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Alphabet - World History Encyclopedia von Glahn, R. (2005). As in the Near East, officials were keen to keep a copy of important letters to cover themselves in case of loss, this was especially the case at Egyptian temples and fortresses. Capitalism and modernity: The great debate. With the collapse of the Roman authority in Western Europe, literacy development became largely confined to the Eastern Roman Empire and the Persian Empire. An overview of ancient letters and postal systems can hardly cover all civilizations but should, at least, include a nod to two other cultures outside the Mediterranean which developed sophisticated and rapid communication networks of their own: the Chinese and the Incas. There have recently been discoveries of tortoise-shell carvings dating back to c.6000 BCE, like Jiahu Script, Banpo Script, but whether or not the carvings are complex enough to qualify as writing is under debate. The Proto-Elamite script is also dated to the same approximate period.[24]. [89] In ancient India, the Brahman caste became stewards of texts that aggregated and codified oral knowledge. The invention of writing facilitated the sharing, comparing, criticizing, and evaluating of texts, resulting in knowledge becoming a more communal property across wider geographic and temporal domains. 50 CE. It is also possible to assess the ancients' attitude to letters through their handbooks on good writing and the publication of collections of letters written by famous names. For tablets and scrolls that needed to be sent to a particular destination, couriers were employed. The link was not copied. [71] With the growth of economic activity in late Medieval and Renaissance Europe, sophisticated methods of accounting and calculating value emerged, with such calculations both carried out in writing and explained in manuals. The meaning in Hebrew of the word day always means a 24 hour period of time. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on The earliest of these is dated to around 1200 BCE.[48][49]. From the 3rd century BCE, there is a marked increase in personal letters, although correspondents still had to find their own means of sending them such as friends, slaves, and trusted travellers like merchants. The fact that most of these formulaic expressions were optional, or existed in several versions depending on the occasion and relation concerned, gives modern interpreters the opportunity better to understand the specific setting and situation in which the letter was written, and hence its content. Law in imperial China. The job, when done for the state, involved a great responsibility as the courier was made liable for the letter arriving where it should. The Romans - both men and women of all ages - continued to use papyrus for their letters but sometimes used parchment (vellum) and tanned leather, too. [113][114][115][116][117], Printing and the growth of knowledge in Europe. As in the Near East, Egyptian letters were written on clay tablets and papyrus. [138] Havelock attributed the emergence of Greek philosophic thought to the use of the written word which allowed the comparison of beliefs and belief systems and the critical examination of concepts. Newspapers and journalism, having origins in commercial information, soon was to offer political information and was instrumental to the formation of a public sphere. And they wanted to communicate important things in their lives. Paul the Ancient Letter Writer: An Introduction to Epistolary Analysis Eventually, the cursus publicus was split into two branches, distinguished by whether the couriers travelled by cart (cursus clavularis) or horse (cursus velox). And not even a Farewell! By 2700 BCE Egyptian writing had a set of some 22 hieroglyphs to represent syllables that begin with a single consonant of their language, plus a vowel (or no vowel) to be supplied by the native speaker. It is easy today to fail . The history of writing traces the development of expressing language by systems of markings[1] and how these markings were used for various purposes in different societies, thereby transforming social organization. ","contentUrl":"https://www.worldhistory.org/uploads/images/3018.jpg","copyrightNotice":"Wikipedia User: Jaume - CC BY-SA - This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon a work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. [13] According to this theory, the concept of representing language by written marks, though not necessarily the specifics of how such a system worked, was passed on by traders or merchants traveling between geographical regions. Much of what we consider knowledge is inscribed in written text and is the result of communal processes of production, sharing, and evaluation among social groups and institutions bound together with the aim of producing and disseminating knowledge-bearing texts; the contemporary world identifies such social groups as disciplines and their products as disciplinary literatures. [105][106][107] Aristotle wrote treatises and lectures which were the core of education at the Lyceum, along with the may volumes collected in the Lyceum's library. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Greek is in turn the source for all the modern scripts of Europe. Goetzmann, W. (2005). Letters & Post in the Ancient World Another example is the pictographs invented by Uyaquk before the development of the Yugtun syllabary for the Central Alaskan Yup'ik language in about 1900. The villas of Pompeii were richly decorated with wall paintings depicting all manner of subjects such as mythology, erotica, architecture, trompe-l'oeil, religious practices, sports and family portraits. The first writing systems of the Early Bronze Age were not a sudden invention. [125][126] Only in the nineteenth century, however, did universities in some countries begin creating place for the writing of new knowledge, turning them in the ensuing years from primarily disseminating classic knowledge through the reading of classic texts to becoming institutions devoted to both reading and writing. List of languages by first written accounts, Imperial civil service examination system, The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, "Anyang writing and the origin of the Chinese writing system", "Writing May Be Oldest in Western Hemisphere", "Ancient Script Spurs Rethinking of Historic 'Backwater', "Rewriting history: 3000-yr-old script uncovered in Georgia", "Archaeologists Thrilled by Historic Script Discovery in Georgia", "Ancient Georgian site granted cultural heritage status", "On the nature of joint strength in paper-A review of dry and wet strength resins used in paper manufacturing", "Cretan Writing in the Second Millennium B.C", Children of the Code: A Brief History of Writing Online Video, BBC on tortoise shells discovered in China, Fragments of pottery discovered in modern Pakistan, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_writing&oldid=1170651578, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles using infobox templates with no data rows, Pages using multiple image with auto scaled images, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from March 2023, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2022, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from September 2013, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2021, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2021, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2015, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2012, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0. T/F. [41], Since the 1990s, the discoveries of glyphs at Abydos, dated to between 3400 and 3200 BCE, may challenge the classical notion according to which the Mesopotamian symbol system predates the Egyptian one, although Egyptian writing does make a sudden appearance at that time, while on the contrary Mesopotamia has an evolutionary history of sign usage in tokens dating back to circa 8000 BCE. Goody, J. Ultimately, the purpose of the letter depended on the nature of the relationship between sender(s) and recipient(s). [84], While Common Law developed in a mostly oral environment in England after the Romans left, with the return of the church and then the Norman invasion, customary law began to be inscribed as were precedents of the courts; however, many elements remained oral, with documents only memorializing public oaths, wills, land transfers, court judgments, and ceremonies. For its part the Greek alphabet introduced for the first time explicit symbols for vowel sounds. For example, we read, "I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord" ( Rom 16:22 ). Ancient Greek Letter Writing A Cultural History (600 BC- 150 BC) Paola Ceccarelli Exhaustive documentation and data New approach to the debate on the importance of writing in Greek society Covers the period from 550 BC to 150 BC Also of Interest By the Spear Ian Worthington Imperialism, Cultural Politics, and Polybius Wood-pulp paper is still used today, and in recent times efforts have been made in order to improve bond strength of fibers. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1442/letters--post-in-the-ancient-world/. These practices changed the intellectual and psychological orientation of those who engaged with them.[139][140]. Kang Seung Yoon is a South Korean born in 1994 and leader of a boy-band named Winner who recently debuted and became a monster rookie band in Asia. Contracts and loans supported the growth of long-distance international trade with accompanying networks for import and export, supporting the rise of capitalism. Fresco, PompeiiMary Harrsch (Photographed at the Museo Archaeologico Nazionale di Napoli) (CC BY-SA) After first writing right to left, like the Phoenicians, the Greeks eventually chose to write from left to right. The reintroduction of classic texts into Europe through the library and intercultural intellectual culture in Crdoba, including works of Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy and Galen, along with Arabic texts such as by Avicenna and Al-Kharazami created a need for interpretation, lectures, and scholarship to make those works more accessible to scholars in monasteries and urban centers. "Sappho" fresco, PompeiiCarole Raddato (CC BY-SA) The meaning in Hebrew of the word day always means a 24 hour period of time. Clearly, the ancients pretty much everywhere then were just as concerned as we are today with sending and receiving messages as quickly and reliably as possible, and they built up impressive communication networks that, if our technology suddenly failed, we would find difficult to match today. Mary Harrsch (Photographed at the Museo Archaeologico Nazionale di Napoli) (CC BY-SA). [72] The creation of corporations then proliferated documents surrounding organization, management, the distribution of shares, and record-keeping. [60] The adapter(s) of the Phoenician system added three letters to the end of the series, called the "supplementals". ","creator":{"@type":"Person","name":"Wikipedia User: Jaume"},"creditText":"Wikipedia User: Jaume / Wikipedia","dateModified":"2023-08-21T06:45:37+0000","datePublished":"2014-09-15T08:14:41+0000","encodingFormat":"image/jpeg","headline":"Roman Road, Spain","height":600,"isAccessibleForFree":true,"isBasedOn":{"@type":"CreativeWork","url":"http://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ancient_Roman_roads_in_Spain#/image/File:Calzada_romana_y_puente_de_Cirauqui.jpg"},"isFamilyFriendly":true,"isPartOf":"https://www.worldhistory.org#website","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0","mainEntityOfPage":"https://www.worldhistory.org/image/3018/roman-road-spain/","publisher":"https://www.worldhistory.org#organization","representativeOfPage":false,"url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/image/3018/roman-road-spain/","width":440}. While extant letters from Antiquity show considerable formal flexibility, as a rule, epistolographers followed certain standard conventions for writing letters, including dividing the text into the three parts of opening, body, and closing. The Psychology of Literacy. This is a real estate and things (purple dye, toys) letter from a sister to her brother who are both well-off enough to buy houses and things. 2nd or 3rd century AD letter from a mother to her children. Although there was no private post system in the ancient world, many individuals did make use of the state communication apparatus or used friends, slaves, merchants, and travellers to send their personal letters over great distances. The Chinese were using ink and paper to write from at least the 2nd century CE, and their communications network, already in existence to some degree during the Warring States Period (5th - 3rd century BCE), really took off during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE). Most or nearly all alphabetic scripts used throughout the world today ultimately go back to this Semitic proto-alphabet. 18 CE (derived from history of the alphabet goes back to the consonantal writing system used for Semitic languages in the Levant in the 2nd millennium BCE. All the names for our week days come from Roman and Norse/Anglo-Saxon gods. [64] This reed, found chiefly in Lower Egypt, had various economic means for writing. [100] Less is known about Mayan, Aztec, and other Mesoamerican learning because of the destruction of texts by the conquistadors, but it is known that scribes were revered, elite children attended schools, and the study of astronomy, map making, historical chronicles, and genealogy flourished. Aviation, rocketry, radar, encryption, and computing were also the subject of classified documents. VesuviusAugust 24, 79 AD. Ptolemy's work on astronomy dominated through the Middle Ages. The prehistoric cave drawings in Altimira in Spain and Lascaux in France cry out the lives and the being of those extremely remote people. Walter Ong, Jack Goody, and Eric Havelock were among the earliest to systematically argue for the psychological and intellectual consequences of literacy. The letter was written in Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions; the writing is written between lines. From the Villa di Guilia Felice. Cite This Work This book has two main parts: a monographic study and three appendices. Amarna Letter from LabayuOsama Shukir Muhammed Amin (Copyright) I existed. [121] Maps and discoveries of exploration and colonization also were recorded in books and governmental records,[122] often with the purpose of economic exploitation as in the Archives of the Indies in Seville but also to satisfy curiosity about the world.[123]. The greatest benefit of writing is that it provides the tool by which society can record information consistently and in greater detail, something that could not be achieved as well previously by spoken word. New York: Oxford University Press. During this period the deposed Abbasid Caliphate moved its seat of power and learning to Crdoba, now in Spain, where they founded a major library which reintroduced many of the classic texts back into Europe along with texts of Arab learning. He justifies his capture of a certain town by quoting a proverb \"When an ant is struck, does not fight back and bite the hand of the man that struck it?\" It is significant that Labayu, the leader of the Hapiru, is seen as the ruler of Shechem, a city which lay in the heart of the hill country, and which must have served as the power base for the Hapiru. Perhaps curiously to our modern view of writing, it was still rare for letters to express any personal details, thoughts, and opinions, with most correspondence being limited to facts and events. Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. Governing a vast empire required fast and reliable communication and the Han messengers were said to be capable of transferring an imperial message at a speed of 480 km (300 miles) in 24 hours, although less than half that seems to have been the norm. Perhaps, too, people were inspired by the letters of Saint Paul and others, and in the Eastern Roman Empire, what became known as the Byzantine Empire, certain letters were revered to such an extent that they were read out before audiences. The tablets could be reworked and reused or baked to make them permanent. The A to Z of Alphabet Origins and the Most Ancient Written Languages ","creator":{"@type":"Person","name":"Mary Harrsch (Photographed at the Museo Archaeologico Nazionale di Napoli)"},"creditText":"Mary Harrsch (Photographed at the Museo Archaeologico Nazionale di Napoli) / Flickr","dateModified":"2023-08-19T23:07:28+0000","datePublished":"2012-11-15T16:58:04+0000","encodingFormat":"image/jpeg","headline":"Fresco, Pompeii","height":"1600","isAccessibleForFree":true,"isBasedOn":{"@type":"CreativeWork","url":"http://www.flickr.com/photos/mharrsch/3240869659/"},"isFamilyFriendly":true,"isPartOf":"https://www.worldhistory.org#website","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0","mainEntityOfPage":"https://www.worldhistory.org/image/961/fresco-pompeii/","publisher":"https://www.worldhistory.org#organization","representativeOfPage":false,"url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/image/961/fresco-pompeii/","width":"1184"}. [citation needed], The history of the Greek alphabet began in at least the early 8th century BCE when the Greeks adapted the Phoenician alphabet for use with their own language. Six major historical writing systems (left to right, top to bottom: Pre-cuneiform tags, with drawing of goat or sheep and number (probably "10"), Toggle Uses and implications of writing subsection, Writing and government, states, bureaucracy, citizenship, and journalism, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and Mesoamerica, Military knowledge and classified documents. Jonah was in the belly of the whale 4 days. That final step completed the transition to full writing, and with it the consequent ability to record contemporary events for posterity". Surviving letters such as clay tablets and papyrus scrolls contain a mine of information and they have been invaluable to historians interested in such diverse topics as commodity prices, marriage customs, and regional demographics. Letters and their delivery via a state communication system was a feature of many ancient cultures. As in the Near East, they were provided with regular stations to change horses and refresh themselves although some would also have travelled by boat down the Nile and its tributaries. letter from older sisters to their two younger sisters is a universal one of older siblings lording it over the younger ones: light the lamp in the shrine to the gods; shake the dust off all the cushions; keep studying; dont worry about Mother; dont play in the courtyard where people will see your offensive behavior; behave yourselves when you are outside the house; take care of Titoas and Spharus (maybe dogs?). Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1442/letters--post-in-the-ancient-world/. DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195393361-0137 Introduction The term "epistolography" refers to the practice and art of writing letters or epistles, derived from the Greek words epistol (a letter) and graphein (to write).