelligence messages, but unlike the Angarium, individuals could potentially use the cursus publicus if they received permission from the government.

This permission required the authority of the Emperor themselves and was known as getting a diploma stamped with his seal, and it would feature the name, valid time frame, permitted form of travel, the route they planned to take, and the lodgings they were entitled to use.

Whilst it was meant to be somewhat restricted, governors and people in minor positions of authority would use the diplomata to use the cursus publicus, and forgeries were common enough that it became, in practice, the first postal and parcel service open to the public.