Ancient Writing

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Ancient Writing
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Pre-requisites for Civilization

• Agriculture developed in the Fertile Crescent
  around 9000 bce
• Mining and use of copper around 6000 bce
• Growth of villages and towns
• Division of labor
• Smelting of tin and copper to make bronze around
  3000 bce gt Bronze Age

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Invention of Writing

• Writing developed on the basis of earlier
  existing pictographs and ideographs-- pictures
  began to be used to denote syllables of sound,
  not meaning alone
• Modern humans began drawing pictures 40,000 years
  ago (San in SW Africa, Australian Aborigines,
  Cro-Magnon in southwest Europe).
• True writing is thought to have been invented
  independently at least twice and perhaps three
  times in different places and times in human
  history
• in ancient Sumeria by 3200 bce -- where cuneiform
  developed
• in ancient Mexico by the Olmecs before 400
  bce--the precursor to the Maya glyphs (used
  2001500 ce)
• Writing may have been invented a third time
  independently in North China by 1200 bce - -the
  precursor of modern Chinese characters

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Stimulus Diffusion

• After the Sumerians, the idea of writing seems to
  have diffused to many peoples of Southwest Asia
  and Egypt.
• The Egyptians, the Cretans, the Elamites, and the
  Indus Valley peoples developed writing.
• Clay inscriptions dating back as far a 2500 bce
  have been found in these areas.  As yet none of
  the inscriptions from Crete or the Indus Valley
  have been deciphered.
• It is virtually certain that these peoples
  borrowed the idea of writing syllables of sound
  by using pictures.

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THE FERTILE CRESCENT
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Divine Invention

• In Mesopotamia, the Sumerians credit either the
  god Enlil or Ningizzida, Lord of the Tree of
  Truth, as the creator of writing.
• Later during Assyrian, and Babylonian periods,
  the god Nabu was credited as the inventor of
  writing and scribe of the gods.
• Mesopotamian scribal gods also exhibit the power
  of creation via divine speech.

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Divine InventionEgypt and Phoenicia

• In ancient Egypt, the invention of writing is
  attributed to the god Thoth or Tehuti (Dhwty in
  Egyptian), the scribe and historian of the gods,
  who also kept the calendar and invented art and
  science.
• Taautos of Byblos, the Phoenician precursor of
  Thoth, was the father of tautology or imitation.
• The Greeks associated both gods with their god,
  Hermes

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Mesopotamian Writing

• At first, the Sumerians used stone and clay
  tokens, which represented various goods and
  numerical values, to keep track of their
  mercantile dealings.
• Around 3200 B.C. these tokens were replaced by
  markings made on clay tablets and written
  language was born.
• The first cuneiform writings consisted of
  pictograms, drawings of the items represented.
• Shortly thereafter ideograms, or abstract
  symbols, were also used.

Tablet of pre-cuneiform scriptSouth
MesopotamiaUruk III, end of 4th millenium
BC.Clay (?sun-baked clay)Louvre
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Cuneiform Clay Tablet, ca. 1900 bce.

• Cuneiform recorded all important activities, from
  the sale of land to marriage and adoption
  contracts.
• By the middle of the third millennium bce, the
  Sumerian written language was developed enough to
  record oral epic poetry, such as The Epic of
  Gilgamesh

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Student Practice Tablet

• Literacy was a highly valued skill
• Sumerians set up first institutions of formal
  education edubba
• Education included writing and mathematics
• Tuition paid for education
• Educated were privileged elite government
  officials, scribes, etc.

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Deciphering Cuneiform
1835 Henry Rawlinson, an English army officer,
found some inscriptions on a cliff at Behistun in
Persia. Carved in the reign of King Darius of
Persia (522-486 BC), they consisted of identical
texts in three languages Old Persian, Babylonian
and Elamite.
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Nippur Flood Tablet
...a flood will sweep over the cult centersTo
destroy the seed of mankind...Is the decision,
the word of the assembly of the gods.By the word
commanded by An and Enlil...All the windstorms,
exceedingly powerful, attacked as one,At the
same time, the flood sweeps over the cult
centers.After, for seven days and seven
nights,The flood had swept over the land,And
the huge boat had been tossed about by the
windstorms on the great waters,Utu came forth,
who sheds light on heaven and earth,Ziusudra
opened a window on the huge boat,The hero Utu
brought his rays into the giant boat.
The tablet can be dated by its script to the late
17th century BC.University of Pennsylvania
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Enheduanna, Priestess and Poet,the worlds first
known writer Enheduannas Inscription
Here are the first 4 lines of cuneiform 1)
en-he-du-an-na.....................En-he-du-ana,2
) MUNUS.NUNUZ.ZI.............zirru priestess3)
dam-nanna........................... wife of the
god Nanna,4) dumu-...............................
....daughter The inscription continues 5)
sarru-GI............................ of Sargon,
6) lugal...............................
king of7) KIS..................................
. the world (Kish),8) e-INANNA.ZA.ZA.............
in the temple of the goddess9)
uri.KI-ma-ka...................... Inanna- ZA.ZA
in Ur,10) bara-si-ga........................
made a socle and11) bi-e-du12) bara
bansur-an-na...........named it 'dais, table
of13) mu-se bi-sa......................the god
An'.
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Were Egyptians the first scribes?

• The earliest writing ever seen may have been
  discovered in southern Egypt. The hieroglyphics
  record linen and oil deliveries made over 5,000
  years ago.
• The exact date of Sumerian writing remains in
  doubt but the new Egyptian discoveries have been
  confidently dated to between 3300 BC and 3200 BC
  using carbon isotopes

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EARLY DYNASTIC PERIODDynasties 1 2 ca.
3100-2700 bce

• The culmination of the formative stage of the
  Ancient Egyptian civilization that began
  centuries before during the Prehistory
• Goal to gain stable, superior status in Mid-East
• Establishment of divine kingship as Egypt's form
  of government
• Writing evolved from a few simple signs to a
  complex system of several hundreds of signs with
  both phonetic and ideographic values.
• Craftsmen increased their skills and experimented
  with the use of more durable materials.
• Structures built in brick, wood and reeds were
  copied in stone, giving birth to the typical
  Ancient Egyptian architecture.

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Palermo Stone

• A dark stone containing information from the
  early dynasties.
• It is inscribed on both sides with a list of
  kings from Pre-Dynastic Egypt to the middle of
  the 5th Dynasty.
• The exact creation date is not known, the
  earliest possible date being the middle of the
  5th Dynasty.

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Egyptian Hieroglyphs

• Hieroglyphs were called by the Egyptians "the
  words of God" and were used mainly by the
  priests.
• The painstakingly drawn symbols decorated the
  walls of temples
• Hieratic script was used for conducting day to
  day business
• Hieroglyphs are written in rows or columns and
  can be read from left to right or from right to
  left. The direction in which the text is to be
  read is indicated by the human or animal figures
  which always face towards the beginning of the
  line.
• The upper symbols are read before the lower.

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History of Hieroglyphs

• 30th century BCE The hieroglyphic system is
  developed.
• 500 BCE A slow revolution of hieroglyphic
  writing starts, as new signs are introduced. The
  number of available signs in the system grows
  over the centuries from around 700 to several
  thousands.
• 394 CE The date of the last case of hieroglyphic
  writing.
• 1799 The Rosetta Stone is discovered, which
  contained the same text in two languages
  (Egyptian and Greek), and in three writing system
  (hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek).
• 1822 The French scientist Jean-Francoise
  Champollion completes the decipherment of the
  hieroglyphs.

Rosetta Stone, 196 bce
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History of Hieratic Script

• Around 2750 BCE First examples of hieratic
  script.
• Around 2000 BCE Writing direction changes from
  vertical to horizontal read from right to left
• Around 600 BCE Demotic script replaces hieratic
  script for use with secular writing. Hieratic
  continued to be used for religious texts.
• Around 100 CE Last examples of hieratic script.
  

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Hieratic Script

• Developed from the hieroglyphic system.
• Hieratic comes from Greek denoting "priestly",
  since it was used only for sacred texts in the
  last 1000 years of its existence.
• Hieratic script was used in carved or painted
  inscriptions, normally written in ink with a reed
  pen on papyrus.
• Hieratic script lasted for about 3200 years, but
  was through the last 1000 years challenged by
  demotic script.
• Hieratic script was taught in school, while
  hieroglyphs were only understood by a small
  minority of priests in the society.

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History of Demotic Script

• 660 bce First known example of demotic script.
• 5th century bce Demotic script is in use all
  over Egypt.
• Beginning 4th century ce Demotic script is
  starting to be replaced by Greek writing.
• 425 ce Last known example of demotic script.

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Demotic Script

• Demotic script lasted for about 1000 years,
  during the last period of ancient Egyptian
  history.
• The term "demotic" comes from the Greek word for
  people, or popular.
• Demotic script was used for business and literary
  purposes, while hieratic was used for religious
  texts.
• Demotic was the most abbreviated and cursive
  script developed by the ancient Egyptians
• Most demotic texts were written in ink on
  papyrus. It was also written on wood or linen or
  carved in stone or metal.

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Who were the Phoenicians?

• Phoenicians, Canaanites Punic/ Carthaginians
  are the same people Eastern Canaanites were
  called Phoenicians by the Greeks Western
  Canaanites were called Punic by the Romans.
• The Phoenicians called themselves Canaanites, and
  they were the descendants of two groups, the
  early Canaanites who inhabited the coast of
  Lebanon, and the Sea People who invaded Lebanon
  about l200 bce.
• Economic opportunity and population pressures led
  them into the Mediterranean Sea where they became
  great traders and colonizers
• The Phoenician alphabetic script of 22 letters
  was used at Byblos as early as the 15th century
  bce

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Phoenicia

• Phoenicia is a term which was applied by
  classical authors to the city-states northern
  Lebanon from 1200 BC onwards.
• Their main cities were Tyre, Sidon and Byblos on
  the coast of Lebanon
• The Greek word from which 'Phoenicia' derived
  meant 'purple', and was a translation of the name
  'Canaan'
• Canaan which may have had some linguistic
  connection with the purple dye produced from
  local murex shellfish for which the region was
  famous

.
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Phoenicia
http//phoenicia.org/http//www.cedarland.org/pho
enicia.htmlhttp//www.lebanon2000.com/ph.htm
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The Sea Peoples

• The Phoenicians were the best seafarers and ship
  builders of the ancient world.
• The famous Lebanese cedar trees covering the
  slopes of mountains of their native land was a
  perfect material for construction of strong
  seaworthy ships.
• The Phoenicians are credited with the division of
  a circle into 360 degrees and having reliable
  celestial reference points.
• The earliest evidence for Phoenician ships comes
  from an Egyptian tomb relief of around 1400 BC at
  Thebes which shows Phoenician ships unloading in
  an Egyptian port.

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Cedars of Lebanon Egyptian connection

• As far as back as 3200 B.C., the people of
  Gebeil(Byblos) were cutting down cedar trees in
  the mountains of Lebanon, to be shipped to Egypt
  and Mesopotamia for use in building ships and
  making columns for houses.
• The Phoenicians brought back gold, copper,
  andturquoise from the Nile Valley and Sinai.
• Canaanite ceramic pieces have been found in
  Egyptian tombs dating back to 2999 B.C.
• Legend has it that an Egyptian pharaoh hired a
  band of Phoenicians to map and circumnavigate
  thecoast of Africa.

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Phoenician Writing

• The 1st inscription reads "Wall built by
  Abibaal, king of Byblos, for Baalat-Gebel, his
  lady. May Baalat-Gebel prolong the days of
  Abibaal and his years over Byblos."
• The 3rd inscription reads "Wall built by
  Shipitbaal, king of Byblos, son of Elibaal, king
  of Byblos, for Baalat-Gebel, his lady. May
  Baalat-Gebel prolong the days of Shipitbaal and
  his years over Byblos." The red line indicates
  the presumed location for Shipitbaal'.

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Phoenician alphabet

• The Phoenician alphabet consisted of twenty-two
  symbols, all consonants. Each one represented its
  own sound.
• The Egyptian symbol for the ox head was given
  theSemitic name aleph and was sounded as "a."
• The Phoenician alphabet was used to form the
  other alphabets which followed it. Aleph became
  the Greekalpha, Beth became beta. In time, these
  letters became the Latin letters A and B, etc.
• The written language inscribed on papyrus, a
  typeof paper made of reeds.
• So, closely linked with papyrus with the city of
  Byblos(which traded cedar for the paper) that
  when the writing of the Hebrew prophets were
  translated into Greek the city's name was given
  to the great book- Biblia the Bible.

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Phoenician alphabet
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Cadmuss gift to the Greeks
The Phoenicians who came with Cadmus
introduced into Greece, after their settlement in
the country, a number of accomplishments, of
which the most important was writing, an art till
then, I think, unknown to the Greeks. At first
they used the same characters as all the other
Phoenicians, but as time went on, and they
changed their language, they also changed the
shape of their letters. At that period most of
the Greeks in the neighborhood were Ionians they
were taught these letters by the Phoenicians and
adopted them, with a few alterations, for their
own use, continuing to refer to them as the
Phoenician characters - as was only right, as the
Phoenicians had introduced them.
Herodotus,
The Histories
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Writing in China

• The origins of Chinese writing are obscure and
  debated. 
• Some believe that the principle was borrowed
  through the trade routes from Sumeria to
  China--which would be an example of stimulus
  diffusion.   
• Many believe that the ancient Chinese hit upon
  the writing principle completely independently. 
• The earliest known form of true writing in China
  dates from the Shang dynasty, 1200 bce-1045 bce,
  dates considerably later than for Sumerian
  writing.  But it is entirely possible that
  pictographic signs had begun to be used as sound
  symbols in China long before that. 
• Ancient pictograms and ideograms came to be used
  to denote syllables of sound rather than to
  depict concepts. 

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Shang Dynasty16th-11th c. bce
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Shang Dynasty

• Central Yellow River Valley
• Oldest examples of Chinese writing
• Hunters and farmers
• Brilliant bronze culture
• casting of intricate ritual vessels
• tools
• Cities
• Cheng Chow (16th c. bc)
• Anyang (C. 1384-1111 bc)

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Oracle Bones

• Oracle bones used for divination.
• A question was written on the bone, which was
  then fired and a T shaped crack was produced to
  be interpreted the interpretation was then
  written on the bone.
• After the predicted event occurred, the date of
  the occurrence was also written on the bone.

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Astronomy and Calendar
Ox bone inscribed with a table of the Heavenly
Stems and Earthly Branches

• Oracle bone with record of solar eclipse

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Writing in the Americas

• The oldest discovered examples of writing in the
  Americas are a cylinder seal and carved
  greenstone plaque bearing glyphs dating to ca.
  650 bce, uncovered near the Olmec center of La
  Venta in Tabasco, Mexico.
• Key aspects of the Mesoamerican scripts were
  present in Olmec writing
• the combination of pictographic and glyphic
  elements to represent speech,
• the use of the sacred 260-day calendar,
• the connection between writing, the calendar, and
  kingship
• Writing spread from La Venta to other parts of
  Mesoamerica, where the Maya developed the Olmec
  prototype into the New World's most sophisticated
  script

http//www.anthro.fsu.edu/research/meso/PohlPR.ht
ml
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Olmecca. 1200-300 bce
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Olmecs

• Established the first major Mesoamerican
  civilization.
• Often regarded as the Mother Culture of later
  Middle American civilizations,the Olmec people
  called themselves Xi
• First to use stone architecturally and
  sculpturally
• Clever mathematicians and astronomers who made
  accurate calendars
• Highly developed technical skills
• magnetic compass
• skill with iron ores
• complex drainage system
• First writing in North America

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Olmec Glyph

• This plaque records the story of creation.
• It shows the World Tree sprouting out of Creation
  Mountain

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Olmec influence on Central-American Civilizations

• Art
• Religious symbolism
• Hieroglyphic writing
• Bar and dot numbering system
• Calendar
• Bloodletting ritual
• Ball game

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MAYANS

• Although there was never such a thing as a Maya
  Empire, the diverse peoples and
  politico-religious formations that in the past
  occupied Yucatán and modern day Belize, Chiapas,
  Guatemala and Honduras, all had common cultural
  characteristics
• a highly developed calendar
• a rich complex writing system, and sophisticated
  mathematics..
• Archeologists and historians recognize several
  periods in the history of these cultures
• Preclassic 2000 bce-100ad
• Classic 100 -900 ad
• Postclassic 900 ad-1500 ad

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Mayan Hieroglyphics

• The unit of the Maya writing system is the
  glyphic cartouche, which is equivalent to the
  words and sentences of a modern language.
• Maya cartouches included at least three or four
  glyphs and as many as fifty.
• There is no Maya alphabet.
• Writing considered to be a sacred gift from the
  gods.
• Knowledge of reading and writing was jealously
  guarded by a small elite class, who believed that
  they alone could interact directly with the gods

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Glyphs representing, from left to right
the sky an ahau (king) a house
a child the city of Palenque.

The Maya wrote using 800 individual signs or
glyphs, paired in columns that read together from
left to right and top to bottom. Maya glyphs
represented words or syllables that could be
combined to form any word or concept in the Mayan
language, including numbers, time periods, royal
names, titles, dynastic events, and the names of
gods, scribes, sculptors, objects, buildings,
places, and food.
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Codices

• Maya glyphs were also painted on codices made of
  either deer hide or bleached fig-tree paper that
  was then covered with a thin layer of plaster and
  folded accordion-style.
• Recorded rituals, chronologies, myths and
  important events.
• Most were burned by the Spanish during the 16th
  c.

4 Extant Codices Dresden, Madrid, Paris, Grolier
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Popul Vuh

• Book of Council
• Sacred book of Quiche Maya
• Lords of the great kingdom of Quiche had a way of
  seeing what could not be seen with the physical
  eye.
• Their guide was Popul Vuh, a book that could
  allow the lords to know past and future events.
• The book speaks of occurrences before the first
  sunrise.