Playlist: Before the Alphabet
Before there was writing, people remembered—the history of the tribe, how to make tools or placate the gods, who owned what. The growth of commerce required written records. This program traces the development of writing, from the earliest Sumerian cuneiform examples and the almost parallel development of hieroglyphics in Egypt, through the evolution of different concepts and shapes to the development of a workable alphabet, explains how the mysteries of cuneiform writing and hieroglyphics were solved, and shows superb examples of these early forms of writing. (26 minutes)
Before there was writing there was oral history. In the ancient world, humans expressed their thoughts in pictures. Around 3300 BC, stone tablets appear that express quantities, ownership, and ideas.
Egypt's hieroglyphics were unsuited to the requirements of daily life. A simplified writing system often accompanied the symbols. This cuneiform writing is a culmination of writing with signs and symbols.
Statues and vases significant to the Egyptian people are covered in hieroglyphs that tell stories about the person depicted. Some tell of kings' conquests. Often the engraved hieroglyphics were glazed in brilliant colors.
Egyptian hieroglyphics were incorporated into jewelry and statuary to unite utilitarian uses of writing as well as its aesthetic use. Egypt believed in a magical quality of the written word.
An alphabet primer dates from the 14th century BC. Phoenecian is the earliest ancestor or today's alphabet. Only scribes undertook early writing. Their toolboxes held pens, brushes, and lozenges of solidified ink.
Writing is a privileged mode of expression of the society it depicts. Scribes were organized into a social hierarchy. Trilingual inscriptions such as the Rosetta Stone allowed a Frenchman to decipher hieroglyphics.
Egypt left a record of divination, oracles, and beneficial and black magic. A voodoo statuette carries the name of the doomed individual. The Code of Hammurabi was written on a stone tablet standing over 8 feet tall.
The Egyptian pharaoh was the intermediary between the people and the gods. A form of calendar existed in Egypt long before the existence of the pyramids. Most surviving ancient texts are religious in nature.