The Development of Writing Materials From the Sumerian and Egyptian Times Today, writing materials are easy to come by and something humans tend to take for granted. There was, however, a time that paper did not exist. According to the book Scribes, Script and Books written by Leila Avrin:
Today we think of a book as a gathering of paper pages bound together with a protective cover. For the books of older, partially lost civilizations, we must expand our imagination to include all kinds of writing instruments and bookmaking materials we would not have considered otherwise, such as stone, metal, trees (wood, bark, bamboo, and palm leaves), glass, ivory, clay, wax, fabric, and the bones and skins of animal. (64)
The question is, how did humankind evolve from the point that thoughts, events, and numbers could not be conveniently recorded to where humankind is now with written materials readily available? This paper will defend the statement that the Egyptians
…show more content…
Compared to the Sumerian Empire, the Egyptians were more civilized and had the time and resources available to focus on the further development of literature. In the book, A History of Writing edited by Ann Marie Christin, Christin confirms, “ ‘writing’ was used in everyday life (correspondence, administrative, legal documents) and in ideological and religious writing on temples, royal monuments, and funerary monuments, as well as in autobiography documents, religious rites, and for magical spells” (46). The Egyptian people incorporated writing into their work. Masonry workers carved artful inscriptions into arches and pillars. Morticians inscripted sacred rites onto coffins. Agricultural workers kept detailed records of flood dates, seed treatment, yields, and profits on scrolls of papyrus. Middle class Egyptians started to make reading and writing the new social standard continually innovating ways to turn any substance into a writing
Egyptians also had many achievements. They had two different types of writing The demotic script and hyrogliphics. The demotic script was made for faster and more efficient writing. Hyrogliphics was the first type of writing they used it was pictures and symbols. They had huge pyramids and statues. One of the most important statues was the sphinx. The Sphinx made the god re, the god
Ancient Egyptians developed a writing system based on pictures, known as hieroglyphics. The difference between cuneiform and hieroglyphics was hieroglyphics stood not only for ideas or objects, but also sounds. According to document four, Egyptians also created papyrus, the first paper, in order to keep records.
To begin, the sumerians invented the first form of writing which was called the cuneiform. Instead of using pens, pencils, and paper they used styluses to make wedge shaped symbols on clay tablets when using the cuneiform. Scribers were the ones who would keep track.of business records. His amazing invention also helped with the development of language.
The history of the Egyptian writing system is somewhat unique due to how much it evolved over the millennia that the empire existed. They alone utilized papyrus to write upon. However, like the Sumerians, the Egyptians also developed a pictogram based language. Any given pictogram represented what it stood for in real life. A fish symbol meant “fish” or a boat meant “boat.” Then, as time progressed the pictogram language became more advanced and single
Hieroglyphics enabled the Egyptians to keep written records rather than word of mouth or relying a person’s a memory to transmit information. Hieroglyphics were very important to the ancient Egyptians as the word hieroglyphics literally meant “language of the gods” when it was translated. It was very common for priests to use hieroglyphs as they would write down prayers, magical texts and passages about life, death and worshipping the gods. The Egyptians believed that writing autobiographies and hieroglyphic guides of the after world on the insides of coffins and on the surface of tomb walls would help guide the dead through the afterlife. Hieroglyphic writing was not only used for religious purposes. It was used by Civil officials when they
To compare the governmental writing s between the civilizations of Mesopotamia and The Nile River Valley their writings are similar yet nothing alike. Such as the civilization of Mesopotamia had writing to preserve their history, just like the people of the Nile River. All of the civilizations had their own specific form of writing that seemed to mirror each other in either style of what was being written or what the information was being written on. Keeping a record of what happened trough each civilization was important so thought time them each made their own form of writing, which made writing start to be more effective to preserve history. These forms of writing have also been spread to other cultures other then just the ones mentioned.
Besides the need for lists in government and in the daily life of Egyptians citizens, scribes also wrote coffin texts. Over a thousand different coffin texts have been discovered by archaeologists. Coffin texts are spells written on coffins. Scribes also wrote the Book of the Dead, which are the many spells purchased by ancient Egyptians in the marketplace.
Ancient egyptian invented hieroglyphics the first people to put in and record the events that happened in their life. The earliest writing was in hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphics were drawing that paint stories. Hieroglyphics are some of the oldest articles in the ancient egyptian time. Ancient egyptian use hieroglyphics to appear for their language. Hieroglyphics characters were system of writing in symbols represent objects and tools. Hieroglyphics is now mainly used to refer to system of writing by ancient egyptians. Hieroglyphics supplied us with information that books and the internet could not, without hieroglyphics we wouldn’t know much information about Ancient Egypt. One interesting fact about Hieroglyphics is mosts ancient egyptian could not read or write.
In ancient Egypt scribes were thought to be essential to the continuation of their culture. The king and the upper class prized scribes because their ability to read and write was thought to be the highest intellectual achievement that one could attain, thus heightening their social status.1 Developing literacy in any culture is a huge turning point and accomplishment in the development of a more complex society. In “In Praise of Learned Scribes”, written in 1300 BCE, and translated by John A. Wilson, the importance, advantages and disadvantages of being a scribe are further detailed.2 To be a scribe in ancient Egypt was to almost posses a somewhat magical skill.[1] They kept records, recorded
Writing was one of Sumer's important inventions. The Sumerian writing form, is called cuneiform. Cuneiform was made of carvings that were turned
Mesopotamia developed a form of writing known as cuneiform. Their writing evolved from pictures into signs. Mesopotamians used writing mainly for record keeping. They would put business transactions into writing and had a written code of law. They also had literature like The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Epic of Gilgamesh is about one of the earliest passions of man, the search for eternal life. The Mesopotamians had a school for writing because they wanted trained scribes for
The colossal building projects that the Egyptians embarked on, such as the pyramids and temples, required a very complex society and highly skilled workers and engineers[8]. They developed a very complex writing system not only to keep commercial records, but also to record their spiritual beliefs and the history of their empire. Harkhuf used it to document his exploration of Nubia and opening of trade routes there, showing the high levels of complexity that each of those societies had risen to[9].
The Egyptian and Sumerian civilization are two of the oldest and most well-known civilization of the ancient world. When comparing artworks from these two-different civilizations it may be hard to tell apart the differences especially because the artworks are thousands of years old and lack clear description as compared to more modern arts. When looking at artworks from these periods we can certainly point out some similarities because both cultures used artworks to represent both their beliefs and culture. But if we dig a bit deeper and examine the artworks closely we start finding the differences.
The Egyptian sage/scribe was the John, Matthew, Mark, et al of the Kamitic priesthood. The sage/scribe of this 21st century writes from that same perspective as his ancestral counterparts- plus the mortal issue of the threatened survivability of mankind on what has become a multitude-inously populated planet with egregious social instability, suffering and militarism. Other collectively behavior shaping narrative, journalism, novels and diverse communicative styles and media of the day, are steeped in the drama and
Ancient Egypt Hieroglyphics was one of the first writing systems to employ pictures. Hieroglyphics was derived from the Egyptian expression “god’s words.” First developed in Egypt around 3000 B.C., the system continued to be used for inscriptions on monuments, wall paintings, and religious texts until the A.D. 300s. (Wallenfels 160) Early inscriptions of this artistic writing form can be found in a group of seals bearing the names of early Egyptian kings, pyramid Texts, which consist of the funeral liturgy found in royal pyramids and autobiographies found in