The Ancient World

Visual Communication

Writing was created several times in many different countries around the world, such as china, Egypt and Iraq, only to name a few. Writing mainly started out as recognisable symbols or drawings. An example of this is this stone tablet, which is believed to have been made by "the Mesopatanium city of Kish about 5,300 years ago". As you can see, there are humans heads, hands and feet carved into the stone. Obviously it is clear to see how different this is to modern day writing, however its also very understandable how and why early writing began as symbols which people could all recognise. 

http://archure.net/neptune.html

This tablet is presented in the book:

The Emergence of Man 

The Birth of Writing

by Robert Claibourne

and the Editors of TIME-LIFE BOOKS

"Except for a foot, a hand and two heads, however, few of the symbols are recognizable, and their meanings can only be surmised. Scholars believe the foot in the lower left rectangle could mean either "go" or "come"; the profiled heads at the top could signify "man" or "slave". "

"All the writing systems ever devised have evolved from pictures-initially simple, linear drawings that represented familiar objects. "

I feel it is extremely interesting to note when man actually began to communicate with one another or at least when we believe man was mentally capable to communicate, in comparison to when the first evidence of writing was created.

The understanding i have gathered of cave paintings, is that drawings and paintings created as early as this, were almost like a way of telling stories or a way of comminicating with other human beings, before man was able to fully communicate through a common language. Cave paintings or "graphic communication" also acted as a way of aiding man in being able to record memories. Its believed these kinds of "primitive cave paintings" appeared in Europe around 30,000 B.C.

It is believed that between 10,000-40,000 years B.C. "modern man" evolved "physiological capability of speech." 

The earliest known pictographic writing appears to have been created around 3500-3000 B.C. which interestingly enough, was around the same time in which it is believed Egyptians were using hieroglyphs; as this is believed to have been around 3000 B.C.

Writing is believed to have been invented by the Summerians around 3100 B.C.

There is evidence that "soon afterwards writing was reinvented nearly a thousand miles away by the Egyptians. It is likely enough that the Egyptians got the idea of writing from the Sumerians-there is archaeological evidence of contact between the two areas at this time-but the bare idea is all the Egyptians could have taken"

What i found most interesting about watching this documentary is how important the egyptian paintings and hieroglyphs on pottery and walls of buildings and tombs are, in aiding us to discover information about ancient egypt this many years on. Paintings in tombs allow us to gather what an individual may have looked like or more so information about a persons life, their hobbies, interests and occupation. 

http://www.sciencesway.info/vb/showthread.php?t=25371#.Uw4s4nna7u0

What is happening in this painting, is described by the writing on the walls around it. As you can see, the writing here seems to be completely made up of miniature drawings or symbols rather what we would probably class as 'letters'. 

Some of the pictures in hieroglyphs will have represented letters or sounds, these were called "phonograms" e.g. a mouth symbol would stand for "r".

While other small symbols actually stood for what they looked like, so for example, a picture of a sky would mean the word "sky" or "heaven". These there called "ideograms". 

Through hieroglyphs we can see the huge importance of the worshiping of gods for ancient egyptians. Tombs are covered in hieroglyphs which worship gods and pray that the deseeded in the tombs will be accepted by the gods. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/prof_richard/4155808078/

"builder of royal tombs named Peshedu designed and constructed his own. He covered the ceiling with the Litany of Re, a religious text that celebrated the Sun God's eternal passage between heaven and the underworld."

The Emergence of Man 

The Birth of Writing

by Robert Claibourne

and the Editors of TIME-LIFE BOOKS

In many other ancient civilisations the evidence of the link between writing and worship or religion can be found. Religions such as islamic are great examples of this;

http://english.islammessage.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?articleId=1075

"While many religions have made use of figural images to convey their core convictions, Islam has instead used the shapes and sizes of words or letters. In Islam figural arts is seen as a possible implication of idolatry, and therefore early Muslims looked to the artistry of calligraphy for religious expression. In Islamic and Arabic cultures, calligraphy became highly respected as an art - the art of writing."

Here is an example of Islamic writing in the "Koran"

http://wadingacross.wordpress.com/islam/quranic-troubles/

"Muslim scribes, who were the chief instrument in disseminating the word of the prophet muhammad, delighted in ornamenting the sacred words of the koran ; they took special pride in the grace, balance and rhythm of their calligraphy. The intimate association of writing with the islamic religion gave it lofty status, so much so that there was even tradition that the qualm, or reed pen, was Gods first creation."

The Emergence of Man 

The Birth of Writing

by Robert Claibourne

and the Editors of TIME-LIFE BOOK