writing - the invention and uses of early scripts by dr. peter j. brand

7/29/2019 Writing - The Invention and Uses of Early Scripts by Dr. Peter J. Brand

1/19

1

WRITING: THE INVENTION AND USES OF EARLY SCRIPTSDr. Peter J . Brand

Prehistory is the time before writing, because until it was invented, the only wayto store and retrieve knowledge, especially complex ideas, was in the mind of a person.

Stories and ideas could be passed down for generations by oral tradition, but this alsocould be lost if the individuals who knew it died or forgot what they had been told. Theinvention of means to store and transfer knowledge by man-made, artificial meansrevolutionized early civilizations beginning about 5000 years ago. Today, we will neverknow what complex ideas lurked in the minds of prehistoric peoples or even what theirnames were. But we can read the names, histories, literature, business transactionsand religious beliefs of the ancient peoples of Egypt and Mesopotamia because theirwritings have often survived.

The Rosetta Stone (left) with detail of the inscriptions (right): this ancient stone tablet isinscribed in Egyptian hieroglyphs (top), an Egyptian cursive script (middle) and Ancient Greek(lower). This document allowed modern scholars to rediscover the ability to read hieroglyphs

which had been lost for almost 2000 years.


2/19

2

Writing was originally invented for limited practical and political uses such asaccounting, identifying the ownership of property, and expressing the power of earlykings. Fully developed complex writing systems evolved from simple beginnings andwere used to record a huge variety of information. Ritual incantation and epic mythsdocument religious beliefs. Kings recorded their accomplishments in war and as

builders of great monuments. Egyptian officials listed resumes of their job titles andeven a kind of autobiography. Mesopotamian scribes left tens of thousands ofbusiness and tax receipts. Both civilizations left administrative records, epic literature,love poetry, private letters, and even texts as mundane as laundry lists and daily worklogs noting who showed up for work and who was absent.

Writing as Mark of CivilizationModern historians have often viewed writing as an essential feature of civilization

and the beginning of History. Many of the great early civilizations had writing: Egypt,Mesopotamia, China, Greece, Rome, and the Maya in South America. But othercivilizations existed without writing. The Yoruba and Benin civilizations in West Africa

arose with no information recording systems at all. Other civilization, such as the Inca inSouth America, had a form of non-writing information storage systems. These areknown as mnemonic memory devices. The Incas used colorful cords called Qipu ortalking knots, strings which had knots tied in them to track inventories of goods. Thus,while writing always arose with civilization, civilization itself sometimes arose withoutwriting.

The Origins of WritingPrehistoric forerunners to writing include counting devices like animal bones with

notches carved in to them from 35,000 years ago. As much as 20,000 years ago, earlyhumans left cave paintings like those from Lascaux in France. 10,000 years ago at sites

across North Africa, humans carved petroglyphs or rock pictures, on rocks. Thesepetroglyphs show various types of wild animals and groups of hunters armed with bowsand arrows or spears at a time when the Sahara was a grassy savannah like modernKenya or South Africa. Such cave and rock art was pictorial and may have beennarrative, meaning it was meant to tell a story. It is not clear if petroglyphs that showedanimals and hunters was historical in that it commemorated past successful hunts or ifit was religious or even an expression for a wished-for successful hunt in the future.


3/19

3

Petroglyph rock picture from North Africa showing prehistoric warriors orhunters.

Precursors to writing begin to appear in the Ancient Near East as much as 8000years ago, roughly 6000 BCE. True and complex writing systems appeared in Egyptand Mesopotamia around 3300 BCE. It once was thought that writing appeared inSumer in southern Mesopotamia a century before it did in Egypt and that perhaps theEgyptians got the idea from Mesopotamia. New discoveries in Egypt suggest that thesecivilizations invented writing independently and that the Egyptian script is as old or evenslightly older.

Prehistoric counting rods made of animal bone date to around 35,000 years ago.


4/19

4

A prehistoric cave painting from Europe dating to around 20,000 years ago.

Why Writing was NeededBetween 4000 and 3000 BCE, the developing prehistoric civilizations in Egypt

were rapidly becoming larger and more complex. Social stratification produced a smallelite that controlled the agricultural surpluses of the majority of poor peasant farmersthrough the collection and redistribution of crop yields through taxation. The elitesneeded a system for accounting and identifying the ownership of these agriculturalproducts and to record taxation and business transactions. Writing in Mesopotamiaoriginally developed largely for economic and accounting purposes. The earlydocuments all recorded economic transactions for benefit of individuals and for state

authorities in the palaces and temples of Sumerian cities.

Mnemonic Devices & Symbols of OwnershipBefore formal writing systems appeared, the earliest Mesopotamian cultures

developed simpler methods for establishing ownership of goods and recordingeconomic transaction.

Stamps and Cylinder SealsTo record ownership, distinctive stamps or seals were invented in Mesopotamia.

These could be pressed or rolled into soft clay to produce a seal impression. Eachcylinder seal was carved with a unique pictorial designs. These seals were often made

of semi-precious stones like lapis lazuli and carnelian and could be attached to anecklace worn by the owner. Stamp seals might also be attached to signet rings. Sinceeach seal was different from others in some way, the owner of the seal only had toproduce an impression that could be compared with another seal impression. If theywere identical, then whatever the seal impression was attached to must belong to theowner of the seal. Strings and ties attached to cloth sacks, ceramic jars, or wooden


5/19

5

boxes that had blobs of soft clay with a seal impression stamped onto them for security(as a kind of lock), and to prove ownership. Although later cylinder seals also hadwriting that spelled out the name of the owner, elaborate pictorial designs were used forthousands of years and many thousands of different cylinder seals and sealimpressions in clay have been discovered by archaeologists.

A cylinder seal (right) and the impression it makes in soft clay (left). The uniquepictorial design identified the owner of the seal and anything stamped with his seal

impression.

Cylinder seals were briefly popular in early pharaonic Egypt, but soon gave wayto stamp seals, often carved in the form of a small scarab beetle. The flat bottoms ofEgyptian seals were carved with pictorial designs and/or hieroglyphic texts identifyingthe owner by name along with his titles. Scarab seals with the name of kings were also

given out to officials as a mark of royal favor. Egyptian stamp seals were often attachedto signet rings. Stamp seals remained in use down to modern times and werecommonly used as late as the 1800s CE. These seals were pressed into hot wax to sealand sign official documents or private letters.

Tokens & Envelopes in Mesopotamia & their UsesBefore complex writing systems appeared in Mesopotamia around 3300 BCE, a

system of clay tokens was developed to record economic transactions of agriculturalcommodities. These tokens occurred in various shapes, often with impressed or incisedmarks or decoration. Some of them resemble later cuneiform script signs for numeralslike 1, 10 and 60. Some tokens resembled the item they represented, like a jar of oil.

Many look nothing like the actual item, as with small discs carved with geometricdesigns that represented animals like sheep.


6/19

6

Clay tokens used as a kind of proto-writing in early Mesopotamia before 3300 BCE.

In a typical business or taxation transaction, tokens representing specificamounts of agricultural commodities involved were placed inside a hollow clay ballenvelope. The owners cylinder seal impression was then rolled on the surface of theclay envelope while it was still soft. But to verify the transaction or account at later timerequired breaking open the envelope to inspect its contents.


7/19

7

Clay tokens and hallow ball-shaped envelope.

Clay tablet with impressions made with tokens.

Eventually, the tokens themselves were impressed into the outside of the softenvelope before it was sealed so that the contents could be read without breaking itopen. The next step in the evolution of the token system was to dispense with the


8/19

8

hollow envelopes and to impress tokens on a soft slab of clay. Finally, use of tokenswas discarded and the soft clay tablets were now incised with pictorial designs markedwith a reed stylus. This was the crucial step in the evolution of writing. At this earlystage, the pictographs on the clay tablets recorded only numbers and tangiblecommodities (simple nouns like sheep, oil, wheat, etc). But this system would be

elaborated to record more complex ideas.

Example of early cuneiform writing made with a reed stylus on a clay tablet.

Pictographs & Logograms: the Development of the Cuneiform Script

Around 3300 BCE, the early writing system in Sumer was rapidly evolving. Theinventory of pictorial signs quickly expanded to over 700 individual signs. Pictographsnow recorded nouns other than types of agricultural products or simple numbers. Signsrepresenting day or human head appeared. These signs were called logograms,meaning that each sign represent a whole word, either a concrete idea or a simpleaction.

Evolution of early cuneiform pictograph of a human head that becomes increasinglyabstract until it is unrecognizable as a picture.

Some verbs, (words expressing actions) also appeared. A human head with abowl touched to its lips meant the verb to eat. The signs themselves were rapidlybecoming less naturalistic and pictorial and more abstract and angular. But how could


9/19

9

more complex and abstract ideas be recorded? How could one write words like tothink or to love? The same problem faced the inventors of the Egyptian hieroglyphicscript as well as other early scripts, and the similar solutions they adopted was each astroke of genius.

Reconstruction of a scribe making cuneiform signs on a clay tablet with a reed stylus.

Development of Complex scripts: rebus principleThe earliest texts in Egypt & Mesopotamia could only record simple lists of

numbers and objects. Later, other objects or actions could also be pictured like to goor sun.

These early texts do not convey complex ideas, direct speech or grammar and syntax.There were not yet complex narratives of past, present, or future actions or series ofevents as in a story. The problem was that there are many words that cannot easily berepresent by a pictogram (= picture sign). How does one draw a picture or series ofpictures that mean I love you, or, I think he is there? How can someones name bewritten? The solution to this problem was the rebus principle. The rebus principle


10/19

10

uses pictorial signs to represent sounds in spoken language. For example, what doesthis mean?

In Egyptian hieroglyphs, this could be written:

And what does it mean?

In the Egyptian hieroglyphic and Mesopotamian cuneiform scripts, the rebusprinciple functioned in a manner similar to an alphabet. But instead of having a coupleof dozen signs to represent individual vowels and consonants, they used hundreds or

even thousands of individual signs to represent one or more syllables. For example, theeye hieroglyph in Egyptian stood for the letters iri while the bee glyph representedthe combination bit. The word for eye in Egyptian was iret. This sounded similar tothe word that meant to make/do Therefore the eye glyph was often used to the wordto make. This is the same principle as using a pictograph of an eye to represent theEnglish First Person Pronoun I as in the example above.


11/19

11

Neither Egypt nor Mesopotamia preferred to use a simple alphabet as latercivilizations like the Hebrews, the Greeks or the Romans did. Instead they opted forcomplex systems that were hard to learn. This meant literacy was in the hands of anelite few. Ancient scribes prided themselves on their ability to master these complex

scripts. Mesopotamian scribes sometimes chose the most obscure and complex waysof writing texts in order to show off their abilities. Alphabets are often considered moreadvanced or modern, but it was not the case that Egyptians or Sumerians were notintelligent enough to invent an alphabet. They wanted a complex system. The Chinesescript today is also incredibly complex, consisting of thousands of individual signs calledcharacters. Yet hundreds of millions of Chinese can read it and even type it on acomputer.

Artists conception of ancient Mesopotamian scribes at work.

The Cuneiform ScriptIn Mesopotamia, most documents were written on clay tablets with signs that

were incised in the still soft clay by a reed stylus. This writing system is calledcuneiform. Cuneiform is only the writing system, but the actual language the textsrecorded varied. Sumerian was the original language, but other civilizations like theBabylonians, the Assyrians, and the Hittites adopted this writing system. This is like the

Latin alphabet used by the Ancient Romans which is now used to write various differentlanguages like English, French, German, Spanish, and even Vietnamese and Turkish.Early on, there were many variants of individual signs. Eventually the signs were

made uniform and rules for the direction of writing and size of individual signs weredeveloped so that texts could be written in neat lines or columns. Yet there were stillseveral thousand individual signs, many of which had multiple meanings.


12/19

12

The cuneiform writing system had several advantages. Clay was cheap anduniversally available unlike papyrus used in Egypt that had to be manufactured by alaborious process. Cuneiform texts were also much more durable, especially when theclay tablets were fired in a kiln, or even when unfired clay tablets were accidentally fired(if a building burned down). Because ceramic is much more durable than organic

material like papyrus, we have literally hundreds of thousands of cuneiform tablets thathave survived from over 3000 years of Mesopotamian civilization. By contrast, Egyptian,Greek and Latin documents written on papyrus are much rarer.

A typical cuneiform document on a small clay tablet. This is an economictransaction receipt, which is by far the most common type of cuneiform text to have

survived.

Another advantage of cuneiform tablets is that they were largely tamper proof.Once the clay dried, especially if it was fired, it became difficult or impossible to alter thedocument. This was especially useful for legal and economic documents. It was hard to

rewrite or forge them. One disadvantage was that it was hard to make corrections,especially after the clay had dried and was impossible once the clay was fired.

Lengthy cuneiform documents were especially cumbersome. Long compositionsmight be inscribed on two or more tablets. The size of tablets was limited. Anythingmuch larger than a foot wide or tall was awkward. Multiple tablets often became bulkyand most cuneiform tablets are actually small enough to fit in the palm of the hand or at


13/19

13

least can be easily held in one hand. Some lengthy texts, such as a record of theAssyrian king Senaccheribs wars, were inscribed on prisms. These were polygonal(multi-sided) clay objects that had more than two sides like a typical flat tablet, andtherefore had more space for writing.

The hexagonal (= six sided) prism of the Assyrian king Sennacherib records the wars hefought.

Papyrus documents are more versatile, especially for long texts. They could berolled up and some scrolls are several yards long. Yet they could easily be destroyed ina fire, would quickly decompose in a damp environment and their ink texts could bewashed away. Papyrus was often recycled if the text on it became redundant, (such asold receipts), by washing off the ink. As a result, the original texts would be lost, even if

the papyrus has survived. The cuneiform tablet system was excellent for certain kinds oftexts: shorter inscriptions, legal documents, economic transactions and receipts,permanent records, etc. They were inferior to papyri for lengthy documents and textsthat needed to be altered or completed at different times for administrative purposes likerunning inventories.


14/19

14

A typical Egyptian papyrus document inscribed with a cursive form of hieroglyphs.Although papyrus was a much more versatile and, literally flexible, writing material, it

was much more fragile and far fewer papyrus documents have survived as compared tocuneiform texts.

Origins & Uses of the Egyptian Hieroglyphic Writing SystemIn Egypt, however, the impetus for writing came from the very top of society,

namely the proto-kings of Upper Egypt. These proto-pharaohs used early hieroglyphicwriting not simply for economic and inventory purposes, but to identify the sacred royalowner of all property, the king himself.

The Name of PharaohAmong the earliest Egyptian documents are single signs or small groups of

pictorial hieroglyphs representing the identity and names of the earliest pharaohs. Later,the Egyptians would develop an elaborate series of multiple names, titles, and epithetsto identify and express the power of the pharaoh. The earliest pharaohs wereconsidered incarnations of the falcon god Horus. These proto-kings also lived in palacesso an early kind of hieroglyphic symbol was adopted that showed a falcon perched onthe roof of a square representation of the front of his palace. This was a kind ofmonogram that could be read the Horus-Falcon-god of the Palace, i.e., the king.Each of these rulers doubtless had his own personal name. Falcon of the Palace was a

title. Later, the individual name of the king was inscribed in a blank square inside thepalace box the falcon stood upon. The whole sign then became more like a tallrectangle. The Egyptians called this written device a serekh, which means somethingthat is made known. The thing made known, of course, was the king himself and hispersonal name.


15/19

15

An early formal hieroglyphic document. This stone tablet called a stela records the nameof the First Dynasty pharaoh Djet whose name means Cobra. The Falcon represents the godHorus. The elaborate box he stands on represents the royal palace. The kings personal name,Djet, has been inscribed in a blank area at the top of the palace sign. The whole text can be

read as The Falcon-King of the Palace, (named) Djet.

As the numbers and complexity of pharaonic names and epithets grew, writingthe name of the king remained one of the most important and common uses of writing inAncient Egypt, especially on monuments and official inscriptions. Names of pharaohs

like Ramesses II occur hundreds of times on the monuments. The name representedthe identity of a person or even a god. As long as the name survived, the person wouldexist forever in the afterlife even if their body was destroyed.

The Earliest Egyptian Inscriptions: Pot Marks and LabelsSome of the earliest examples of writing in Egypt are pot marks. Pottery and


16/19

16

stone vessels were often painted or engraved with pot marks. Sometimes these wereearly forms of the kings name. Other pot marks differ from the hieroglyphic writingsystem that evolved and are not fully understood by Egyptologists today.

Another form of early document is inventory tags made of ivory or bone. These

tags are quite small, even the larger ones are only as big as a pack of cigarettes. At thetime of the First and Second Dynasties (around 3100-2700 BCE), ivory labels werequite elaborate. They often had small scenes showing the king engaged in thecelebration of religious festivals or attacking his enemies. Hieroglyphic inscriptions gavehis names and sometimes those of high officials. The purpose of these tags was toidentify objects or products to which they were attached. For example, a tag showingthe First Dynasty king Den smiting his enemy was once attached to a pair of sandalswith a string. Only the tag survives, but engraved on its back side is a hieroglyphic textthat means pair of sandals.

An ivory label inscribed with the name of the First Dynasty pharaoh named Den. Thisinventory tag was attached to a pair of sandals. It is less than three inches wide.

Because of their small size and their function as inventory labels, the texts on

these ivory tags are very brief and do not convey as much information as longer moreelaborate texts. There may very well have been longer documents written on papyrus atthis early stage, but none have survived. A blank roll of papyrus was found in a tombfrom this time, showing that papyrus existed. During the Old Kingdom (2700-2100 BCE)and later, longer texts were inscribed on stone monuments like tombs and statues andeven fragile papyrus. Many of these have survived.


17/19

17

Scholars once believed that writing appeared in Mesopotamia before it did inEgypt. The implication was that perhaps the Egyptians borrowed the idea from theSumerians. Earlier scholars often thought that cultural ideas and inventions appeared inone place and then spread to other parts of the world in a process called diffusion.

Diffusion theory is not accepted today and we now know of many inventions andpractices, including writing, that were invented separately in widely separated times andplaces. The hieroglyphic writing system bears no relationship to Sumerian cuneiform.New archaeological discoveries from Egypt now show that writing appearedindependently at roughly the same time or even slightly earlier than in Mesopotamia.Tiny ivory inventory tags the size of postage-stamps have been found in a proto-dynastic royal tomb at the site of Abydos, which dates prior to the First Dynasty. Thesetiny labels record the names of places of origins for the commodities to which they wereonce attached. The tags show that unlike Mesopotamia, where writing evolved from thepre-writing token system, the hieroglyphic script was the invention of one or a smallgroup of brilliant men who spontaneously invented the system wholly without

precursors.

Postage-stamp sized ivory label tags from the tomb of a prehistoric Egyptianking. These are the oldest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. They name the places of

origin from which various goods deposited in the tomb came.

Types of Early Documents in Mesopotamia & EgyptThe earliest written documents in both Egypt and Mesopotamia were brief and

recorded a limited range of information. Economic documents, inventories and receipts,in particular, were most common. Many documents were meant solely to establishownership, in particular inscriptions with the pharaohs name in Egypt. These were


18/19

18

inscribed on label tags, pottery and stone vessels and on valuable objects like jewelryand furniture.

Eventually, a variety of longer and more complex sorts of documents began toappear. Mythological and ritual texts occur in both civilizations. The Pyramid Texts inEgypt record magical spells the king would need to recite to make his way into heaven

in the afterlife. Mythological tales like the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Descent of theGoddess Innana to the Underworld record the religious beliefs of Mesopotamia but arealso a form of literature that was enjoyed for its artistic and entertainment value.Increasingly, both civilizations developed a tradition of fine literature including poetryand even fiction. Writing was also used for administrative tasks and for long distancecommunication through letters including diplomatic correspondence between differentkingdoms. Mesopotamian and Egyptian rulers inscribed monumental texts on the wallsof their buildings or on free standing stone tablets called stelae that recorded theirmighty deeds as warriors or the magnificent monuments, palaces, temples, and citywalls they built to glorify themselves. Thousands of mundane documents were alsomade. Travelers and visitors often left graffiti in distant places they visited. Literate

people in one village in Egypt jotted down thousands of short texts on flakes oflimestone near the Valley of the Kings in ancient Thebes. They include absenteerecords for workmen, laundry lists, casual doodles, records of lawsuits, or a bit of villagegossip.

A cuneiform tablet inscribed with a story called The Epic of Gilgamesh.


19/19

19

Literacy and BureaucracyThe cuneiform and hieroglyphic scripts were very complex, with thousands of

signs to memorize and difficult rules for writing and reading texts. As a result and thiswas surely deliberate writing was an elite skill and only a tiny percentage of the

population of Egypt or Mesopotamia could read. Scribes enjoyed their elite status andviewed themselves as superior to illiterate laborers. There is a whole genre of Egyptiantexts that were meant to teach young scribal students that their profession was farbetter than any other. These texts satirized the miseries of manual labor in a highlyexaggerated and comic manner, but reflected the contempt scribes felt for the illiteratemasses. A culture of bureaucracy became so entrenched that fancy writing became anend in itself. Even today, thousands of years later, bureaucracies use writing not tomake the administration of government and other institutions more efficient but to makeit deliberately cumbersome. A modern victim of the inflexible bureaucracy in todays Iraqor Egypt can easily relate to the example of excessive record keeping in theMesopotamian city of Ur where three separate documents were written to record the

death of the same goat!

A statue of an Egyptian scribe at work. He is being supervised by a baboonrepresenting Thoth, the Egyptian god of writing. The Egyptians called writing the words

of the gods and considered it a sacred and magical technology.