Edit Definition
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols. Around the 4th millennium BC, the complexity of trade and administration outgrew the power of memory, and writing became a more dependable method of recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form.
The original Mesopotamian writing system was derived from this method of keeping accounts, and by the end of the 4th millennium BC, it had evolved into using a triangular-shaped stylus pressed into soft clay for recording numbers. This was gradually augmented with pictographic writing using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted. Round-stylus and sharp-stylus writing was gradually replaced by writing using a wedge-shaped stylus, called cuneiform. Also in that period, cuneiform writing became a general purpose writing system for logograms, syllables, and numbers, and this script was adapted to another Mesopotamian language, Akkadian, and from there to others such as Hurrian, and Hittite. Scripts similar in appearance to this writing system include those for Ugaritic and Old Persian.
The earliest known hieroglyphic inscriptions are the Narmer Palette, dating to c.3200 BC, and several recent discoveries that may be slightly older, though the glyphs were based on a much older artistic tradition. The hieroglyphic script was logographic with phonetic adjuncts that included an effective alphabet. The world's oldest known alphabet was developed in central Egypt around 2000 BC from a hieroglyphic prototype, and over the next 500 years spread to Canaan and eventually to the rest of the world.
The Phoenician writing system was adapted from the Proto-Caananite script in around the 11th century BC, which in turn borrowed ideas from Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was a writing system in which only consonants are represented. This script was adapted by the Greeks, who adapted certain consonantal signs to represent their vowels. The Cumae alphabet, a variant of the early Greek alphabet gave rise to the Etruscan alphabet, and its own descendants, such as the Latin alphabet and Runes. Other descendants from the Greek alphabet include the Cyrillic alphabet, used to write Russian, among others. The Phoenician system was also adapted into the Aramaic script, from which the Hebrew and Arabic scripts are descended.
Definition
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols. Around the 4th millennium BC, the complexity of trade and administration outgrew the power of memory, and writing became a more dependable method of recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form.The original Mesopotamian writing system was derived from this method of keeping accounts, and by the end of the 4th millennium BC, it had evolved into using a triangular-shaped stylus pressed into soft clay for recording numbers. This was gradually augmented with pictographic writing using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted. Round-stylus and sharp-stylus writing was gradually replaced by writing using a wedge-shaped stylus, called cuneiform. Also in that period, cuneiform writing became a general purpose writing system for logograms, syllables, and numbers, and this script was adapted to another Mesopotamian language, Akkadian, and from there to others such as Hurrian, and Hittite. Scripts similar in appearance to this writing system include those for Ugaritic and Old Persian.
The earliest known hieroglyphic inscriptions are the Narmer Palette, dating to c.3200 BC, and several recent discoveries that may be slightly older, though the glyphs were based on a much older artistic tradition. The hieroglyphic script was logographic with phonetic adjuncts that included an effective alphabet. The world's oldest known alphabet was developed in central Egypt around 2000 BC from a hieroglyphic prototype, and over the next 500 years spread to Canaan and eventually to the rest of the world.
The Phoenician writing system was adapted from the Proto-Caananite script in around the 11th century BC, which in turn borrowed ideas from Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was a writing system in which only consonants are represented. This script was adapted by the Greeks, who adapted certain consonantal signs to represent their vowels. The Cumae alphabet, a variant of the early Greek alphabet gave rise to the Etruscan alphabet, and its own descendants, such as the Latin alphabet and Runes. Other descendants from the Greek alphabet include the Cyrillic alphabet, used to write Russian, among others. The Phoenician system was also adapted into the Aramaic script, from which the Hebrew and Arabic scripts are descended.
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Articles
Article
Writing is undeniably one of humanity's most important inventions. The earliest forms of storing information on objects were numerical inscriptions on clay tablets, used for administration, accounting and trade. The first writing system dates back to around 3000 BC, when the Sumerians developed the first type script: hundreds of abbreviated pictograms that... [continue reading]
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Once the largest library in the ancient world, and containing works by the greatest thinkers and writers of antiquity, including Homer, Plato, Socrates and many more, the Library of Alexandria, northern Egypt, is popularly believed to have been destroyed in a huge fire around 2000 years ago and its volumous works lost. Since its destruction... [continue reading]
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WARNING: This article contains sexually explicit language that might not be appropriate for children or teenagers. The Roman town of Pompeii was preserved in metres of volcanic material following the cataclysmic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE. Often, we may experience the ancient past only through the second-hand interpretations of historians... [continue reading]
Article
The cuneiform script proper emerges out of pictographic proto-writing in the later 4th millennium BC. Mesopotamia's "proto-literate" period spans the 35th to 32nd centuries BC. The first documents unequivocally written in the Sumerian language date to the 31st century, found at Jemdet Nasr. The Sumerians of the Uruk period used clay tokens... [continue reading]
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This dissertation discusses Roman imperialism and runic literacy. It employs an interdisciplinary terminology. By means of terms new to archaeology, the growth of a specialized language, a technolect, is traced until it enters the realm of literacy. The author argues that there is more than one way for literacy to appear in prehistoric cultures. The ’normal&rsquo... [continue reading]
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Michael Wiese Productions (01 April 2008)Price: $7.58 -
Kregel (22 May 1988)Price: $13.98 -
Harry N. Abrams (01 November 2004)Currently unavailable -
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Timeline
Visual Timeline-
2285 BCE - 2250 BCELife of Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad, and world's first author known by name.
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2000 BCEMinoan hieroglyphic script is invented.
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c. 1900 BCE - c. 1600 BCEComposition of The Descent of Inanna.
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1700 BCEMinoan Linear A script.
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c. 1700 BCE - 150 BCEThe Vedic Period in India.
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c. 1640 BCE - c. 1700 BCEWritten form of the Atrahasis Myth of the Great Flood.
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1100 BCE
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c. 1000 BCEDeath of Ahiram (or Ahirom) of Byblos, whose sarcophagus bears the oldest inscription of the Phoenician alphabet.
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800 BCE
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c. 647 BCE - c. 627 BCEExtensive collection of clay tablets acquired known as Ashubanipal's Library at Nineveh.
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c. 350 CE - c. 950 CEEstimated use of the Ogham in Ireland and southwestern England.
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