Writing
Why is it such a big deal?
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Ancient Egyptians believed that a person could
not achieve immortality if his or her name was
not spoken or inscribed somewhere forever.
The removal of the name and image of a
dead person served a dual purpose. It
“rewrote” history and was an assault upon
the spirit of the deceased.
 If all memory of a dead person was lost or
destroyed, the spirit would also perish.
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Why did we begin writing?
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Keep records
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Communicate with the gods
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Tool for elite to justify their rule over the common,
illiterate people
Where did writing begin?
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Writing was invented independently in
Mesopotamia, China, and Mesoamerica. Many
experts believe that it was also invented
independently in Egypt and the Indus civilization.
Invented Independently…
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What does that mean?
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This means that writing did not begin at only
one place and then diffuse or spread to other
locations
People in Mesopotamia, China, and
Mesoamerica (and possibly Egypt and Indus)
did not get the idea for writing from
somewhere else. They invented writing all by
themselves.
When did writing begin?

Recent discoveries indicate writing began in
Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Indus between
3500-3100 BCE.
Cuneiform in Mesopotamia
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Pictograms, or drawings
representing actual things,
were the basis for
cuneiform writing.
Through repeated use over
time they began to look
simpler and more abstract.
These marks eventually
became wedge-shaped and
could represent sounds or
abstract concepts.
Hieroglyphics in Egypt

Hieroglyphs were a style of pictographic writing
based on sounds as well as symbols for things
and ideas.
Deciphering Hieroglyphs
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Hieroglyphs were used for
formal occasions, such as
writing on tombs and
religious texts.
Demotic was used for
everyday writings.
Over time hieroglyphs
were replaced with the
Greek alphabet.
The meaning of the
hieroglyphs had been lost
for the last 1500 years.
So how can we read hieroglyphs?

French soldiers
discovered the
Rosetta Stone while
they were rebuilding a
fort in Egypt in 1799.

It had writing in two
languages (Egyptian
and Greek) and three
scripts (hieroglyphic,
demotic and Greek).

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Jean-Francois Champollion
was finally able to decipher
the hieroglyphs in 1822.
The Rosetta Stone is a text
written by a group of
priests in Egypt in 196 BCE
to honor the Egyptian
pharaoh. It lists all the
things that the pharaoh
had done for the good of
Egypt.
Writing in China

The earliest form of
Chinese writing has
been found etched
onto turtle shells and
animal bones called
“oracle bones.”
Oracle bones were
used to ask the gods
questions and have
been dated between
1500-1000 BCE.
Writing in Mesoamerica

An ancient stone tablet recently discovered in
Mexico may date writing in Mesoamerica to
around 900 BCE.
Mesoamerican Hieroglyphs
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Mesoamerican writing
is intricate and
pictorial.
Often called
hieroglyphic.
Probably began with
the Olmec civilization.
Indus Writing
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First known examples of
writing in the Indus Valley
were recently discovered in
Harappa, a major urban
center in the Indus
civilization.
The writing is described as
‘trident-shaped’ and has
not been deciphered.
The Harappan language
died out and did not form
the basis of other
languages.
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Indus Seals
Phoenician Alphabet-A connection to
today
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A writing system
developed by 1000
BCE using symbols to
represent sounds
Phonetic-one sign for
one sound, 22 signs
total
“Alphabet”-comes
from first two letters
of Phoenician
alphabet: “aleph” and
“beth”
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Introduced by Phoenician sailors and merchants
to trading partners in the Mediterranean including
the Greeks
The Romans picked it up from the Greeks

The Romans picked it up from the Greeks. Many
languages were derived from the Latin used by
the Romans.
Major Languages of the World