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A 
 
 HISTORY OF THE ART 
 
 OF WRITING 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NBW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
A 
 
 HISTORY OF THE ART 
 
 OF WRITING 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM A. MASON 
 
 WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 J13eto gorfe 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1920 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
p 
 
 f\A\i\3c\ 
 
 COPYEIGHT, 1920, 
 
 BT THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published, August, 1920 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Evidences of Ideography in Our Written Lan- 
 guage I 
 
 II Primitive Picture Writing i8 
 
 III Picture Writing of the North American In- 
 
 dians 60 
 
 IV Picture Writing of the Ancient Mexicans . 112 
 
 V Hieroglyphic Writing of the South Sea Is- 
 landers 146 
 
 VI Chinese Ideographic Writing 154 
 
 VII Hieroglyphic Writing of the Ancient Egyp- 
 tians 185 
 
 VIII Babylonian and Assyrian Cuneiform Writing . 223 
 
 IX The Hieroglyphic System of Writing of the 
 
 Ancient Hittites 267 
 
 X The Alphabetic Writing of the Phoenicians . 286 
 
 XI Pre-Phcenician Syllabaries and Mediterra- 
 nean Script 309 
 
 XII The Greek Alphabet 337 
 
 XIII The Roman Alphabet 372 
 
 XIV Writing in the Middle Ages 392 
 
 XV European Alphabets Derived from the Greek . 443 
 
 XVI The Age of Printing 453 
 
 Bibliography 49i 
 
 Index; 499 
 
A HISTORY OF THE ART 
 OF WRITING 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EVIDENCES OF IDEOGRAPHY IN OUR WRITTEN 
 LANGUAGE 
 
 Every one who has read a printed page of English, or 
 any European writing, doubtless has wondered how the 
 letters or words that he reads — or uses in writing to 
 record his own thoughts — ever came to be used as the 
 representations or symbols of spoken words. Our proc- 
 esses of thought in the ever-widening environment of 
 these busy, modern days have become so automatic that 
 we are apt to lose sight of the historical evidences of 
 the long, constructive past written large over the pages 
 of the voluminous present. That there is a whole volume 
 of human history back of every one of the twenty-six 
 alphabetic characters with which we write our thoughts 
 may be a new idea to most readers of this book. Yet one 
 will find as he investigates the subject that these simple 
 symbols, apparently so arbitrary and meaningless to our 
 latter-day eyes, are replete with the linguistic, even the 
 domestic, history of countless generations of our remote 
 ancestors. He will discover as he has unfolded to him 
 their llfe-hlstory that these characters have been designed, 
 shaped and molded by many successive artists toiling un- 
 der palm and pine ; each one in his turn modifying, alter- 
 ing and simplifying them, using them for the day and 
 
2 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 generation of his own race to pass them on as a priceless 
 inheritance to other nations. 
 
 Let any one for a moment scan the pages of a printed 
 book — this one for instance — or any book in a Eu- 
 ropean or Asiatic language, except the Chinese or its 
 derived scripts, and he will discover what every intelligent 
 person has known from childhood, that the intended 
 thought of the writer is conveyed to the mind of the 
 reader by means of printed characters of abstract form, 
 which represent spoken words and which " spell out " the 
 words phonetically, syllable for syllable, as they are pro- 
 nounced. It Is trvte that our own English language has 
 many startling exceptions to this general rule, sufficient to 
 make it the despair of all foreigners. Nevertheless, the 
 principle holds true, with the most trivial exceptions, for 
 the main body of the text of every book through all its 
 pages from cover to cover. The printed words that we 
 read, which are made up of the present, purely arbitrary 
 characters which we know as alphabetic signs, convey to 
 the mind through these abstract symbols word-pictures 
 comparable to the primitive ideographs — idea-pictures — 
 which were the ancient precursors and prototypes of these 
 symbols. These printed or written words of the classical 
 parchments, the medieval manuscripts and the modern 
 books, it must be remembered, stand for the phonetic 
 names of the intended things, representing them to the 
 mind, but bearing no resemblance to them in form. By 
 long association, however, these word-symbols, despite 
 their apparently arbitrary character, call up in the mind 
 of the reader the corporate things themselves ; not alone 
 their names, but their forms, qualities or attributes that 
 the thousands of words in the language have come to rep- 
 resent. They are idea-pictures as well as sound-oictures. 
 In fact they were idea^ictures first, ages before the 
 
EVIDENCES OF IDEOGRAPHY 3 
 
 primitive culture of advancing man arrived at the concep- 
 tion of using these pictures as signs to represent phonetic 
 sounds. 
 
 So unconscious has this long association become, 
 whereby tangible things and abstract qualities are re- 
 called by arbitrary symbols, that it probably will be a 
 matter of considerable surprise to many of our readers 
 to learn that there ever was a time when writing was any- 
 thing different. But it will be the purpose of this book 
 to prove by incontestible evidence that practically all 
 systems of writing can be traced back through successive 
 stages of development to a primitive age, long anterior 
 to the invention of letters, when all records were merely 
 the pictures of the things or ideas expressed. We have 
 only to look about us in the world to discover that we 
 have had quite up to the present generation, in the records 
 of the aborigines of our own land, in the writing of the 
 Chinese and of other nations, the contemporaneous use 
 by different peoples the world over, of almost every phase 
 of this world-wide and age-long evolution of the won- 
 derful art of writing. For national development in 
 the matter of writing has been most unequal. Some 
 nations for one cause or another — racial backwardness, 
 isolation, servitude or other unhappy causes contributing 
 to it — never to this day have evolved any system of 
 written record; while other nations, some even contiguous 
 through all the centuries to these laggards in civilization, 
 invented and practiced the art of writing and enjoyed its 
 beneficent results many millenniums ago. The African 
 tribes, as is well known, though in contact with Egyptian 
 civilization and its high culture over three thousand years 
 before Christ, have failed up to the present day to de- 
 velop any indigenous system of writing; while the history 
 of Babylonian writing runs back to the fifth pre-Christian 
 
4 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 millennium. It Is probable that the Homeric epics were 
 chanted from memory during the early years of the sec- 
 ond millennium before Christ, ere contact with the 
 Phoenicians conferred upon the Greeks the art of per- 
 petuating their heroics In visible, graphic form. The 
 Romans, just before the birth of Christ, finding the Gothic 
 barbarians of northern and western Europe Illiterate and 
 possessed of no other means of record than tallies of 
 knotted cord and notched wood, taught them to write 
 with the Roman letters. And the descendants of these 
 same Europeans In the i6th and 17th centuries, coming 
 In contact with the aborigines of this Western Continent, 
 discovered them like children studying the primer of writ- 
 ing and drawing the pictures of the things and Ideas that 
 they desired to remember or to impart to others. 
 
 It doubtless will be a still greater surprise to the reader 
 to be told that there are yet retained in our language not a 
 few of the primitive pictures that antedate writing, al- 
 tered and modified, to be sure, through ages of use, dur- 
 ing which interval they have become greatly simplified 
 and conventionalized. All written languages contain these 
 silent witnesses of their pictorial origin, existing like the 
 persistence of ancestral traits in individual tribes; or to 
 be nearer our point, like the roots of their spoken words 
 converging different dialects back to a common linguistic 
 parent. 
 
 The reader will notice In the pages of this book, be- 
 sides the alphabetic characters which we hope to be able 
 to show later on probably are the corrupted forms of 
 primitive pictures, other characters used as the representa- 
 tion of words that are not phonetic at all, but at a casual 
 glance seem as arbitrary as the letters themselves, the 
 component parts of printed words. They are In reality 
 conventionalized pictures. In many cases retaining an In- 
 
EVIDENCES OF IDEOGRAPHY 5 
 
 dubltable resemblance to the things which they represent. 
 After turning the title page the reader will come to the 
 table of contents, and here at once he will find two kinds 
 of characters, neither alphabetic nor phonetic. The chap- 
 ters: one, two, three, etc., are represented by perfectly 
 straight marks: I, II, III, etc. These, as all know, are 
 the numerals used in the Roman system of notation. 
 They do not " spell " the names of the numbers, but 
 literally picture them. No mode of representation could 
 be simpler or more elementary. The characters are noth- 
 ing less than pictures of the fingers held up in counting; 
 and they indeed are called " digits," from the Latin 
 digitus, the finger. The numeral I represents one finger, 
 II represents two fingers, and III represents three fingers. 
 V, which represents five, is beyond question a highly con- 
 ventionalized picture of the extended hand with its four 
 fingers and the thumb. We shall endeavor to show 
 throughout this book how pictorial characters and their 
 lineal descendants, written symbols, have constantly un- 
 dergone simplification from the original pictures through 
 less and less complex forms until the final, simplest, ab- 
 stract stage has been reached. To conclude the analysis, 
 every school boy knows that IV is one less than V, and 
 that VI, VII and VIII respectively are one, two and 
 three digits more than V. X is a conventionalized picture 
 of the two hands together, with the thumbs and fingers 
 extended, somewhat resembling a mitten; while IX rep- 
 resents one digit less than X. 
 
 Opposite the chapter numbers in the table of contents 
 will be seen the page numbers: i, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. Here 
 again are characters wholly different from either the 
 Roman numerals or the letters of the Roman alphabet — 
 our classic inheritance. They are the Arabic system of no- 
 tation. The characters have no phonetic value whatever. 
 
6 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 They are devoid of any present, illustrative significance, 
 as the Roman numerals. Their curving lines more closely 
 resemble written script, being cursive in general char- 
 acter. They are to-day obviously pure symbols, but the 
 last phase of a long development or transformation, pos- 
 sibly beginning in a picture of the idea in primitive days, 
 and gradually simplified and conventionalized until finally 
 reduced to the bare elements that we now see.^ Their 
 history and meaning are buried in the remote past of 
 that mystical and romantic East that has left us so many 
 other literary and scientific legacies and enigmas. The 
 Arabs Introduced them into Europe, but they probably 
 obtained them from the Hindus. Herodotus Informs us 
 that they — the Arabs — borrowed them from India. 
 We likewise are Indebted to the peoples of the East: the 
 Arabs, Egyptians, and It may be to peoples as remote 
 as the ancient Chaldeans, for other arbitrary signs In 
 common use as the symbols for Ideas. It will be Interest- 
 ing before we begin to unravel the more complex mys- 
 tery that surrounds the history of our alphabetic char- 
 acters to refer to some of these symbols; for they are 
 the survivals of a hoary antiquity long anterior to the 
 age of writing, when pictures only were employed In 
 " the short but simple annals " of the early races of re- 
 mote antiquity. It will be of great Interest to us In the 
 prosecution of our quest to find that we still use for cer- 
 tain ideas pictures — corrupted It Is true — that stand 
 for these Ideas not as printed words stand for the phonetic 
 counterpart of spoken words, but as the pictorial repre- 
 
 lA more or less plausible explanation of the origin of the first three 
 Arabic numerals is that they were derived from the representation of one, 
 two and three horizontal strokes with a cursive glide line connecting 
 them, owing to rapid sketching, thus: 
 
EVIDENCES OF IDEOGRAPHY 7 
 
 sentation of the very things or ideas intended, and which 
 they resemble in form or through analogy. 
 
 Let us turn to the dictionary for a few moments, for 
 there we shall find a ready list of all the symbolic signs 
 in use in our language. Probably no signs in any system 
 of writing are more primitive than those which denote 
 celestial and terrestrial feaures : — as the sun, moon, the 
 planets, the arch of the sky, mountains, flowing water, 
 trees, etc. ; and it may be remarked here without digres- 
 sion to substantiate the fact by illustration — for that 
 will be done later on — that there is a remarkable similar- 
 ity in these signs in the many different world-systems of 
 writing employed by peoples geographically isolated from 
 one another and untouched or uninfluenced by each other's 
 culture. The signs of the zodiac, given in most almanacs, 
 are perhaps the oldest symbols that we have. Their origin 
 is not yet definitely traced, but they are known greatly 
 to antedate the classic period of Rome. There is a large 
 zodiac painted on the walls of the Temple of Dendera 
 in Egypt, dating back to the early days of imperial Rome, 
 which has the identical objects: the ram, the bull, the 
 twins, etc., pictured in much the same order in which we 
 employ them to-day. They must have been in use pos- 
 sibly centuries prior to this period, descending from an 
 ancient ancestry. In Indian art zodiacs are met with at 
 a very early period; and in Babylonia as far back as the 
 time of Nebuchadijezzar I (1130-1115 B. C.) boundary 
 stones were carved with the representations of the heav- 
 enly bodies and stellar deities. We find the sun, moon, 
 stars, and sometimes the archer, the scorpion, the goat, 
 etc., carved at the top of these Assyrian boundary stones 
 above the boundary descriptions, as a dedication or in- 
 vocation to their heavenly deities. Fig. i is the Illustra- 
 tion of a boundary stone of Nebuchadrezzar I, found In 
 
8 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 ancient Babylonia, reproduced from " A New Boundary 
 Stone of Nebuchadrezzar'I, from Nippur," by Wm. J. 
 Hinke, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1907. Among 
 the many signs shown in this particular example of in- 
 vocation to the gods we distinguish the sun, moon, stars 
 and the divinities indicated by the archer and the 
 scorpion. 
 
 In the left-hand column of Fig. 2 the reader will find 
 the zodiacal signs in their calendar order with the signifi- 
 cant name of each given, so that he .may judge for him- 
 self how far, even at the early period when we first meet 
 with them, the signs had become modified from their 
 original pictorial form to the highly conventionalized 
 form shown. 
 
 Obviously No. i represents the horns of a ram; No. 
 2 the head and horns of a bull. No. 3 is a conventional 
 representation of the ancient wooden statues of Castor 
 and Pollux, even showing the top and bottom cross pieces 
 of wood used to hold the uprights together. No. 4 repre- 
 sents the claws of a crab. No. 5 is a crude representation 
 of a lion's tail. No. 6 probably Is a literary abbreviation, 
 being a corruption of the Greek word for " virgin," — 
 TrapOeva^. No. 7 Is a crude representation of a balance. 
 No. 8 is thought by some to be the legs and tail of a 
 scorpion. No. 9 Is the arrow of the Archer with a piece 
 of the bow attached. No. 10 is dIflScult to analyze. It 
 may be a literary corruption like No. 6, but Dr. Isaac 
 Taylor ^ has pointed out that " it preserves the whole out- 
 line of Capricornus, the small circle being the head of the 
 goat with the fore legs below and the body and tail ex- 
 tending to the left." Considering, however, how striking 
 a characteristic a goat's beard Is and how it sweeps back 
 
 i"The Alphabet An Account of the Origin and Development of 
 Letters." Isaac Taylor. 1883. 
 
EVIDENCES OF IDEOGRAPHY 
 
 Fig. I. Boundary stone of Nebuchadrezzar I, with signs of the heavenly 
 bodies and celestial divinities. 
 
 from his chin, if this be a conventional picture of a goat, 
 the long curving line on the right undoubtedly seems to 
 
lo A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 represent the beard. It certainly has its characteristic 
 swing and action. No. 1 1 is a true ideographic symbol 
 lil<e most of the others, really a conventional representa- 
 tion of the waves of water, a symbol almost universal in 
 its usage, as will be explained and illustrated later on. No. 
 12 clearly is two fishes tied together. 
 
 In the astronomical signs used in almanacs for the sun, 
 moon, planets, etc., we have illustrations of other pictorial 
 or conventional symbols representing directly or meta- 
 phorically, by form or significance, the objects intended. 
 The more prominent of these signs are illustrated in the 
 right-hand column of Fig. 2. The signs for sun, moon, 
 star and comet are obvious. They probably have been 
 employed as ideographs since men first began to record 
 annals and events, ages before syllabic or alphabetic writ- 
 ing was invented. We shall come across some of these 
 several times in the signs employed for writing by differ- 
 ent nations widely separated. (It is interesting to note in 
 passing that " sun " in Chinese, which we shall soon 
 show is a species of picture-writing, is the " face in the 
 heavens.") Mercury is represented by his caduceus, 
 which' he carried in his hand in his flying embassies for 
 the gods, Venus is metaphorically represented by her 
 looking-glass. The earth is shown with its meridian and 
 equator. Mars is symbolized by his shield and spear. The 
 sign for Jupiter is a hieroglyphic representation of an 
 eagle, Jove's sacred bird. The reader may note a resem- 
 blance in this symbol, more than fanciful, to the Baby- 
 lonian sign for bird, shown in the third character in the 
 second vertical row of signs in Fig. 80. Some authorities 
 consider this peculiar sign a representation of Jupiter's 
 thunder-bolt. The reader may note a distant resemblance 
 between it and the sign that physicians mark on their 
 prescriptions: ^. This seems to be a custom which is be- 
 
EVIDENCES OF IDEOGRAPHY 
 
 II 
 
 lieved to have prevailed from early Roman pagan days 
 of invoking the help of Jupiter for the propitious opera- 
 tion of medicinal remedies.^ 
 
 The planet Saturn is symbolized by a sickle, the sacred 
 emblem of Saturn. The sign for Uranus records the name 
 of its discoverer, Herschel, which for a long time was 
 the proper name of the planet. This is a striking example 
 
 Aries, the Ram 
 
 qp 
 
 f\ Taurus, the Bull 
 
 I I Gemini, the Twins 
 
 O C) Cancer, the Crab 
 
 Leo, the Lion 
 
 Virgo, the Virgin 
 Libra, the Scales 
 Scorpio, the Scorpion 
 Sagittarius, the Archer 
 Capricornus, the Goat 
 
 111 
 
 ^''''^^ Aquarius, the W^ater Carrier 
 
 K 
 
 Pisces, the Fishes 
 
 
 C 
 
 * 
 
 9 
 ® 
 
 ¥ 
 
 Moon 
 
 Star 
 
 Comet 
 
 Mercury 
 
 Venus 
 
 Earth 
 
 Mars- 
 
 Jupiter 
 
 Saturn 
 
 Uranus 
 
 Neptune 
 
 Fig. 2. Ideographic symbols used in astronomy. The signs of the zodiac 
 and the heavenly bodies. 
 1 Possibly a more reasonable explanation of this sign is that it is an 
 abbreviation — Rx — for "Rex" (Jupiter Rex). 
 
12 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 of the quite casual perpetuation of an historical fact, one 
 in the course of ages quite apt to be forgotten, espe- 
 cially during troublous times; and it has been in con- 
 sequence of the unhappy interruptions of cultural develop- 
 ment from time to time, through desolating warfare, that 
 so much has been irretrievably lost and forgotten that 
 might have assisted us so materially in this history. It 
 is highly probable that not a few written characters in 
 the languages of the past have originated in a manner 
 equally as novel as this sign for Uranus. Many modern 
 Chinese characters appear to date back to an origin quite 
 as fortuitous. Neptune is most appropriately symbolized 
 by a trident, the emblem of the god of the sea. 
 
 There are other arbitrary signs in daily use, which, 
 while not pictorial in their general character or origin, 
 show the strong tendency in languages toward convention- 
 alization and corruption of preexisting forms. It Is this 
 tendency which doubtless has operated from the earliest 
 times to transform our alphabetic characters from their 
 historic, pictorial prototypes Into their present meaning- 
 less, arbitrary forms. We will present a few of these 
 arbitrary symbols yet lingering in our written language 
 and in daily use by us. The dollar sign, $, probably Is a 
 modified figure 8, denoting a "piece of eight" — eight 
 reals — a Spanish coin equivalent to our dollar. The 
 character £, " pound sterling," is merely a capital L with 
 a mark across it, and is an abbreviation of the Latin word 
 libra. The character lb, " pound weight," is formed 
 from the first and third letters of the sarpe Latin word, 
 with a cross line to give it a distinctive character. The 
 character ^ is another form of P, the initial letter of 
 the Latin word per, " by." The character IT, denoting a 
 paragraph in writing, is the exact reverse in form and 
 color of the letter P. The section mark, §, Is believed to 
 
EVIDENCES OF IDEOGRAPHY 13 
 
 be derived from the initial letters f C (old style) of the 
 Latin words siffnum sectionis, " the sign of the section." 
 The character & is a ligature combining the letters of 
 the Latin word et, " and." The old style, ^, distinctly 
 shows the two letters, though in a somewhat involved 
 and corrupted form. The sign @ is a graphic modifica- 
 tion of the Latin word ad, " at" or " to." The inter- 
 rogation mark ?, is described by Bilderdijk. to be the rep- 
 resentation of the first and last letters of the Latin word 
 quaestio, " question," placed one over the other, as was 
 quite common in writing abbreviations; thus: Q . The 
 same authority also says that the exclamation mark ! is 
 formed from the Latin word io, " joy," written vertically; 
 thus: J . This may seem rather fanciful, but abundant 
 examples of written characters made up in this figurative 
 manner may be found in the archaic symbols of ancient 
 languages and in phonetic characters in-the-making, like 
 the Chinese, long since arrested in the development of 
 its written characters at an early stage. Indeed, the fig- 
 urative Is the next stage of development after the em- 
 ployment of purely representative or ideographic signs. 
 
 There are many other symbols used In mathematics, 
 music, chemistry, etc., as +, plus; — , minus; Xj times; 
 ^, a clef; and so on; which would be only a digres- 
 sion further to enumerate, but which retain in our written 
 speech to-day the archaic principle of graphic representa- 
 tion. They represent the idea, not the word, and picture 
 It to the mind often in a figurative form. It must be ad- 
 mitted, however, when all Is told, considering the many 
 thousands of words and characters in our written lan- 
 guage, that there are comparatively few survivals to re- 
 mind us of the former rich, graphic nature of the writing of 
 those distant peoples of antiquity from whom our ances- 
 tors or precursors received their letters. Yet the sum of 
 
14 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 all the evidence is quite too overwhelming to be doubted 
 that our present alphabetic signs are but the corruptions 
 of primitive pictures, each having lost through the attri- 
 tion of ages its peculiar pictorial character, having passed 
 through the transforming hands of many different na- 
 tionalities and races, each contributing its share of altera- 
 tion or modification, until they have become conventional- 
 ized and simplified into their present, latest arbitrary 
 form. We cannot say their last form, for future genera- 
 tions may yet mold and modify these alphabetic signs as 
 past generations of men have done; but we may confi- 
 dently assert that no further radical change ever will or 
 can be effected. Within the last one hundred years the 
 old-style characters J , "s"; y^ "the"; &f, "and"; 
 have become obsolete; and it is already becoming the 
 vogue in certain types to omit the dot over the i. Pos- 
 sibly the cross to the t will before long be retired into 
 oblivion and other slight and unimportant modifications 
 at present undreamt may be made. Yet It may safely be 
 claimed that the final chapter is practically completed, 
 and that the long historic development of our written 
 characters forever Is a closed book. 
 
 We also have a few words still lingering In our lan- 
 guage, historic echoes from the past of our mother tongue, 
 that spealc most eloquently of facts concerning whole 
 chapters of the early history of the materials and tools 
 with which our early precursors carried on the art of 
 writing. These words afford corroborative proof of and 
 establish in our imagination the ancient methods whereby 
 written records have been preserved in the various ma- 
 terials in which they have been inscribed and handed down 
 to us. A few examples of these words, freighted with 
 historic Import, must suffice. " Paper " in Its derivation 
 recalls the old Egyptian mode of writing on a material 
 
EVIDENCES OF IDEOGRAPHY 15 
 
 made from layers of the pith of the papyrus reed. The 
 classic name for it, biblos, has given us our word for 
 bible. " Library " is derived from the Latin word liber, 
 the bark of a tree used for paper. " Book " is from the 
 Anglo-Saxon hoc, " beech " ; the bark of this tree having 
 been employed by our immediate English ancestors for 
 writing upon. " Tablet " comes from the Latin word 
 tabula, " board," upon which writing was inscribed in the 
 classic times by writing with a stylus through a coating of 
 wax. We know that in Rome the laws were written on 
 boards of oak which were displayed in the Forum. 
 
 There are other examples that could be instanced, but 
 as they are apart from our main inquiry we will offer but 
 a few concluding witnersses. " Pen " is derived from the 
 Latin penna, a feather; " style " descends from the Latin 
 stylus, the instrument with which the classic authors wrote 
 upon their wax tablets; and " quill " comes from the old 
 English word quylle, a reed. Perhaps no word more 
 loudly proclaims its origin in the ancient usages of writ- 
 ing and book-making than our modern word " volume," 
 which is derived from the Latin volumen, a roll. We 
 know from classic sculptures and wall paintings, and have 
 had it confirmed again and again by papyrus and parch- 
 ment rolls preserved in the dry sands of Egypt, that the 
 roll was the customary form of preserving written docu- 
 ments. The Egyptians themselves in their hieroglyphics 
 employed the picture of a papyrus roll tied with a string 
 to indicate documents, papyri and official writing gen- 
 erally. 
 
 Thus we find surviving in our language to-day words 
 that tell the history of the old methods and processes of 
 writing as regards the " tools of the trade." This record 
 just as surely survives in this form and is as historically 
 authentic as the same facts substantiated by ancient pic- 
 
i6 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 tures and by the very books themselves that have come 
 down to us from the ancient peoples who practiced the 
 art of writing in the materials recorded by these survivmg 
 words. But in the matter of the evidences of a pictorial 
 origin of our alphabetic letters, the very remoteness of 
 the age, the fact that it was the earliest stage of the art 
 of writing, and the impossibility of conceiving that men 
 in this stage of development could so far analyze their 
 own processes of growth as to be able to leave any record 
 of it, precludes the possibility of ever finding anything 
 written on the subject by those living in the formative 
 days. It is the internal evidence alone that must suffice 
 and convince us. We do not in fact need any further 
 record of the origin of writing than that which we shall 
 be able to read in the printed characters themselves when 
 we shall have investigated the many diverse forms of the 
 art of paleography as seen in the inscriptions of the dif- 
 ferent peoples of antiquity, of which authentic copies eas- 
 ily may be consulted in almost any library or museum. 
 There are many missing links in the chain of develop- 
 ment, and chapters in the story are wanting here and 
 there; but in the main it is a well-connected story, and 
 one that is full to the brim with living, human interest. 
 It will require no special appeal to the reader's imagina- 
 tion to foreshadow to him that this story of the evolu- 
 tion of writing deals with one of the most momentous 
 agencies in the intellectual advancement of man. No other 
 influence that man ever exerted has reacted so powerfully 
 upon the development of his mental and spiritual nature as 
 the invention of writing. Without the art of writing man 
 would still be a savage as benighted as the unlettered 
 heathen who still Inhabit Darkest Africa. Without writ- 
 ing to conserve current ideas and ideals and transmit 
 them to posterity, all advance In intellectual attainments. 
 
EVIDENCES OF IDEOGRAPHY 17 
 
 all uplift in spiritual thought that was not transmitted 
 through the uncertain and errant instrumentality of 
 memory would be lost. The acquisition of the art of 
 writing above everything else distinguishes the civilized 
 nations from the barbaric tribes; and whenever paleo- 
 graphic evidences are first met with in the life-history of 
 any nation, we may confidently assert that the people 
 practicing the art of writing, however crude the signs 
 employed, were well advanced in the scale of civilization. 
 It Is this fact that makes any inquiry into the origin of 
 writing a peculiarly interesting study, and the person who 
 approaches the subject sympathetically will amply be re- 
 warded, for he will see at every stage the noble struggle, 
 pathetic at times, of man's emergence from his primitive 
 barbarism and awakening to a conscious sense of his ob- 
 ligations to others, and of his ultimate high destiny. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 
 
 Primitive men living in small, segregated communities, 
 separated by mountain or water barriers from alien tribes 
 for whom they entertained only feelings of hostile sus- 
 picion, had little need of the art of writing. Their lives 
 were uneventful, and their annals, such as they had, were 
 transmitted orally from father to son. For countless ages 
 man must have existed without any means of written 
 record. All that was preserved of his intellectual or moral 
 advancement was attained solely through the medium of 
 oral tradition. It has been said that necessity is the 
 mother of invention. Until the necessity for writing 
 arose, the very Idea of any kind of record was unthought 
 of and the means of carrying It out were still further 
 from the conception of primitive man. The members of 
 the aboriginal tribes when away on hunting or fishing ex- 
 cursions rarely ventured beyond the natural boundaries 
 of their tribal lands, making verbal communication with 
 each other always a matter of Immediate possibility. 
 Around the domestic hearth the daily events of the chase, 
 affairs of the family, social and moral virtues and other 
 concerns of the day, were discussed, and whatever knowl- 
 edge of natural laws or of social well-being had been 
 deduced from the affairs of their tribal life was trans- 
 mitted verbally from parent to child and lived tradition- 
 ally In the memories of successive generations. The his- 
 toric and religious traditions of the various tribes, em- 
 bodying their past history and their relations to the great 
 
 i8 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 19 
 
 universe about them and its mysterious cosmogony, as 
 they viewed it, were chanted by the magicians and seers of 
 the tribes at the times of their religious ceremonies. 
 
 These seers, shamans or medicine men, were men se- 
 lected for their general intelligence, sagacity or strong 
 personality; and were naturally endowed with unusual 
 mnemonic ability. These were the early days before the 
 memory had become weakened by its dependence upon 
 written texts, when the full performance of its function 
 was indispensable to the proper preservation of aboriginal 
 knowledge. At these religious ceremonials the young men 
 of the tribe were instructed concerning the mystic rituals, 
 and were taught the great epics of the tribe to transmit 
 them in their turn to others. Thus was knowledge con- 
 served in the ages before writing or record making was 
 understood or demanded. 
 
 History records that the ancient Sanscrit Vedas con- 
 taining the religious dogmas and the moral and legal 
 codes of the Ind were transmitted for ages, from gen- 
 eration to generation, through the unwritten epics of 
 the priestly caste. The very name " veda," from vid, 
 " to know " — of old applied to them — indicates that 
 they were the vehicle of the transmission of knowledge. 
 The oldest of these Vedas, the Rigveda and the Sama- 
 veda, are hymns, chants and tunes in metric composition, 
 and are of marked archaism and simplicity as compared 
 with the later prose Vedas. This affords infallible evi- 
 dence of the fact that these earlier Vedas were chanted 
 by the priests before writing was invented, the memory 
 being assisted by the metrical composition. The Homeric 
 epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, have every evidence — 
 historical and literary — of having been composed in the 
 childhood of Greece. Homer was an itinerant minstrel, 
 who gathered together in his incomparable poems all the 
 
20 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 knowledge of his day, reciting them before the youth of 
 Greece to inspire them with virtue and valor. The poems 
 became the chief authority in matters of history, religion 
 and politics. They made a nation, a religion and a lan- 
 guage. The minnesingers of Germany, who sang the 
 verses of the Nibelungen Lied and the Gudrun, and the 
 bards of Gaul, Briton, Ireland and Scotland, and those 
 who chanted the skalds of Scandinavia, all had their part 
 in disseminating knowledge before writing was known. 
 
 In the more primitive life, as man advanced in the 
 scale of civilization and tribal life became more complex, 
 and as tribes came into mutual contact with each other, 
 enlarging their horizon of life and action, verbal speech 
 proved inadequate as a means of communication. Also 
 wars of self-protection or of conquest being waged be- 
 tween tribes speaking different languages, it became neces- 
 sary to adopt codes of communication which could be 
 mutually understood by various tribes. Since the com- 
 batants spoke in different tongues, what could be more 
 natural at first than the adoption of a code of gesture 
 signs? This is precisely what came about. An elaborate 
 system of signs and gestures came into use whereby con- 
 ferences were carried on and treaties enacted between 
 the various alien tribes. This primary use of the hands 
 in expressing emotions, actions and commands, through 
 gestures of the sign-language, doubtless has been with 
 many tribes and races the immediately antecedent stage — 
 we may safely say the preparatory stage — of writing. 
 It is more than an idle metaphor to liken this sign-lan- 
 guage to actual writing in the air with the hands. We 
 shall show later on that it was not so much the move- 
 ments of the hands as the picture of the movements that 
 prefigured in many cases the subsequent written signs 
 of which they were the prototypes. 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 21 
 
 We have in our own American aborigines when they 
 first came under the observation of Europeans ample cor- 
 roboration of this precedent stage of sign-language be- 
 fore writing. Capt. W. P. Clark in his interesting book 
 " The Indian Sign-Language " speaks of Iron Hawk, a 
 Sioux Chief, who said to him : " The whites have had the 
 power given them by the Great Spirit to read and write 
 and convey information in this way. He gave us the 
 power to talk with our hands and arms and to send in- 
 formation with the mirror, blanket and pony far away; 
 and when we meet Indians who have a different spoken 
 language from ours we can talk to them in signs." The 
 character and extent of this primitive means of communi- 
 cation among the North American Indians cannot be real- 
 ized by one unfamiliar with life on the Plains. Elaborate 
 speeches by signs embracing every idea desired were car- 
 ried 'On in this language. Ultimately, as the reader will 
 see in the ensuing illustrations, many of these gestures 
 reappeared in their pictographic records. 
 
 A single illustration of this sign-language must suffice. 
 It is quoted from " Twenty Years Among Our Hostile 
 Indians," by J. Lee Humfreville. The author says : 
 " The sign language was very figurative. For instance, if 
 an Indian desired to say that you were not truthful, he 
 would touch his tongue with one finger and hold up two 
 fingers towards you, signifying that you were double- 
 tongued, that is, untruthful. If he wished to say that a 
 given place was distant two, three, or more days' journey, 
 he would twirl the fingers of both hands one over the 
 other like a wheel rolling, inclining his head as if asleep 
 and hold up as many fingers as there were ' sleeps,' 
 meaning nights; thus indicating the number of days of 
 travel necessary to reach the place in question. If he 
 desired to refer to the past, he would extend the hand in 
 
22 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 front with the index finger pointed, drawing his arm 
 back with a screw motion, meaning a long time back. Ir 
 he intended to refer to the future, he would put his hand 
 with the index finger at his back, pushing it forward with 
 a screw motion, thus indicating a distant time in the fu- 
 ture." There can be no doubt that sign-language is a 
 more or less universal language, and probably has been 
 the primitive medium of intercommunication in the inter- 
 course of all early, uncivilized races. We learn that the 
 original Chinese pictures that preceded writing were 
 called ku-wan, — literally " gesture pictures," and that 
 many of them were retained in the later picture-writing. 
 A very large number of the determinative signs that 
 accompany so many of the hieroglyphic words on the 
 Egyptian monuments are graphic pictures of human or 
 animal forms or their parts, and are descriptive of the 
 words which they depict. To illustrate a few of the many 
 thousands of cases, in the following words, in addition 
 to the proper, phonetic hieroglyphs which completely spell 
 out the word, there is a pictorial index sign set beside it 
 more fully to define its special meaning: — as " to dance," 
 by a girl dancing; " he said," by a man pointing at his 
 mouth; "to rest," by a recumbent figure; "to ascend," 
 by a person walking up stairs; " to go," or " to turn," 
 by figures walking in these different directions; "judg- 
 ment," by an eye ; " wonder," by a man with his hands 
 upstretched; and so on, in hundreds of word-characters 
 in the Egyptian hieroglyphics. How very human all this 
 is ! Though these sculptures are thousands of years old, 
 they are as modern in spirit as though executed but yes- 
 terday. Human nature varies but little from age to age. 
 
 We may instance one sign in primitive sign-language, 
 
 that of negation. It is well-nigh universal to express this 
 meaning by extending the two hands at arm's length, im- 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 23 
 
 plying " empty." From this gesture both the Egyptians 
 and the Mayas, people of different continents, have ob- 
 tained their ideographic signs for negation, as shown in 
 the accompanying cuts. The first one Is from the Egyp- 
 tian hieroglyphics, the second one is from the Maya. 
 The latter sign with the fingers of the hand represented 
 will be seen again at the top of the combined sign for 
 South in Fig. 46. 
 
 Another step In the development of writing was un- 
 consciously taken by early man In the peculiar use of 
 totem signs, so universally employed by many semi-civi- 
 lized races. This was actually a definite system of record, 
 — really a primitive genealogy. A totem Is a character, 
 generally pictorial, employed by savage peoples to indi- 
 cate the clan, gens or family to which an individual be- 
 longs. The custom Is almost universal among savage 
 tribes to select the form of some animal, fish or bird, 
 as a totem to distinguish between the different clans and 
 families. These totems are frequently tattooed on the 
 body in brilliant colors or painted upon the possessions of 
 the family clan. The Halda Indians residing in British 
 Columbia employ a wonderful variety of these signs which 
 are tattooed upon the bodies of both men and women, or 
 carved or painted on their implements or utensils. Fig. 3 
 Is an illustration of the picturesque totem poles, elabo- 
 rately carved with grotesque sculptures and bearing the 
 clan and family totems of the Tsimshian Indians at 
 Kltwankool, British Columbia. They very much resemble 
 in their grotesqueness the stone sculptures of the Central 
 American and Mexican Indians. The " tkis " which the 
 New Zealanders erect before their huts are very similar to 
 
24 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 the totem poles of these British Columbia Indians, the 
 designs being of quite the same order of grotesque sculp- 
 ture. 
 
 The use of totems as autographs comes quite as near 
 to real writing as any unlettered savage ever has ap- 
 proached. Many examples are on record, some of them 
 of the rarest historical importance in state and municipal 
 archives, or in the libraries of historical societies of the 
 Middle, Eastern and New England States of the United 
 States, in documents Involving the early settlers and the 
 native Indians. The totem signature of Tammanen, here 
 shown, one of the great chiefs of the Lenl-Lenape In- 
 dians of Pennsylvania, to a deed conveying land to Wil- 
 liam Penn within a year after his arrival In America 
 (1682) and now in fhe Pennsylvania State House, Is 
 one of the most treasured: 
 
 As this deed conveyed a considerable part of the land 
 now covered by the city of Philadelphia, and throws an 
 illuminating side light upon the shrewd bargaining of 
 those early days even by the just Quakers, a digression Is 
 begged to give the deed in full: — 
 
 I, Tamanen, this 23d day of ye 4th month Called 
 June, in ye Year according to ye English account 1683, 
 for me and my heirs and assigns doe graunt and dis- 
 pose of all my Lands Lying betwixt Pemmapecka and 
 Nessaminehs Creeks, and all along Neshamineh's Creeks 
 to Wm. Penn Proprietr & Gouvnr of Pennsylvania, &c : 
 his heirs and Assigns for Ever, for ye Consideration of 
 so much Wampum, so many Guns, Shoes, Stockings, 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 
 
 25 
 
 Fig. 3. Picturesque totem poles erected before the cabins of Tsirashian 
 Indians at Kitwankool, British Columbia. 
 
26 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Looking-glasses, Blanketts and other goods as he ye sd 
 William Penn shall please to give unto me. In Wit- 
 ness whereof I have hereunto sett my hand and Seal ye 
 day and year first above written. 
 
 Tammanen's X mark. 
 
 Tammanen's totem was the serpent, so a serpent was 
 his autograph. Probably his individual way of drawing it, 
 which certainly is characteristic enough, differentiated it 
 sufficiently from the autographs of the other members 
 of his tribal and totemic family. Red Cloud's census, il- 
 lustrated in Fig. 2 2, to be more fully described later on, 
 gives a most interesting list of autographic totems. Early 
 colonial archives in many of the Eastern and New Eng- 
 land states contain quite a number of examples of the 
 totem signatures of the native Indian chiefs on documents 
 deeding their ancestral lands to the white people. 
 
 Fig. 4 shows the totem signatures of the " Kings and 
 Sachems of the Ancient Nations of the Susquehannah 
 and Savannah Indians " affixed to a memorial to the 
 " Great King of England and his Sachems " in praise of 
 William Penn, for his great kindness to them and because 
 " he has paid us for our Land, which no Governor ever 
 did before him." The document is in the Pennsylvania 
 Historical Society in Philadelphia, and is written by James 
 Logan, Penn's local agent, who attests to the signatures 
 of the Indians. 
 
 Another but somewhat adventitious influence in the de- 
 velopment of writing, possibly trifling in its effect upon 
 the main stream of development, yet lilce the little rivulet 
 adding its quota to the volume of the current, was the 
 use of private ownership marks. From time immemorial 
 it doubtless was the custom to carve or mark upon imple- 
 ments of warfare, the chase and other personal posses- 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 27 
 
 sions, marks or signs Indicating ownership. These signs 
 at first probably were only pictographs or geometric lines 
 in simple arrangements of parallel or parallel and crossed 
 
 Icrn^xj) dcL0/iUT^ /yV hM ^<uy<;> 
 
 Qf^(^ CL^^ 
 
 
 Fig. 4. Totem signatures of the Susquehannah and Savannah Indians 
 to a memorial to King Charles II of England. 
 
 lines. Youths of to-day often make use of such signs 
 to proclaim their property, and many of us have seen 
 similar signs In use on farms and other places where 
 implements or tools are loaned about, to remind borrow- 
 
28 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 ers of their ownership. To be sure it is far more common 
 in this age of letters to use the owner's name or mitials 
 to indicate ownership; but before writing was in use or 
 even picturing understood, mere geometrical lines, mean- 
 ingless in their arrangement, probably were used. This 
 obtains to-day among savage tribes having no written 
 characters, and it probably was true of all times. We 
 may call attention to a most interesting example of this 
 primitive custom strangely preserved In the ancient Baby- 
 lonian symbol for possession, represented in the fifth sign 
 from the bottom in the last vertical row of signs in Fig. 
 80. The reader readily will recognize It to be an arrow 
 or spear with four crossed lines cut on the shaft, 
 indicative of ownership. We consequently have in this 
 sign, which to the Babylonians first meant " possession," 
 and then " name " (proper), a reminiscent picture of a 
 most archaic custom. 
 
 Very early in the history of any people the want must 
 have been felt for some definite means of record, some 
 memory jog or tally, to record exchange or trading 
 transactions, or various kinds of enumeration: — as of 
 persons, things, time and space. Anecdotes recounted by 
 many travelers agree in recording the universal awe and 
 respect shown by savage people for the art of writing. 
 Edward B. Tylor In his book " Anthropology " relates 
 that John Williams, a South Sea Island missionary, when 
 doing some carpentering work about the mission house, 
 wrote a message with charcoal on a chip and sent it to 
 his wife asking for his square. A native chief being 
 amazed to find that the chip could " talk," for a long time 
 afterward carried it about hung by a string around his 
 neck. 
 
 The profound regard for the art of writing is further 
 illustrated by the incident recorded by William Mariner 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 29 
 
 in his " Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands." 
 Finow, the head chief, having intercepted a letter written 
 by Mr. Mariner to any captain who might touch at Tonga 
 to rescue him, " at length sent for Mr. Mariner and 
 desired him to write down something. The latter asked 
 what he would choose to have written; he rephed: ' Put 
 down me.' He accordingly wrote ' Feenow ' (spelling it 
 according to the strict English orthography) . The chief 
 then sent for another Englishman who had not been pres- 
 ent and, commanding Mr. Mariner to turn his back and 
 look another way, he gave the man the paper and de- 
 sired him to tell what that was. He accordingly pro- 
 nounced aloud the name of the King; upon which Finow 
 snatched the paper from his hands and, with astonish- 
 ment, looked at it, turned it around and examined it in 
 all directions. At length he exclaimed : ' This is neither 
 myself nor anybody else! Where are my legs? How do 
 you know it to be I ? ' and then without stopping for any 
 attempt at an explanation, he impatiently ordered Mr. 
 Mariner to write something else and thus employed him 
 for three or four hours in putting down the names of 
 diiferent persons, places and things, and making the other 
 man read them. . . . Finow at length thought he had a 
 notion of it and explained to those about him that it was 
 very possible to put down a mark or sign of something 
 that had been seen both by the writer and reader, and 
 which would be mutually understood by them; but Mr. 
 Mariner immediately informed him that he could write 
 down anything that he had never seen. The king directly 
 whispered to him to put down Toogoo Ahoo (the king 
 of Tonga whom he and Toobo Nuha had assassinated 
 many years before Mr. Mariner arrived). This was ac- 
 cordingly done and the other read it, when Finow was 
 yet more astonished and declared it to be the most won- 
 
30 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 derful thing he had ever heard of. He then desired him 
 to write ' Tarky ' (the chief of the garrison of Bea, whom 
 Mr. Mariner and his companions had not yet seen, the 
 Chief being bhnd in one eye). When ' Tarky ' was read, 
 Finow inquired whether he was blind or not. This was 
 putting writing to an unfair test ! Mr. Mariner told him 
 that he had only written down the sign standing for the 
 sound of his name and not for the description of his per- 
 son. He was then ordered in a whisper to write : ' Tarky 
 blind in his left eye ' ; which was done and read by the 
 other man to the increased astonishment of everybody. 
 Finow acknowledged this to be a noble invention, but 
 added that it would not at all do for the Tonga Islands; 
 that there would be nothing but disturbances and con- 
 spiracies, and he should not be sure of his life, perhaps 
 another month. He said, however, jocosely, that he 
 should like to know it himself, and for all the women 
 to know it, that he might make love with less risk of 
 discovery, and not so much chance of incurring the 
 vengeance of their husbands ! " 
 
 In primitive communities emerging from utter sav- 
 agery, as tribal interests widen in their scope and embrace 
 activities that extend to other tribes variously conditioned, 
 the newer phases of the broadening life impose tasks upon 
 the memory which are hard to meet and which require 
 objective helps of some sort. We read in the early his- 
 tories of most races traditions of the use of various kinds 
 of mnemonic devices to support the memory in their 
 varied transactions. With certain tribes notched sticks 
 were used as aids to the memory; with others shells and 
 beads strung on cords or thongs were used, much the 
 same as the modern rosary or abacus ; while others have 
 used knotted cords ingeniously commingled and varied to 
 recall to the mind the details of past events and to assist 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 31 
 
 in the record of enumerations, divisions and classifica- 
 tions; which the increasing complexity of an advancing 
 civilization made necessary. Marco Polo, the celebrated 
 Venetian traveler, writing in the i6th century, in speak- 
 ing of the inhabitants of Zardandan — Yunnan, China — 
 says: "They have no letters, but make their contracts 
 and obligations by tallies of wood, one-half whereof one 
 keepeth, and the other which being afterwards paid, the 
 tally is destroyed." 
 
 The Algonquin Indians who formerly inhabited the 
 eastern parts of the United States, according to Dr. 
 Daniel G. Brinton, preserved their myths, chronicles and 
 the memory of important events, by means of marked 
 sticks, six inches long tied in bundles and painted with 
 marks and figures. As their art abilities advanced, in 
 place of single sticks, burnt, painted or notched wooden 
 tablets came into use, on which symbols were scratched 
 with flints or knives. The Walam Olum, illustrated on 
 page 93, is the highest example of this last stage of his- 
 torical record of these Indians. 
 
 Dr. V^. J. Hoffman states that he found in the collec- 
 tion of the Hon. A. F. Caronal of Los Angeles, Cali- 
 fornia, a number of notched sticks which had been in- 
 vented and used by the Indians at the Mission of San 
 Gabriel. The history of the sticks as given by Dr. Hoff- 
 man is as follows : " Immediately after the establishment 
 of the mission, the Franciscan father appointed major 
 domos, who had under their charge corporals or over- 
 seers of the several classes of laborers, herders, etc. The 
 chief herder was supplied with a stick of hard wood, 
 measuring about one inch in thickness each way, and from 
 twenty to twenty-four inches long. The corners were 
 beveled at the handle. Upon each of the facets were 
 marks to indicate the kinds of cattle herded; thus, one 
 
32 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 cut or notch, a bull; two cuts, a cow; one cross, a heifer; 
 and a > shaped character, an ox. Similar characters 
 also were used for horses; respectively for a stallion, 
 mare, colt and gelding. When only cattle were owned, 
 no difference was made in the upper end of the stick; 
 but when both kinds of animals were owned near the 
 same localities or by the same settler, the stick referring 
 to the cattle was notched V shaped at the head end and 
 reversed or pointed to denote horns. Sticks also were 
 marked to denote the several kinds of stock, and to record 
 those which had been branded. In all of these sticks 
 numbers were indicated by cutting notches into the cor- 
 ners, each tenth cut extending across the face of the 
 stick. For instance, if the herder had thirteen oxen in 
 charge, he selected that edge of the stick which bore upon 
 the handle the > shape, and cut nine short notches, 
 one long one, and then three more short ones." 
 
 Dr. Hoffman in " Beginnings of Writing " says in 
 speaking of the Paloni Indians of California: "Each 
 year the Paloni selected a certain member of the tribe 
 to visit the settlement at San Gabriel to sell native blank- 
 ets; every Indian sending goods providing the salesman 
 with two cords made of twisted hair or wool, on one of 
 which was tied a knot for every real received and on the 
 other a knot for each blanket sold. When the sum 
 reached eight reals, or one dollar, a double knot was 
 made. Upon the return of the salesman, each person 
 selected from his lot his own goods, by which he would 
 quickly perceive the amount due and also the number of 
 blankets for which the salesman was responsible. Among 
 the Zuni a more highly developed method of knotting 
 obtained. It appears possible that certain strands per- 
 tained to cult practices, others to war, etc.; knotted 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 33 
 
 fringes attached to the paraphernalia of members of cult 
 societies appear to be survivals of such practices." 
 
 These customs prevailing among the intelligent though 
 illiterate Indians of the past generation shed light upon 
 the early history of record making and bring to our 
 hands corroborative and authentic evidence in support of 
 the traditions concerning the primary stages in the art 
 of writing. Knotted cords are shown in the Egyptian 
 hieroglyphs, and the classic authors speak of the Scy- 
 thians and Germans using sticks for divination. We 
 read in Herodotus, Book III, Par. 98, the following 
 directions given to his soldiers and mercenaries by King 
 Darius: "The King took a leathern thong, and tying 
 sixty knots in it, called together the Ionian tyrants and 
 spoke thus to them : — ' Men of Ionia, my former com- 
 mands to you concerning the bridge are now withdrawn. 
 See, here is a thong; take It, and observe my bidding 
 with respect to it. From the time that I leave you to 
 march forward into- Scythia, untie every day one of the 
 knots. If I do not return before the last day to which 
 the knots will hold out, then leave your station, and sail 
 to your several homes. Meanwhile, understand that my 
 resolve is changed, and that you are to guard the bridge 
 with all care, and watch over its safety and preserva- 
 tion.' " While this may not strictly be called a mnemonic 
 device in this particular Instance, the tied thong stood In 
 lieu of a written record, Darius' subalterns being illiterate 
 and unable to record time. The Chinese have a well- 
 founded tradition that knotted cords were employed by 
 their ancestors as a means of recording ideas before writ- • 
 ing was invented. In Tibet, Japan and other countries 
 the same custom prevailed. 
 
 It is a matter of authentic history that the Peruvians 
 
34 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 about the time of the Conquest made use of the most 
 elaborate arrangement of cords known as quipus — quipu, 
 a knot — consisting of a principal cord of one color with 
 secondary and subsidiary cords of many different colors. 
 According to the particular use of the quipu, the several 
 colors represented certain ideas or things, while the knots 
 and loops combined in all possible ways indicated a great 
 many complex ideas. C. F. Keary in his " Dawn of His- 
 tory " describing Peruvian quipus says : " On the quipu 
 devoted to population, the colored strings on which the 
 number of men In each town and village was recorded 
 had depending from them little strings for the widowers, 
 and no doubt the widows and the old maids had their 
 little strings from the cord that denoted women. One 
 knot meant ten; a double knot, one hundred; two single 
 side by side, twenty; two doubles, two hundred; and the 
 position of the knots on their string and their form were 
 also of immense importance, each subject having its 
 proper place on the quipu and its proper form of knot." 
 As with every form of quipus, the Peruvian quipus when 
 returned to the place of registry required some means of 
 identification as to their contents. Some distinguishing 
 mark was needed to indicate the quipu for census, income, 
 war, etc. If such identifying marks were not agreed upon, 
 a messenger was necessary to convey the quipu who could 
 remember its subject matter. Apart from this the 
 adopted system of the quipus was so perfect and automatic 
 as a numerical system that they were self-explanatory. 
 The quipu illustrated in Fig. 5 is reproduced from " The 
 Ancient Quipu, a Peruvian Knot Record," by L. Leland 
 Locke {American Anthropologist, Vol. XIV, No. 2, 
 April-June, 1912). The original is one of a large col- 
 lection of quipus in the American Museum of Natural 
 History, New York City. The Museum possesses a very 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 35 
 
 extensive collection of quipus, exhumed from Peruvian 
 graves. 
 
 Knotted cords were used for records throughout the 
 Eastern Archipelago and in Polynesia when the first trad- 
 ing ships arrived. One of the most famous examples of 
 
 Fig. 5. Quipu or Peruvian knot-record. The number of pendent cords (95) 
 is indicated by knots on the ends of the main cord. 
 
 the rope device for a mnemonic record was the so-called 
 " revenue-book " of Hawaii, which consisted of a rope 
 four hundred fathoms long divided into sections cor- 
 responding to the various districts of the country. Each 
 section of the rope was the complete record of a tax col- 
 lector, who by means of loops, knots and tufts of different 
 shapes and colors, kept a correct account of the personal 
 property of the people. The weak point in the system was 
 that each division collector had to " go along " with the 
 record to explain and interpret it ! This would to-day 
 
36 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 be called a " junketing " scheme, and no doubt would be 
 very popular and much appreciated by the average public 
 office holder. 
 
 During the Middle Ages when learning was the ex- 
 clusive posssession of those in the church and the court, 
 though not very prevalent with the latter, in certain parts 
 of England, notably in Staffordshire and the adjacent 
 counties, the country people living in the rural districts re- 
 mote from churches made use of ingenious notched sticks 
 called " clogs " or " almanacs," to remind them of the 
 holy days of the church calendar. They were square 
 blocks of wood notched on the four edges with the days 
 of the week, the seventh notch being a long one. On one 
 side of each edge, which included three months, lines 
 from the notches bore dots or geometric marks indicat- 
 ing cycles of the moon. On the adjacent side, lines drawn 
 from notches corresponding to church festivals, fasts and 
 saints' days, bore characters symbolical of these holy days. 
 Dr. Plot, who wrote the " Natural History of Stafford- 
 shire " in 1686, speaking of these wooden tallies says: 
 " Canutus raigned sole king of England for 20 years; 
 during which time and the raigns of his two successors, 
 also Danish kings of England, many of their customs and 
 utensils, no doubt on't, obtained here, amongst which I 
 guess I may reckon an ancient sort of Almanacks they 
 call Cloggs, made upon square sticks, still (a. D. 1686) 
 in use here among the meaner sort of people, which I can- 
 not but think must be some remains of the Danish gov- 
 ernment, finding the same with but little difference to have 
 been used also formerly both in Sweden and Denmark, 
 as plainly appears from Olaus Magnus, and Olus Worm- 
 ius; which being a sort of antiquity so little known, that 
 it hath scarce been yet heard of in the southern parts of 
 England, and understood now but by a few of the gentry 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 
 
 37 
 
 ^ 
 
 in the northern, I shall be the more particular in my 
 account of them. . . . They are here called Cloggs, 
 for what reason I could not learn, nor indeed imagine, 
 unless from the English log, a term we usually give to 
 any piece of wood, or from the likeness of some of the 
 greater sorts of them to the cloggs, where- 
 with we usually restrain the wild, extrava- 
 gant, mischievous motions of some of our 
 dogs. . . . There are some few of brass, 
 . . . but the most of them are of wood, and 
 these chiefly of box; others there are of fir 
 and some of oak, but these not so frequent. 
 ... As for the kind of them, some are per- 
 fect, containing the Dominical letters, as 
 well as the Prime and marks for the feasts, 
 engraven upon them, and such are our 
 Primestanes in the Museum at Oxford. 
 Others imperfect, having only the Prime and 
 immoveable feasts on them, and such are all 
 those I met with in Staffordshire ; which yet 
 are of two kinds also, some publick, of a 
 larger size, which hang commonly here at 
 one end of the mantle tree of their chimneys, 
 for the use of the whole family; . . . and 
 others private, of a smaller size, which they 
 carry in their pockets. 
 
 Two most interesting specimens of these 
 clog almanacs are preserved in the Bodleian 
 Library, in Oxford. One of them is in the 
 shape of a walking stick. The other (Fig. 
 6) is of boxwood, as Dr. Plot says, about 
 thirty inches long and three inches square. 
 The calendar begins at the top of the front edge on the 
 right hand face with New Year's Day, represented by the 
 
 ii 
 
 '^ 
 
 Fig. 6. Clog 
 Alma nac. 
 Bodleian Li- 
 brary, Ox- 
 ford, Eng- 
 land. 
 
38 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Christian symbol of eternity, the " circle." Next m order 
 comes the Feast of Epiphany, represented by a " sta.r ; 
 then follow on January 13, the birth of St. Hilary, indi- 
 cated by a " cross"; on January 25, the Conversion of 
 St. Paul, Indicated by a " hatchet," St. Paul having been 
 beheaded. The Purification of the Virgin, on February 
 2, is represented by a " heart " ; St. Valentine's Day by a 
 " true lover's knot " ; St. Matthias by a " leg " — why, no 
 one seems to know — St. David by a " harp "; St. Chad 
 by a " branch " ; St. Gregory by a " square," and the feast 
 of the Annunciation of the Virgin, on March 25, by a 
 "heart."! 
 
 In England, even well into the 17th century, tally- 
 sticks were employed to record loans made to the gov- 
 ernment. They were notched to Indicate the amounts in 
 pounds, shillings and pence loaned; one-half of the tally 
 being kept by the lender and the other half being de- 
 posited In the Exchequer; quite the same as described 
 by Marco Polo. They were the indirect cause of the de- 
 struction of the Houses of Parliament by fire in 1834, 
 owing to overheating In the burning of vast accumulations 
 of these tally-sticks. 
 
 All of these primitive devices above described em- 
 ployed for mnemonic purposes were as far removed from 
 true writing as the memory knot which people sometimes 
 tie In their handkerchiefs, or the string tied around the 
 finger to remind one of some thing or action. They were 
 simply reminders to the persons who knew the facts. 
 They did not — nor could they — impart information to 
 anybody else not knowing the key. No one else could In- 
 terpret them. They told nothing more than the knife 
 
 1 A full description of this interesting clog almanac will be found in 
 " The Calendar of the Prayer Book, Illustrated," published by James 
 Parker & Co., Oxford, Eng. 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 39 
 
 placed in the wrong pocket, the tied up stocking or other 
 memory jogs we sometimes are accustomed to employ. 
 If the person — the Peruvians had a master of the quipus, 
 who had the custody of the records — forgot their sig- 
 nificance, his own device failed to make any appeal to his 
 intelligence. It was somewhat different with devices like 
 the clog almanacs. The symbols standing for the differ- 
 ent church days had a special significance that connected 
 them at once with the particular celebration of the day. 
 Nevertheless, the process was an appeal to the illiterate 
 mind. So long as men were limited to such unintelligent 
 and in some case unintelligible processes of record, as 
 knotted cords and tallies, we may be sure that no very 
 great advance could have been made in material or intel- 
 lectual civilization. We do not find In the world to-day 
 a high state of civilization where there is illiteracy; rather 
 do we find barbarism and savagery. Letters, or a knowl- 
 edge of them, always throughout the ages have been the 
 magic charm that ever has dispelled the gloom of igno- 
 rance and superstition; the lodestar that has guided men 
 upward to the higher intellectual and spiritual life. For 
 by writing, the thoughts of the foremost men of the times 
 have been widely disseminated among reading men, mak- 
 ing intellectual growth in the community vastly more 
 rapid. 
 
 A curious note of distrust of the value of the art of 
 writing comes from the depths of Egyptian history. It 
 was Thot who Invented writing. G. M'aspero In the 
 " Dawn of Civilization " writes : " An old legend relates 
 that when the god (Thot) unfolded his discovery to King 
 Thamos, whose minister he was, the monarch immediately 
 raised an objection to it. Children and young people, who 
 had hitherto been forced to apply themselves diligently 
 to learn and retain whatever was taught them, would 
 
40 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 cease to apply themselves and would neglect to exercise 
 their memories! " Though King Thamos may have been 
 slow to take up new ideas in the march of civilization, 
 his educational theories were not so far astray for the 
 fourth millennium B. c. 
 
 The development of writing has been an age-Ion^ evolu- 
 tion arising in the necessities of tribal and inter-tribal 
 life, and demanded by the increasing complexities of so- 
 ciety as savage man has advanced from his primitive state 
 toward civilization and felt the need of recording his 
 traditions and conserving his knowledge In some perma- 
 nent and legible form. The first step in the direction of 
 writing was taken when man early began to exhibit his 
 In-born propensity for graphic expression, manifested in 
 his attempts to Imitate the shapes of the natural objects 
 about him. Few races indeed In the history of the world 
 have failed to exhibit evidences of this distinctly human 
 talent. Many African and Polynesian races to-day seem 
 to have developed nothing in the line of graphics beyond 
 a rudimentary form of geometric decoration. Writing 
 never has developed in this direction. Abstract and 
 geometric though the alphabetic characters seem to be In 
 their present form — no letters could be more so than 
 the Roman capitals — yet If we are unable to convince 
 the reader that each was the outgrowth of a specific, 
 antecedent, pictorial form, we shall at least have proven 
 to him that as far as history reaches, in every direction, 
 the beginnings of writing seem to have been laid in pic- 
 torial art. It is the natural mode of graphic expression 
 of the primitive races of mankind. 
 
 That the above statement Is true, and that the desire to 
 represent the varied objects of nature Is a natural impulse 
 in man, is illustrated and verified by the art of the oldest 
 race of men known to have lived on the earth and to have 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 41 
 
 left any record of their tenancy. Nothing in the history 
 of art or archaeology is more impregnated with the flavor 
 of romance, or more eloquent of the story of human 
 striving toward civilization than the remarkable draw- 
 ings and paintings left by the cave dwellers of central 
 Europe. It is one of the anomalies of art that the earliest 
 known manifestation of pictorial art should be at the 
 same time one of the truest and best. The early Greeks 
 could hold nothing worthy up to the art of Paleolithic 
 man — not even the proverbial candle, for it would have 
 proven to be but a rush light — to compare with the rare 
 fidelity to nature of the drawings which these rude men 
 cut with flints or painted with colored earths or vegetable 
 dyes upon the rocky walls of their caves, or carved upon 
 their crude stone implements or with better skill etched 
 with such delightful naivete upon the bones of now ex- 
 tinct animals, ages before metals were used or even 
 known. It is not our purpose to discuss here who these 
 people were, whence their civilization, or in what way 
 their art was transmitted, if at all, to later or descendent 
 peoples. Their history is too indefinite as yet to enable 
 us to state with any degree of certainty their true 
 chronological and ethnological position. Geological and 
 paleontological evidence sufficient to satisfy the highest 
 scientific authorities places these people at the close of 
 the last glacial period in Europe, contemporaneous with 
 Arctic and semi-Arctic animals long since extinct : — as 
 the mammoth (Elephas primigenius), the woolly-haired 
 rhinoceros, wild ox or urus, aurochs (Bos bison), rein- 
 deer, cave lion, cave bear and other extinct animals whose 
 portraits the Reindeer Man has so faithfully copied in 
 outline on bone or slate, or painted in colors on the ceiling 
 of his cave. Their drawings which are very numerous 
 portray the mammoth, bison, ox, reindeer, hyena, cave 
 
42 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 bear and the horse, which with its erect mane and zebra- 
 like characteristics gives further evidence, were it needed, 
 of the vast prehistoric antiquity of their art. All of these 
 drawings are replete with realism, and for spirit and dash 
 are well-nigh unexcelled. Indeed, they uniformly dis- 
 
 Fig. 7. Bison and man. Hunting scene. Obverse and reverse. From 
 Laugerie Basse, Dordogne, France. 
 
 play a high degree of artistic excellence remarkable in 
 the art of a primitive race. We will give a few reproduc- 
 tions of the drawings of the Cave Men, taken from " Pre- 
 historic Art " by Thomas Wilson, published by the Smith- 
 sonian Institution, Washington, D. C. In one of these 
 drawings (Fig. 7) etched on the antler of a reindeer 
 found in a cave at Laugerie Basse, Dordogne, France, 
 one sees the bison excellently well drawn with the hunter 
 himself crawling up to him through the long grass, spear 
 in hand. In another (Fig. 8), etched on a piece of 
 slate stone found in the cave of La Madelaine, Dordogne, 
 we have the mammoth as true to life as though sketched 
 but yesterday in the Museum of St. Petersburg. But the 
 reindeer was the favorite subject for the art of the Cave 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 
 
 43 
 
 Fig. 8. Mammoth. Etched on a fragment of his own tusk. From 
 La Madelaine, Dordogne, France. 
 
 Men, and they depicted It in many characteristic atti- 
 tudes. The remarkable drawing of the reindeer shown 
 in Fig. 9 is reproduced from a picture carved on a piece of 
 reindeer antler found In a cave near Thayngen, Switzer- 
 land. 
 
 Unfortunately, the world knows nothing more of the 
 Cave Men and their unique and beautiful art than this 
 
 Fig. 9. Reindeer carved on a piece of antler. From a cave near 
 Thayngen, Switzerland. 
 
 opening chapter. If their art developed Into genuine pic- 
 ture writing, as most primitive art has done, there Is 
 not as yet sufficient evidence forthcoming to prove it. Dr. 
 Arthur J. Evans frankly calls it picture-writing as It Is, 
 and looks upon It as a record of events, mainly of the 
 chase, their principal occupation. Certainly no people 
 ever made a better start, and It were a great misfortune 
 
44 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 if their extraordinary and versatile talent failed of 
 fruition in this direction. Later on, in another chapter, 
 we shall refer to the similarity between the art of the 
 Reindeer Men and that of the American Eskimo. 
 
 Scattered over the wide world there may be found to- 
 day primitive or undeveloped races who have not yet 
 progressed in the scale of civilization to the high stage 
 of culture indicated by the practice of the art of writ- 
 ing, yet who exhibit a marked talent for or have at- 
 tained a high degree of proficiency In the elemental art 
 of drawing. On the walls of caves in South Africa occa- 
 sionally may be seen paintings of the primitive Bushmen, 
 the aborigines of the country, who occupied It before the 
 Incursions of the Hottentots drove them into the il- 
 limitable forests or the mountain fastnesses. These rock- 
 paintings portray hunting scenes, many of them quite 
 elaborate, in which elephants, long-haired bovines, lions, 
 antelopes or other wild animals, together with human 
 figures, are depicted. While many of the drawings justly 
 may claim rather a high artistic rating, being very faith- 
 ful reproductions of the natural forms, some even exhibit- 
 ing the difficulties of perspective foreshortening, others 
 are wretched caricatures. Nevertheless, the drawings fall- 
 ing under this latter category and condemnation are no 
 worse than, and indeed very much resemble, the general 
 run of Phoenician animal and figure paintings so familiar 
 in Phoenician and pre-Hellenic pottery, found In the 
 iEgean Islands and on the Grecian littoral, where these 
 Semitic traders established their marts In the early cen- 
 turies of the second millennium before Christ. The draw- 
 ing of the animals is greatly superior to that of the early 
 Greeks and Phoenicians. It does not fall much below the 
 extraordinary talent of the Cave Men. But the drawing 
 of men Is quite as weird and outlandish as that of the 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 45 
 
 heroes of Troy and Mycenae and the ubiquitous traders 
 of Tyre and Sidon, as exhibited in their decorated uten- 
 sils and their hammered metal ware. The vagaries of 
 racial development and historic progression in the con- 
 tinuous transmission of the elements that constitute civl- 
 hzation is sharply evidenced by the fact that it was these 
 very Semitic traders, with their somewhat meager pic- 
 torial ability, who gave to the Greeks, as we shall show 
 in the development of this story, their incomparable al- 
 phabet to hand down to the Romans and to ourselves. 
 The poor Bushmen still remain the benighted denizens 
 of the African jungle, as far from applying their graphic 
 talent to any advanced stage of civilized development as 
 they were millenniums ago. 
 
 That these Bushmen paintings are of more serious con- 
 sequence than mere idle scribblings, and that they un- 
 doubtly were made as a record of actual events and to 
 commemorate and celebrate unusual occurrences, is cor- 
 roborated by the following incident given in " The Native 
 Races of South Africa " by George W. Stow. A com- 
 mando consisting of a combined force of Boers and 
 Basutu, engaged in driving out the old savage inhabi- 
 tants of the country, attacked and scattered a body of 
 Bushmen lingering in the Boloko or Vecht Kop, near 
 the southern border of Basutoland. Some time later, in 
 a large cave in the vicinity where the Bushmen had 
 secreted themselves, a recent painting in the well-known 
 Bushmen style was discovered. It portrayed a hostile en- 
 counter in which several of the warriors were depicted 
 with the guns of modern warfare. It evidently was a 
 crude record of the battle with the Boers and Basutu. 
 
 Figure 10 is a portion of an extensive rock-painting by 
 the Bushmen on the lower Imvani. It shows several 
 elands beautifully painted and shaded in brown and white, 
 
46 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Fig. lo. Rock painting on the lower Imvani. By the Buslimen. 
 
 with lions attacking them shown in their characteristic 
 coats of tan. The men are in black. Figure 1 1 is a char- 
 acteristic illustration of Bushmen painting, representing 
 buffalo, hunters and apes. It is easy to imagine that 
 the creatures in the right hand upper corner playing 
 " snap-the-whip " with such naivete and abandon are the 
 original " brownies " ! A very much truer and more nat- 
 ural drawing is shown in Figure 12, in which both the 
 animal — probably an antelope — and the hunters are 
 drawn with considerable correctness as to form and per- 
 spective. 
 
 Pictures on rocks very much similar in spirit and exe- 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 
 
 47 
 
 Fig. II. Painting by the Bushmen. 
 
 cution to the art of the Bushmen have been found in 
 Algeria, and others much inferior are to be seen in 
 Australia, the work of the aborigines of the austral con- 
 tinent, who seem to enjoy the distinction of being placed 
 
48 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 by common consent at the lowest rung of the ladder ot 
 civilization. 
 
 These drawings of primitive races while undoubtedly 
 made for the purpose of record, the only kind known to 
 these savages in their backward stage of progress toward 
 
 Fig. 12. Painting by the Bushmen. 
 
 civilization, are many removes from true writing. They- 
 illustrate in point of fact the very first step. It is the 
 preliminary stage, separated by many Intermediate stages 
 from true writing. They have not progressed as far as 
 and therefore lack the conventional character of the ear- 
 liest Chinese picture characters, or the Sumerlan and Ak- 
 kadian linear symbols, the earliest known forms of the 
 Babylonian and Assyrian writing, later to be described. 
 There Is not the slightest evidence In any of these cave 
 pictures of the selection of any particular form agreed 
 upon as the constant, conventional representative of any 
 certain thing or Idea. There is evident only the most 
 elementary principle of graphics of representing things 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 49 
 
 as they appear to the eye, drawing man and animals In 
 their own likeness, and the other forms of nature in like 
 manner; resorting to no symbol or convention, which is 
 the result only of a wider and more universal intercourse 
 than these simple and Isolated communities had attained. 
 
 The selection of conventional figures — ideograms — 
 to express or to stand for things or Ideas was the result 
 of generations of evolution growing out of a rich experi- 
 ence in pictography, when long familiar, characteristic 
 forms, shorn of much of their pictorial details and ac- 
 cessories, had been adopted as conventions to symbolize, 
 by some graphic resemblance or suggestion, objects or 
 ideas. There is moreover in these paintings and draw- 
 ings of the Cave Men, Bushmen, Australians and other 
 aborigines, only the most puerile attempt to tell a con- 
 nected, consecutive story, such as we shall see so success- 
 fully worked out by the North American Indians in their 
 remarkable ritualistic and medicine songs. They attain 
 their highest intellectual function only as pictures — 
 pictographs — of natural objects, and of actions visible 
 to the eye in " the living present." The representation 
 of past or future action, or of any quality or attribute, 
 never was attempted by these somewhat clever yet back- 
 ward artists; for despite the fact that these pictographic 
 records, excepting the drawings of the Cave Men, are 
 but the work of yesterday, as time passes, they are the 
 product of a civilization as yet in Its earliest infancy. 
 
 The history and development of the art of writing the 
 entire world over, among peoples of all races, whether 
 occupying contiguous portions of the same continent sepa- 
 rated from one another only by mountain barriers or 
 developing their civilization in antipodal countries In far 
 distant continents, seem to have progressed along lines of 
 growth practically identical with each other. It has ever 
 
50 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 been the same universal development inherent in and 
 concurrent with the slow unfolding of man's Intelligence, 
 evidencfed in the annals of nearly every race and na- 
 tion. We already have referred to the extraordinary 
 inequality of relative development in the successive stages 
 of writing and the comparative degree of skill shown In 
 pictography between different races. This lack of uni- 
 formity in racial development, as has been pointed out, 
 has been so great that it is probable that since the time 
 when the ancient Egyptians or the Sumerlan Babylon- 
 ians first appeared upon the pages of history in the fifth 
 millennium before Christ to the present time, all stages 
 of the art of writing, from the rudest pictographs of 
 the most savage Indian or benighted African to the true 
 alphabetic writing practiced by the ancient Egyptians in 
 their earliest known dynasty, have constantly been con- 
 temporaneous. 
 
 These successive stages in the evolution of writing can 
 briefly be stated as follows : — 
 
 I. PIctographic or iconographic writing. 
 
 (a) Mnemonic devices antecedent to pictography. 
 
 (b) Disconnected and fragmentary pictures. 
 
 (c) Connected stories, songs or epics. 
 
 II. Ideographic or hieroglyphic picture-writing. 
 III. Phonetic writing. 
 
 (a) Syllabic symbols or signs. 
 
 (b) Alphabetic characters. 
 
 In the first primitive stage of writing, In practically all 
 systems, the things Intended and indicated In the record, 
 at first chiefly natural objects, then later human-made 
 articles, were represented by crude pictures more or less 
 true according to the artistic talent of the early scribes. 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 51 
 
 However they were employed, whether as memory jogs 
 for the scribe himself or for the transmission of messages 
 to a distant fellow tribesman, the pictures simply recalled 
 the objects to the mind; the special and particular mean- 
 ing of the record had to be divined through a series of 
 mental experiences assisted by codes and conventions 
 carried In the memory and entirely apart from the picto- 
 graphic record. Without this a priori knowledge, these 
 primitive records would Indeed fulfill the definition of 
 Bacon that " pictures are dumb histories." In the earli- 
 est stage, pictographic writing, it is entirely probable 
 that there was no connection or at least only a loosely 
 recognized one implied between the spoken word, the 
 name used In the native vernacular to designate the 
 object, and the picture representing the thing referred 
 to. The picture recalled the thing Itself to the mind, not 
 the name of the thing, unless involuntarily called up by 
 the reader. The employment of the ideograph to repre- 
 sent and recall the name of the thing as well as the cor- 
 porate thing Itself, or, later, abstract qualities and attri- 
 butes derived from it, was a step arrived at only after 
 the attainment of a high degree of civilization. 
 
 The second step In the history of writing was that of 
 Ideographic or hieroglyphic writing. In which a definite, 
 significant picture, more or less conventional and simpli- 
 fied, selected by agreement or converging custom from 
 among the many experimental pictures that formerly sat- 
 isfied the artistic whims or Ideals of the individual scribes, 
 then became the fixed, pictorial correlative of its name. 
 This was the starting point of Institutional writing. The 
 function of the Ideograph still was only to recall the ob- 
 ject to the mind, concretely not phonetically. Neverthe- 
 less, the name of the object became more and more 
 closely and Indlssolubly identified with the picture of It, 
 
52 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 now that the ideograph became fixed and universal; es- 
 pecially since in the process of selection from among the 
 then rich album of pictographs that had accumulated up 
 to this stage, the one concise, irreplaceable picture which 
 now represented any given thing in preference to all 
 other pictures in the aborigines' album of forms, could 
 have but the single reference. It is possible to trace in 
 the tablet inscriptions of the linear Babylonian script, of 
 which hundreds of examples are available from the third 
 and fourth millenniums before Christ, the gradual modi- 
 fication and simplification of the large variety of pic- 
 tures or signs employed in the archaic scripts to repre- 
 sent the same thing or idea, until eventually in the later 
 inscriptions a common, unchangeable character became 
 universally used for any given idea. 
 
 The highest function of the ideograph, now that the 
 necessity was recognized for definite and fixed charac- 
 ters for all the objective things within the environment 
 of our advancing nation, was that of expressing abstract 
 ideas, qualities or metaphors. After the selection of a 
 constant picture for the primary object, qualities, at- 
 tributes, metaphors or other ideas associated with these 
 objects, were represented by significant parts of the 
 primary objects or by combinations of them: — as the 
 hand for " power " or " authority ; " the arm for 
 " strength "; the leg or foot for " fleetness; " the eye for 
 "seeing"; the ear for "hearing"; the mouth to indi- 
 cate " speech " ; the sun and moon to represent " light " ; 
 the arch of the sky with a star to represent " night," or 
 with the sign of water to represent " rain," — as In the 
 Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Chinese writing, and the 
 Ojibwa Indian Ideographs. Practically all written lan- 
 guages have passed through this Ideographic stage of 
 writing, sweeping over It and leaving only here and there 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 53 
 
 a few mutilated mile stones by which it is possible for the 
 paleologist to trace the highways backward. The Chinese, 
 as we presently shall show, retain to this day in their writ- 
 ten language many of their original ideographs, combining 
 them in their unique', composite characters, with purely 
 phonetic signs. They do not exist in their primitive forms, 
 but as highly conventionalized variants, and are used 
 just as they were thousands of years ago as pictures only, 
 not to be read, but merely to catch the eye, the better 
 to illustrate the phonetic, meaning, and to distinguish 
 between the scores of homophones with which the lan- 
 guage abounds. In a precisely similar manner in the 
 Egyptian hieroglyphs, the original ideographic picture, 
 from time Immemorial representing a word-idea, fre- 
 quently stands beside the word in the line, picturing It 
 to the eye and Interpreting the phonetic signs which it 
 accompanies, though the word is spelled out letter for 
 letter in pictorial though alphabetical characters, to the 
 complete satisfaction of any literate native. With the 
 Egyptians this custom was partly due to the necessity of 
 distinguishing between the many homophones, but also 
 to their love of pictorial art, and the piquancy and variety 
 that it gave to their hieroglyphic inscriptions. We already 
 have' referred to these ideographic determinative char- 
 acters In describing the primitive sign-language, and shall 
 still further describe them when we come to discuss the 
 Chinese and Egyptian systems of writing. 
 
 The next and most Important step in the development 
 of writing was easily the most signal, intellectual achieve- 
 ment ever attained by man, and justifies Plato's remark 
 that writing Is " the divine art." It was an advance In 
 culture pregnant with the profoundest benefit to posterity 
 in all the countless ages to come. The substitution of 
 Ideographic pictures that represented natural objects in 
 
54 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 their visual forms and recalled them to the mind's eye, 
 and, as culture increased, that pictured mental conceptions 
 of their attributes and qualities by characters that rep- 
 resented only the phonetic values of their names, though 
 it may appear to us of this age a very simple process, 
 nevertheless must have been arrived at only after ages 
 of primitive culture. But when the change was once fully 
 effected, each nation or race as it evolved this significant 
 transformation in the art of writing must rapidly have 
 strode to the front rank of civilization of its day; for 
 it had discovered the readiest and surest means of pre- 
 serving and disseminating knowledge and experience. To 
 put It more tersely, the change was one from a picture 
 or symbol representing a thing to the symbol represent- 
 ing the name of the thing; in other words, the picture of 
 a sound. 
 
 In oral speech, as is well known, things referred to are 
 recalled to the mind of the hearer by name-words, from 
 time immemorial applied to them, ages before picture- 
 writing was conceived of and when the first human be- 
 ings realized their precious birthright which so immeas- 
 urably differentiated them from the dumb beasts about 
 them. Probably at first the specific words employed to 
 designate natural objects were chosen through mimicry, 
 and possessed some real or fancied similarity to the nat- 
 ural sounds of the objects indicated. This Is not at all 
 improbable. One may recall not a few words that seem 
 to reproduce more or less phonetically the things of 
 which they are the names, we may say the sound-pictures, 
 — as the cries of animals and birds: — baa, moo, meow, 
 peep, chirp, squeak, squark, etc.; sounds like tick, buzz, 
 fizz, boom, puff, bang, and many others, not to mention 
 the modern " honk " of the automobile horn. However, 
 we must admit that languages never could have pro- 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 55 
 
 gressed very far on this basis of mimicry. Yet knowing 
 the natural instinct of primitive man for imitation, we may 
 be moderately certain that his vocabulary appreciably en- 
 larged in the direction of the emotions aroused by nat- 
 ural stimuli, and that the name-words that he gave to 
 natural objects were to a limited extent expressive of 
 their qualities. For ages his wants in the matter of in- 
 tercommunication with his fellow beings were satisfied 
 with his oral vocabulary, helped out with the sign-lan- 
 guage and mnemonic aids; but when advancing civiliza- 
 tion demanded a better system of communication and 
 record than cords and tallies, again his mind responded 
 along the line of imitation, and representative pictures 
 for generations served him for signs and symbols of the 
 things he wished to indicate. 
 
 To recapitulate then, hoping not to be tedious in this 
 analysis, we have seen how at first when early man felt 
 the promptings and experienced the desire to record his 
 ideas in written form, naturalistic pictures or pictographs 
 crudely drawn in imitation of natural objects were used 
 frankly and simply to portray ideas and actions con- 
 nected with these objects. Next, specific, conventional 
 ideographs, selected and adapted by custom and still imi- 
 tative in form and significant to the eye of the ideas con- 
 veyed, were employed in the various forms of tribal 
 transactions. This was the beginning of scientific writ- 
 ing. In the third and last stage, phonetic writing, all 
 pictorial or representative significance was dispensed with 
 as a necessity, as the sign or symbol was employed sim- 
 ply to express a word-sound. It is probable that in most 
 instances the primary ideographs, severely conventional- 
 ized and in time almost entirely stripped of their pictorial 
 significance, were continued as the phonetic symbols of the 
 vast number of nominatives in commission for all the nat- 
 
56 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 ural and common objects visible to the eye. But the great 
 change effected at this stage was that these pictures or 
 symbols, at first used only to represent the implied ob- 
 jects or attributes of them, now were used not only to 
 represent the objects themselves and their name-words, 
 but these same sounds — or their initial sounds if these 
 were polysyllabic — wherever they occurred as homo- 
 phones or syllables in other words. This was syllabic 
 writing. Some languages have stopped at this syllabic 
 stage, notably the Babylonian; in which the characters 
 represent either ideograms having no syllabic value and 
 to be translated by the known name of the object, or 
 phonograms having for their proper phonetic value sylla- 
 bles taken from the initial syllables of the words of which 
 they were originally the ideograms. When the same char- 
 acter was used both as an ideogram and a phonogram 
 — a syllabic character — its meaning in the ancient in- 
 scription can be judged only by the context. Several in- 
 stances of this will be noted in the texts in Chapter VIII. 
 We do not claim that all written languages have passed 
 through the complete genesis that we have just outlined. 
 No such universal plan can be predicated of all languages. 
 Probably very few nations have enjoyed such a period 
 of continuous and undisturbed growth as to progress 
 through all the stages of writing that we have indicated. 
 Nations at certain stages of development in the " Art 
 Preservative " have borrowed or adapted the system of 
 writing of other nations, voluntarily or involuntarily, 
 thereby modifying the progress of development of their 
 own national systems. This interruption of natural de- 
 velopment in most cases probably has been an accelera- 
 tion rather than a retardation of progress, as the ac- 
 quired system probably was the vehicle of expression of 
 a more advanced nation. This will be found to be ac- 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 57 
 
 cording to facts as we investigate in turn the various sys- 
 tems of writing of different nations. 
 
 It is evident that as a spoken language became rich in 
 inflections, conjugations, and all the varied parts of speech 
 of a living language, there would be legions of words in 
 tenses, moods, cases and other grammatical forms, which 
 could not be pictured in any way and which would tax 
 to its furthest bounds any signary to supply characters 
 for the ever increasing number and complexity of such 
 words. These words, too, undoubtedly would be poly- 
 syllabic, making the task of finding suitable characters 
 for them all the more difficult. All this complexity of 
 procedure was remedied in the course of time — and it 
 took time, ages — by the final simplification of the entire 
 system; that of selecting a few synlbols, conventionalized 
 and reduced to their lowest terms, out of the thousands 
 of hieroglyphs that lumbered the signary of the language, 
 to represent the comparatively few fundamental, phonetic 
 sounds In the spoken language, and with which all possible 
 phonetic combinations could be made. This was alpha- 
 betic writing. When this final transformation was ac- 
 complished, all that preceded It forever was abandoned as 
 so many rungs In the ladder of ascent, the summit having 
 been attained. Scholarship only, especially that of the 
 archaeologist, has succeeded in retracing the steps and re- 
 storing this ladder so that we now may feel certain of the 
 different stages leading up to the present almost universal 
 system of alphabetic writing. Nothing is more significant 
 than the slow development of the art of writing of the 
 fact that in most ways men build on their past experiences 
 like St. Augustine's ladder, gradually evolving new differ- 
 entials of slight divergence out of what has gone before, 
 only on the slow basis of associated ideas. Such a faculty 
 as vision or genius seems to belong only to rare and gifted 
 
58 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 individuals, not to the race. So we find that the last step 
 In the history of writing, the alphabetic stage, like all the 
 earlier ones, was built upon the preceding stage. It was 
 the natural, logical outgrowth of it, capping the apex of 
 the literary structure like the final stage of Nebuchadrez- 
 zar's pyramid in Babylon. 
 
 In the final stage of this long historic development 
 of the art of writing, the selection of the alphabetic char- 
 acters needed to represent the comparatively few ele- 
 mental sounds in the language naturally was made from 
 among the many signs and symbols already in use In 
 the ancient syllabary. It Is not at all probable that new 
 characters were invented, although they may have been 
 borrowed from another, possibly a more advanced civil- 
 ization, as the Japanese alphabetic characters were bor- 
 rowed from the Chinese. At this late day the hieroglyphs 
 employed in the syllabary had become considerably con- 
 ventionalized and simplified, in some countries assum- 
 ing a geometric character, in others a purely abstract 
 form, while others like the Egyptian retained to the last 
 a refined version of the early pictorial signs. In choosing 
 the alphabetic characters, selection probably was made 
 from among the most common syllabic signs in use of 
 monosyllabic words, or words having initial sounds similar 
 to the alphabetic sounds for which suitable characters 
 were desired. That this method was the one generally 
 pursued Is the deduction which will be made from a 
 critical study of the hieroglyphic writing of at least one 
 great nation of antiquity, the Egyptian. On page 215 the 
 reader will find a list of Egyptian words whose primi- 
 tive, pictorial hieroglyphs supplied the signs for the al- 
 phabetic characters of sounds that were identical with 
 the Initial sounds of the native names of these objects. 
 
 This process of growth in written characters is ac- 
 
PRIMITIVE PICTURE WRITING 59 
 
 cording to the well-known principle of aerology, that is 
 believed to have been the method of development and 
 transformation of syllabic into alphabetic characters. It 
 may not be universal. It may not be the manner in which 
 our own alphabetic characters developed. Yet it seems 
 reasonable, and we shall find historic examples in ancient 
 languages to support the theory. It will be interesting 
 to note a comparatively modern instance in our own lan- 
 guage of this process of simplification by aerology, for it 
 seems to suggest how the language, both spoken and writ- 
 ten, may. have developed under its application. The per- 
 sonal pronoun, I, has been in use in our spoken and writ- 
 ten language for many centuries; but if one were to read 
 very early English manuscripts he would come across the 
 original Teutonic form of the word, ich. In the time 
 of William the Conqueror the h had been dropped, as 
 may be noted by reference to his charter of the City of 
 London (Fig. 154), in which the king uses the form ic. 
 Long since the c followed the h into desuetude and only 
 the initial letter and sound of the early syllable have been 
 retained, the rest of the word being suppressed. In very 
 much the same way, probably, the alphabet makers pro- 
 ceeded with their devoted task through the centuries; 
 simplifying, eliminating, refining, until the last finishing 
 touches were added or disaster overtook their civiliza- 
 tion before the complete evolution was effected. 
 
 We now will proceed to the investigation of the evolu- 
 tion toward writing of a primitive race uninfluenced by the 
 culture of any former or neighboring civilization, but 
 developing its graphic art through the necessities and 
 demands of its own racial life and experience. Our re- 
 searches under such conditions hardly can fail to indicate 
 by parallel the natural lines of development of this art by 
 the universal human family. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 PICTURE WRITING OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 
 
 The aboriginal inhabitants of North America when they 
 first came under the observation of the white men, at the 
 time of the European settlement of this country, already 
 had a system of picture-writing, wide-spread in its use 
 but of limited comprehensibility even among the members 
 of the same tribe or family. No tribe had advanced fur- 
 ther toward true writing than the most elementary stage, 
 that of pictography, — drawing the picture of the thing 
 intended, to recall it to the mind of the reader. The 
 Dakota and Ojibwa Indians were about entering upon the 
 second stage, that of ideographic writing, when the in- 
 trusion of European culture interrupted the natural de- 
 velopment of their native, graphic systems. 
 
 When the white hunters or pioneers first traversed 
 the vast forests of the New World they not infrequently 
 observed pictorial notices or inscriptions, so-called, on 
 the trunks of trees along the old Indian trails or portages. 
 These inscriptions sometimes were cut on a blazed sur- 
 face of a tree, or painted on birch bark or skin and at- 
 tached to the trunk. They were inscriptions of warning, 
 notices concerning game, direction, or ofttimes of chal- 
 lenge to the white man or to hostile Indians. Probably 
 none of these inscriptions — drawings — is now extant, 
 but copies of some of them sufficiently well authenticated 
 have been preserved. A few of these will be considered 
 later on. There is, however, another kind of inscription, 
 the very nature of which has preserved it from loss or 
 
 60 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 6i 
 
 serious deterioration, — inscription on rocks. These rock 
 inscriptions or petroglyphs of the Indians are to be found 
 in all parts of the United States from Maine to Califor- 
 nia, being more abundant in regions east of the Rocky 
 Mountains. In this area the various tribes speaking the 
 Algonquian dialects had their homes. The Algonquins 
 proper occupied the eastern littoral of this country, ex- 
 tending their boundaries far into the interior of the 
 continent. Over this entire region scattered petroglyphs 
 may be found, principally in Maine, Massachusetts, Penn- 
 sylvania and Ohio. They also are somewhat plentiful in 
 Canada. They generally are to be found on smooth 
 boulders on the banks of streams or water courses, and 
 contain characteristic pictorial elements which indicate 
 a close relationship and distinguish them from the rock 
 inscriptions of other sections. The pictures in these in- 
 scriptions — as we shall call them for want of a better 
 word — with some notable exceptions are extremely 
 crude, as all the sculptured delineations of the Indians 
 are wherever found. Where the forms are recognizable 
 at all they generally are so faulty In draughtsmanship 
 that it is difficult either to conceal one's disappointment 
 or to withhold one's contempt at witnessing such weak- 
 ness and puerility in pictorial expression. The disap- 
 pointment is the more keen when we learn of the beau- 
 tiful imagery and metaphor of the spoken languages of 
 the Indians and their extreme picturesqueness of expres- 
 sion. The resources of these languages, especially the 
 Algonquian, are said to excel our own in picturesque color- 
 ings and poetic fanclfulness, particularly as regards nat- 
 ural objects; enabling the Indian to express his innately 
 keen perception of nature In words replete with pictorial 
 meaning. It is the more difficult, therefore, to reconcile 
 the richness of his spoken language with the pitiable poy- 
 
62 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 erty of his mode of graphic expression, at least in the rock 
 inscriptions. It must be admitted, however, in extenua- 
 tion of his limitations, that the intractable nature of rock 
 sculpture had much to do with the backwardness of the 
 Indians In this particular phase of their graphic arts. It 
 must be remembered also that though first met with In 
 North America in the 17th century, these Indians were 
 only just emerging from the Stone Age. But we shall see 
 later on that a very much higher degree of success In pic- 
 torial art was achieved by them in their drawing on 
 leather and bark than In their petroglyphs. 
 
 The most noted Indian petroglyph Is the well-known 
 DIghton Rock Inscription, cut on a boulder In the Assonet 
 River, a tributary to the Taunton River, in DIghton, 
 Massachusetts. As the Inscription antedates the arrival 
 of the Pilgrims, its age Is unknown, but no very early his- 
 toric period is attributed to it; for the pictorial ele- 
 ments are those current with the Algonquins of the early 
 colonial days, whose work it undoubtedly Is. Much has 
 been written about this celebrated petroglyph, and for 
 some time It was erroneously believed by many scholars 
 to be the work of the Northmen, who under Lief Erics- 
 son were known to have temporarily sojourned in New 
 England In the loth century. It is perhaps the only In- 
 dian petroglyph that rises to the dignity of an inscrip- 
 tion. The vast majority of them seem to be only rude 
 sketches, mere peckings or scrlbbllngs, — meaningless 
 graffi;ti. Some of them consist largely of totemic marks, 
 as those at Oakley Springs, Arizona, which were cut by 
 the HopI Indians to commemorate visits paid to that 
 locality. It might seem that these graffiti offer to certain 
 members of the present generation of Americans a refuge 
 behind this aboriginal custom and an excuse for similar 
 modern offenses. 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 63 
 
 Other rock carvings, like those In the Pipe Stone 
 Quarry, Minnesota, and scattered quarries and ledges 
 elsewhere, where pipe stone was cut, exhibit the totems 
 of families or tribes indicating proprietary rights in the 
 quarry or portions of It. But the DIghton Rock inscrip- 
 tion, as the reader will see by consulting a reproduction 
 of it (Fig. 13) Is of a much higher order of rock sculp- 
 ture. Since 1680, when Dr. Danforth made the first copy 
 of this inscription, many other drawings have been made 
 of it. Cotton Mather, whose pen and tongue won him 
 such unenviable renown in his persecution and prosecu- 
 tion of the so-called witches of Salem, tried his pencil on 
 this inscription, but failed to show any resemblance either 
 to Dr. Danforth's drawing or to the average of those 
 that followed. It must be explained that the rock is In 
 the bed of the river, partly covered at high tide and has 
 been subjected for several hundred years to the natural 
 erosion of water and fluvial debris. The Inscription con- 
 sequently has become increasingly more and more obliter- 
 ated as recurring spring freshets have washed over and 
 eroded the rock. Successive drawings of it have been 
 made by Dr. Greenwood In 1730; Mr. Stephen Sewell, 
 a well-known antiquarian, in 1768; another in 1788 by 
 Mr. James Winthrop, and since then by a number of 
 antiquaries; but nearly all differ more or less In their de-. 
 tails, especially those mentioned. The cut herewith shown 
 is a copy of a drawing made by Dr. Baylies and Mr. 
 Goodwin in 1790, and is generally conceded to be one 
 of the most authentic of the many drawings made of the 
 Inscription. As will readily be observed the ideas of form 
 are very rudimentary and the draughtsmanship Is ex- 
 tremely crude. Schoolcraft in his " Archives of Aborig- 
 inal Knowledge " tells of his taking a copy of the in- 
 scription to a well-known Indian seer or Meda of the 
 
64 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Algonquin tribe. He seemed to experience little difficulty 
 in interpreting to his own satisfaction ( !) the mean- 
 ing of the drawings; yet the extreme limitations of this 
 mode of expression and the correspondingly wide lati- 
 tude in interpretation obviously showed that the pictures 
 conveyed nothing but suggestions to the mind of the 
 reader. This is true of every form of pictorial inscrip- 
 tion of the North American Indians. The key to the 
 interpretation of all these inscriptions, on any material 
 whatsoever, is to be found not so much in the characters 
 themselves as in the imagination and responsiveness of 
 the reader. The ideographs — if the so-called inscrip- 
 
 «^S^ 
 
 Fig. 13. Rock inscription by the Algonquin Indians. " Dighton Rock," 
 near Taunton, Massachiusetts. 
 
 tlons ever rise to this level, though they rarely do — 
 are suggestive, not specific. Briefly, a part of this In- 
 dian seer's description of the many pictures and char- 
 acters in the inscription ran about as follows: — The 
 large drawing on the left is an ancient prophet or war 
 chief. His wife is beside him. The large triangular ob- 
 ject above is the lodge of the seer or prophet. The semi- 
 circle of dots above it signifies six moons, — the number 
 of months for the preparation or consummation of the 
 exploit recorded. The spotted animal in the lower part 
 of the picture is the totem of the principal war chief of 
 the expedition. The three characters looking like hour 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 65 
 
 glasses are headless bodies, recording the number of vic- 
 tims killed. The figures on the right are the enemy. 
 
 The reader will need no further admonition that he 
 must not look to these so-called inscriptions for any evi- 
 dence of writing as such, nor should he waste his time in 
 a futile search among the scrappy marks in this particular 
 Indian inscription, or any other, for any trace of written 
 characters. They do not exist in any Indian picture-writ- 
 ing of any sort. Certain pictorial elements of universal 
 currency, as will be explained later on, were on the point 
 of becoming conventional ideograms ready for later gen- 
 erations of Indian culture to be further simplified into 
 abstract, alphabetic characters. One of these characters 
 cut on the Dighton Rock passed with the Algonquins 
 everywhere as the conventional representation of a man. 
 It became highly differentiated, and in the four forms 
 shown in Fig. 36 represented respectively a man, a 
 woman, a dead male victim, and a dead female victim. 
 
 Another extensive petroglyph is the one at " Indian 
 God Rock," cut on a boulder on the bank of the Allegheny 
 River near Franklin, Pa. It is at the present time in a 
 bad state of preservation and for the most part is almost 
 undecipherable. Other important examples are the carv- 
 ings on rocks in the Susquehanna River near Conowingo, 
 Maryland, at Hamilton Farms and in numerous locali- 
 ties along the Kanawha River, West Virginia. At Mills- 
 boro, Pennsylvania, and at Cunningham's Island, Lake 
 Erie, are some very elaborate rock carvings. The sculp- 
 tures consist of many figures closely crowded together, 
 among them being men, animals, birds, footprints of ani- 
 mals and other objects. The character of the drawing, 
 as shown in the Illustrations, Fig. 14 and Fig. 15, is very 
 similar to the petroglyphs already illustrated, being the 
 work of the same great family of Indians, the Algon- 
 
66 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 
 Fig. 14. Petroglyphs at Millsboro, Pennsylvania. 
 
 Fig. 15 Algonquian petroglyphs. Cunningham Island, Lake Erie. 
 
 quins. At Safe Harbor, Pa., where there are rock carv- 
 ings, the inscriptions undoubtedly refer to hunting, as 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 
 
 67 
 
 there are footprints of animals and birds depicted, as 
 well as the outlines of men and birds. They probably in- 
 dicate the prevalence of game. It is somewhat remark- 
 able, however, that the outlines of fish occur so very in- 
 frequently In these petroglyphs. Occasional petroglyphs 
 
68 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 are to be found throughout the region of the Allegheny 
 Mountains and quite abundantly in Ohio. There also 
 are many petroglyphs on cliffs and on walls of the canons 
 of the Colorado River. Rock inscriptions also abound in 
 great numbers on rocks along the banks of the Walker 
 River in Nevada, in Nebraska, and others of our West- 
 ern States. Fig. i6, the reproduction of a photograph 
 of petroglyphs in Nebraska, is typical of these rock sculp- 
 tures of the aborigines of the United States. From coast 
 
 .-s,^. 
 
 Fig. 17. Myeengun's inscription. Inscription Rock, near Pictured Rocks, 
 Lake Superior. 
 
 to coast and from the Great Lakes to Arizona and New 
 Mexico the same general characteristics of pictography 
 prevail, indicative of the same low stage of human cul- 
 ture and crudity of art expression that characterizes the 
 petroglyphs of the far eastern tribes. 
 
 In the " Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge," School- 
 craft gives an account of an inscription painted on a cliff 
 known as Inscription Rock on the banks of the Carp River 
 near the Pictured Rocks on Lake Superior, Canada. It 
 is reproduced in Fig. 17. It was copied on birch bark by 
 the Indian chief Chingwaiik, a man well versed in the 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 69 
 
 kekeewin, or pictographic method of communicating 
 ideas. He was a member of the Wabeno or Medicine 
 Society, and understood the Midewlwin ceremonial of 
 the aboriginal religion. The inscription portrays the ex- 
 ploits of a chief, one Myeengun, literally " merman- 
 totem." This briefly is the explanation of the inscription 
 given by the Indian : — The lake was crossed near a small 
 bay in five canoes. There were sixteen braves in the first 
 canoe, nine in the second, ten in the third, eight in the 
 fourth, and eight in the fifth also. The first canoe was 
 commanded by Kishkemunasee, the Kingfisher, whose 
 totem is drawn above the canoes. The expedition took 
 three days, as is indicated by the three suns under the 
 arching sky. The man on horseback is the Meda or 
 magic-maker who is supposed to assist the expedition. 
 The bird is Migazee, the eagle, the symbol of courage. 
 The tortoise is Mikenock, the land tortoise, quite uni- 
 formly in Indian inscriptions symbolizing reaching land, 
 the objective. The fabulous creatures below are animal 
 spirits that have been invoked to aid in the exploit. 
 
 One hardly can look upon or contemplate these rude at- 
 tempts of the North American Indians to record their 
 thoughts or deeds without feelings of unconcealed pity for 
 the artistic meagerness and almost total failure of pur- 
 pose of their symbols through the inadequacy of their 
 system. Some rude form of graphic art leading up to a 
 definite system of writing, some rude record of the ac- 
 tivities of tribal or family life ever has been the un- 
 conscious aim of almost every race of mankind. " Till 
 men could leave behind them a record of acquired knowl- 
 edge, the sum of their acquisitions must have remained 
 stationary." Without this instrumentality culture becomes 
 impossible or its transmission slow and precarious. The 
 nations that early have developed an intelligible and prac- 
 
70 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 ticdble system of writing, like the ancient Babylonians 
 and Egyptians, have been the ones to lead the van in the 
 march of civilization; transferring the torch of learning 
 unquenched from generation to generation, as the sacred 
 fires of their altars were conserved. It is therefore with 
 no little pathos in contemplating these crude records of 
 the American Indians that we recall the lines of Freneau 
 in referring to them : 
 
 " Here still a lofty rock remains 
 
 On which the curious eye may trace 
 Now wasted half by wearing rains 
 The fancies of a ruder race." 
 
 It will be a decided relief to turn to another species 
 of record In which, owing to the favorableness of the 
 materials, a much greater degree of success in graphic 
 art was attained by the Indians than in their rock sculp- 
 tures. In the earlier Colonial days of this country rec- 
 ords made by the Iroquois, Leni-Lenape and other In- 
 dian tribes, on birch bark, leather, wood and other ma- 
 terials, were quite common. Birch bark in particular was 
 largely in vogue, being used extensively in recording 
 treaties, contracts and tribal " counts " or histories. It 
 may be considered the Indian's paper. Only a limited 
 number of examples of this kind of record will be pre- 
 sented here, because a more extended exposition of In- 
 dian pictography would be out of place and unwarranted; 
 moreover, it would be an unnecessary interruption of the 
 prosecution of our Inquiry, as the records are quite similar 
 In their general pictorial characteristics. A sufficient num- 
 ber only will be given to illustrate by their general char- 
 acter the manner and mode In which an unlettered race 
 enters upon the primary stages of record making in their 
 long and tedious evolution toward true writing. As man- 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 71 
 
 kind seems to have been much the same the world over, 
 at the several different stages of civilization, the pages 
 that we shall have revealed to us of the life-history of the 
 aborigines of the New World doubtless will prove to be 
 similar to the opening chapter of the same historic evolu- 
 tion that began in the primitive pictures of the Turanian 
 inhabitants of the Old World, and passing through the re- 
 
 Fig. 18. Wingenund's inscription on birch bark. Muskingum River, Ohio. 
 
 fining agencies of the Semitic races finally developed Into 
 the alphabetic writing of the Aryan Greeks. 
 
 One of the most romantic inscriptions that has come 
 down to us Is the one illustrated In Fig. 18, taken from 
 Schoolcraft's " Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge." It 
 was found in 1780 cut on a tree trunk on the bank of 
 the Muskingum River In Ohio. It was drawn with char- 
 coal and bear's grease. It may be remembered that after 
 the conquest of Canada in 1758-59 the Indians headed 
 by Pontlac formed a plan simultaneously to attack the 
 military posts of the British west of the Alleghenles. Nine 
 
72 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 out of twelve stockades were taken. Only Fort Pitt and 
 Fort Detroit successfully resisted. The inscription re- 
 lates the exploit of Wingenund, chief of "the Delawares of 
 the Muskingum. The tortoise is the totemic symbol of 
 the main branch of the Delawares. The geometric device 
 is the totem or armorial badge of Wingenund. The ten 
 lines under the sun probably denote two expeditions of 
 six and four days respectively. The oblique lines at the 
 bottom represent twenty-three warriors. The ten picto- 
 graphic men on the left represent the vanquished enemies, 
 six dead and four captive. Some of them are male and 
 some are female. The small fort is one on Lake Erie 
 taken in 1762; the square-bastioned fort is Fort Pitt at the 
 confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, the 
 present site of the city of Pittsburgh. The cross-hatch 
 lines represent the town. 
 
 The posting of this sketch doubtless was an act of 
 bravado, or one of exultation. That this was not in- 
 frequently done may be inferred from an occurrence 
 experienced and related by Schoolcraft himself. In the 
 summer of 1820 he was a member of the United States 
 exploring expedition to the sources of the Mississippi 
 near Fond du Lac, Minnesota. The party consisted of six- 
 teen persons with two Indian guides. Schoolcraft relates: 
 " One morning as we prepared to leave the camp, a 
 small strip of birch bark containing devices (Fig. 19) 
 was observed elevated on top of a split sapling some 
 eight or ten feet high. One end of this pole was thrust 
 firmly into the ground, leaning in the direction we were 
 to go. . . . It was a symbolic record of the circumstances 
 of our crossing the summit and of the night's encamp- 
 ment at this spot." Schoolcraft goes on to explain that 
 the drawing depicted the commanding officer with his 
 sword, the mineralogist, interpreter and three other offi- 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 
 
 73 
 
 a. 
 
 '^/y^wM 
 
 Fig. 19. Birch bark inscription. Fond du Lac, Minnesota. 
 
 clals. Also the eight soldiers with their guns. All of 
 these were drawn with hats on, — the distinguishing mark 
 of the white man. The two Indian guides were drawn 
 hatless. Three camp fires were shown, indicating the 
 number of days spent in camp. The object of this record 
 was a notification and warning to other Indians of the 
 presence of this party of white men. 
 
 The Dakota and Sioux Indians about a century ago 
 kept tribal " diaries," or calendric counts, now spoken 
 of as " Winter Counts," wherein was recorded the prin- 
 cipal event of each winter. They were painted on skins, 
 sometimes on a tent set apart for this purpose. Each 
 picture or ideograph stood for one winter and chron- 
 icled the most important occurrence of that year. There 
 were several of these counts. The most noted of them 
 was one kept by the Dakota nation and painted on a 
 buffalo robe (Fig. 20). It was begun in i8oo-'oi by 
 Lone Dog, and was maintained for a period of seventy- 
 one years. There were other similar counts of the Da- 
 
74 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 
 Of ^ 
 
 ^ .Nl., ,-f. v^ 
 
 Fig. 20. Winter Count on a buffalo robe. Kept by the Dakota Indians, 
 
 1 800-1 870. 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 75 
 
 kotas. One was begun in iTJS-l^ ^nd maintained until 
 1878-79. Still another was begun in 1786-87 and ex- 
 tended to 1876-77. What is reputed to be one of the 
 original robes is now (1920) in the Museum of the 
 American Indian, Heye Foundation, New York City. 
 The meaning of the pictures in Lone Dog's count was 
 ascertained by Lieut. Reed at Fort Sully, Dakota, in 
 November, 1876, and by Garrick Mallery at Ft. Rice. 
 It is safe to say that this record is unique among savage 
 or uncivilized peoples. The chronicle begins in the mid- 
 dle of the robe, as the reader will note, and progresses 
 spirally outward, each year being individualized by a 
 single pictograph. The first one, — that for the year 
 i8oo-'oi, seen in the lower middle part of the robe, 
 symbolizes: "Thirty Dakotas killed by Crow Indians." 
 Among the many winters illustrated are : " Many-crows- 
 died-winter " ; " First-flag-winter " (when the first United 
 States flag was seen) ; " Small-pox-used-them-all-up-again- 
 winter"; "Horse-shoe-winter" (when the first shod 
 horse was seen). One of the most interesting of the 
 pictographs is the one designed to record the winter of 
 1833-34. It depicts the moon with stars darting across 
 it, and records beyond a doubt the great meteoric shower 
 over the United States which occurred on the evening of 
 November 12, 1833. White-Cow Killer in his count por- 
 trays it in a very similar manner, but explained it as 
 "Plenty-stars-winter." The pictograph drawn to sym-. 
 boHze the year 1855, an Indian taking the hand of a 
 white man, records the treaty of peace made in that year 
 by Gen. Harvey with certain tribes of the Dakotas. The 
 year 1869-70 is represented in these counts by a black 
 sun with stars around it, — a most graphic portrayal 
 and record of the total eclipse of the sun, which occurred 
 August 7, 1869. The next and last pictograph depicts a 
 
76 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 battle between the Crows and the Uncpapas; the latter 
 losing fourteen but killing twenty-nine out of thirty of 
 the former. The central object is the stockade, the four- 
 teen dead lying around it. Without the explanation of 
 the unhappy Lone Dog the Indians themselves must have 
 interpreted this pictograph to be an explosion of gun- 
 powder ! The drawings in all these " counts " of the 
 Dakotas though rather faulty are very spirited, and gen- 
 erally — but not always — are readily intelligible; being 
 a marked advance in artistic treatment over the earlier 
 rock pictographs of the Algonquins of the East. But this 
 is the natural progress of the art of graphic expression as 
 it develops in skill and perfection through the practice of 
 a century or two. 
 
 The Pima Indians, of the Gila River reservation in 
 southern Arizona, kept calendric counts very similar 
 to those of the Dakotas. Frank Russell gives a very in- 
 teresting account of them in the 26th Annual Report of 
 the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1904— '05. Russell 
 enumerates four chronological records of the North 
 American Indians : ( i ) The Walam Olum of the Dela- 
 wares, to be described in this chapter, the definitive ac- 
 count of which was published by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton 
 (1885); (2) The Lone Dog winter count, just de- 
 scribed; (3) The series of Kiowa calendars, somewhat 
 similar to the winter counts of the Dakotas, a description 
 of which by James Mooney appears in the 17th Annual 
 Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology; (4) The 
 Records of the Pimas. 
 
 During his sojourn among the Pima Indians Mr. Rus- 
 sell recovered five notched calendar sticks. Two of the 
 sticks were " told " him by the possessor. The record 
 covers a period of seventy years, dating from the season 
 immediately preceding the great meteoric shower of 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 77 
 
 November 12, 1833, as do the oldest of the calendric 
 counts among the Kiowa. There are traditions of older 
 sticks that have been lost or buried with their keepers. 
 Juan Thomas, of the village of Blackwater, had lost his 
 stick in some inexplicable manner, but he was continuing 
 the history with pencil and paper. " It is noteworthy," 
 says Mr. Russell, " that the change from stick to paper 
 introduced a tendency to use pictorial symbols rather than 
 merely mnemonic characters, such as are most easily in- 
 cised on the surface of a stick having clearly marked 
 grain." 
 
 The Pima year begins with the saguaro harvest, about 
 June. It is the season for feasting and rejoicing. As 
 there is no winter, there are no " winter counts," but 
 the years are recorded by harvests. There are but two 
 seasons in the Gila valley, the season of torrid heat and 
 that of ideal weather. " The onset of the former co- 
 incides with the harvest season, and the new year is there- 
 fore adapted, albeit unwittingly, to seasonal change. 
 The year mark is invariably a deep notch across the stick. 
 . . . The records of the early years are memorized and 
 there are few minor notches to aid in recalling them. 
 The year notches are exactly alike, yet in asking a nar- 
 rator to go back and repeat the story for a certain year, 
 the writer found that he never made a mistake." 
 
 Most of the symbols on these sticks are geometric or 
 conventional; yet some are pictographic if not ideo- 
 graphic. Only one symbol had come arbitrarily to desig- 
 nate a single event. This was the T-shaped character 
 which was used to record the " tizwin drunks," or fes- 
 tivals at which saguaro or agave liquor was brewed and 
 freely imbibed. A very good idea of the symbols and 
 pictographs carved on these calendar sticks may be gained 
 by examining those selected for illustration in Fig. 21. 
 
78 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 t) « 
 
 p.- ^ T-'i T 
 
 1833 1869-70 1878-79 1892-93 1893-94 
 
 Fig. 21. Pictographs selected from the Calendric Counts of the Pima 
 Indians, Gila River Reservation, Arizona. 
 
 The pictograph for 1833 very much resembles that for 
 the same year, the " plenty-stars-winter," of the Dakotas. 
 The pictograph for i869-'70 records an unusually heavy 
 winter rain which gullied the hills deeply. The zig-zag 
 lines constitute a definite ideogram for water, almost 
 universally employed the world over. The pictograph 
 used as a symbol for the year 1878— '79 illustrates the 
 principal event of the year, which was the building of 
 the Southern Pacific railroad along the southern border 
 of the Gila River reservation. The symbol for the year 
 1892-93 records that " a dance at Salt River occurred 
 in which two men drunk with whisky killed each other." 
 The same symbol — really an ideogram — employed to 
 designate the year 1893—94, is laconically read as fol- 
 lows: " the village of Hiamtam and the Gila Maricopas 
 had a dance together, but no one was killed"! 
 
 We will now give a few Illustrations of the manner in 
 which the illiterate Indians of the Great Plains responded 
 to the new requirements of a civilization foreign to them 
 and their primitive culture in matters of official records, 
 petitions to their governors or commissioners, letters, 
 etc. Fig. 22 is a reproduction of a part of a census roll 
 taken by Red Cloud, chief of a tribe of the Dakotas at 
 the Pine Ridge Agency, Dakota, comprising Red Shirt's 
 band. " Owing to some disagreement, the agent refused 
 to acknowledge that chief as head of the Indians at the 
 agency and named another as the official chief. The In- 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 
 
 79 
 
 Fig. 22. Red-Cloud's Census — Red-Shirt's Band. 
 
8o 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 ^- 
 
 III 
 
 II 
 
 II till 
 
 11 
 
 %7 
 
 11 
 
 II 
 
 U 
 
 + 
 
 111 
 
 II 
 
 I 
 
 II 
 
 III 
 
 /^ 
 
 
 
 + 
 
 111 
 
 u 
 
 n 
 
 II 
 
 ^Oj 
 
 lllili 
 
 C) 
 
 f 
 
 Mil 
 
 C3 
 
 111 
 
 mil 
 
 Fig. 23. Census roll of Indian band at Mille Lac, Minnesota. 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 
 
 8 1 
 
 dians under Red Cloud exhibited their allegiance to him 
 by attaching or having their names attached to seven 
 sheets of ordinary manila paper, which were sent to Wash- 
 ington." (Garrick Mallery in Annual Report, Smith- 
 sionian Institution, 1882-83.) The family names of the 
 nineteen Indian braves in this band, designated by their 
 totems drawn in the customary manner as proceeding 
 from their heads, in order are : Leafing, Horned Horse, 
 
 Fig. 24. Petition of Chippewa Indians from Lake Superior to the U. S. 
 Government at Washington. 
 
 White Whirlwind, Wolf Ear, Afraid-of-Elk, Feathers, 
 Tall Man, Elk Head, Ring Owl, Standing Bear, Small 
 Ring, Charging Hawk, Afraid-of-Bull, Medicine Horse, 
 Two Eagles, Red Shirt, Bear Nostrils, Spotted Horse, 
 and Afraid-of-Bear. Fig. 23, the census roll of an Indian 
 band at Mille Lac, Minnesota, is a more complete docu- 
 ment than the above. It was drawn and given to the agent 
 by Nago-Nabe, a Chippewa Indian, during the progress 
 of the annuity payments in 1849. It designates by picto- 
 graphic characters — totems — each family of the band 
 and the number of individuals in the family. This num- 
 ber is recorded by the several vertical lines below the 
 totem signs. 
 
82 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 The tangled turnout of animals shown In Fig. 24, which 
 more nearly resembles a hunter's catch, is in reality a 
 dignified and important petition presented to the United 
 States government In January, 1849, by a delegation of 
 Chippewa Indians from Lake Superior. The party was 
 not accredited by their local agent, so in lieu of the offi- 
 cial credentials they presented a pictographic petition 
 consisting of five sheets of white birch bark on which 
 were drawn the totems of the different members of the 
 band of Indians. The illustration shown Is the first sheet, 
 the petition itself. The chief ( i ) is represented as the 
 leader of the delegation. He Is of the Crane clan. Fol- 
 lowing him are three representatives of the Marten clan 
 (2, 3 and 4) . The other three members of the party were 
 sent as representatives of the Bear, Man Fish and Cat 
 Fish clans, respectively, and were designated In the peti- 
 tion, the same as their companions, by their painted 
 totems is^ 6 and 7). The lines drawn from the eye and 
 heart of the Crane to the eyes and hearts of his fellow 
 petitioners Indicate respectively: "union of views" and 
 " unity of feeling and purpose," that actuated every mem- 
 ber of the delegation. The line drawn from the eye of 
 the chief forward denotes the course of the journey; 
 the one leading backward to the small lakes (8) indicates 
 the desired grant which constitutes the object of the 
 journey. The long parallel lines across the sheet at 10 
 represent Lake Superior, and the short parallel Hnes 
 (9) a path leading from some central point on Its south- 
 ern shore to the villages and Interior lakes at 8, at which 
 place the Indians desired to settle and pursue the arts of 
 peace and civilization. 
 
 In the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution 
 for 1882-83 Garrick Mallery gives a description of a 
 letter sent by a Cheyenne Indian named Truth-following- 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 
 
 83 
 
 his-Wife, to his son, Little-Man, at the Pine Ridge 
 Agency, Dakota, asking him to return home, and notify- 
 ing him of his sending him fifty-three dollars for this 
 purpose; The whole episode is so interesting and the 
 " letter " so entertaining and characteristic of Indian 
 
 Fig. 25. Letter to Little-Man from his father, a Cheyenne Indian. 
 
 " writing " that we reproduce the cut in Fig. 25 and quote 
 the following from Mr. Mallery's account: " The letter 
 was evidently understood by Little-Man, as he immedi- 
 ately called upon Dr. V. T. McGillycuddy, Indian agent 
 at the Pine Ridge Agency, and was aware that the sum of 
 $53 had been placed at his credit for the purpose of en- 
 abhng him to pay his expenses in going the long journey 
 
84J A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 to his father's home in the Indian Territory. Dr. McGil- 
 lycuddy had, by the same mail, received a letter from 
 Agent Dyer, enclosing $53, and explaining the reason for 
 its being sent, which enabled him also to understand the 
 pictographic letter. With the above explanation it very 
 clearly shows, over the head of the figure to the left, the 
 turtle following the turtle's wife, united with the head of 
 the figure by a line, and over the head of the other figure, 
 also united by a line to it, is a little man. Also over the 
 right arm of the last mentioned figure is another little man 
 in the act of springing or advancing toward Truth-fol- 
 lowing-his-Wife, from whose mouth proceed two lines, 
 curved or hooked at the end, as if drawing the little 
 figure towards him. It is suggested that the last men- 
 tioned part of the pictograph is the substance of the com- 
 munication, i.e., ' come to me,' the larger figures with the 
 name totems being the persons addressed and addressing. 
 Between and above the larger figures are fifty-three round 
 objects, intended for dollars." 
 
 In the religious rites and ceremonies of the American 
 Indians, notably the Ojibwas and Dakotas, extensive use 
 was made of charts or scrolls of birch bark or skin from 
 which were sung the Medas or Medicine-songs. These 
 Medas were the traditional songs of the tribes, and re- 
 lated to their rehgion, their bodily and spiritual salvation, 
 and whatever of aspiration or endeavor actuated them in 
 life. Among the Ojibwa Indians, a branch of the great 
 Algonquian linguistic family, there is a religious society, 
 known as the Midewiwin or Great Medicine Society. 
 The Mide or Wabeno who presides over this society is 
 supposed to possess the powers of prophecy and the art of 
 healing. He is the Medicine Man of the tribe, and the 
 seer or pow-wow who leads by his incantations the peculiar 
 traditional ceremonies which make up the religious rites 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 85 
 
 incident to the periodic invocations to the Great Spirit 
 who presei-ves human life, or guarantees spiritual life to 
 the members of the tribe. The Invocations are chiefly 
 prayers for health, healing medicines, future happiness, 
 rain and a plentiful harvest. The Mide chants the songs 
 from a chart or scroll of bark or leather upon which are 
 painted pictorial, mnemonic symbols suggesting the Ideas 
 in the song either directly, by metaphor or by symbol. 
 
 While we may not be able to look upon these ceremo- 
 nial observances as anything other than sorcery, we must 
 
 Song B 
 
 Song C 
 Fig. 26. Mnemonic ceremonial songs of the Ojibwa Indians. 
 
 credit the Indians, if with credulity and fanaticism, yet 
 with fervent religious sincerity. It is with this spirit that 
 we should read their " songs." The first two songs In 
 Fig. 26 are from the Midewlwin Society of the Ojibwa, 
 and are reproduced from the Report of the Smithsonian 
 Institution for i885-'86. The following description is 
 from the article by W. J. Hoffman. The songs are invo- 
 cations to KItshI Manido, the Great Spirit, to grant life 
 and happiness, and to give knowledge of healing medicmes 
 
86 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 and remedies. Each of the phrases is repeated before ad- 
 vancing to the next, as often as the singer desires, and in 
 proportion to the amount of reverence and awe with 
 which he wishes to impress his hearers. There is usually 
 a brief interval between each of the phrases, and a longer 
 one at the appearance of a vertical line, denoting a rest 
 or pause. One song may occupy, therefore, from fifteen 
 minutes to one-half an hour. 
 
 Song A is interpreted as follows: 
 
 ( 1 ) When I am out of hearing, where am I ? (The lines 
 
 extending from the ears denote hearing; the arms 
 denote toward the right and left, being the ges- 
 tures of negation, usually made by throwing them 
 outward and away from the front of the body.) 
 
 (2) In my house, I see. (Light indicated by lines ex- 
 
 tending from the eyes ; the horns denote superior- 
 ity of the singer.) 
 
 (3) When. I rise it gives me life, and I take it. (The 
 
 arm reaches into the sky to receive gifts which are 
 handed down by the Good Spirit. The short trans- 
 verse line across the forearm indicates the arch of 
 the sky; this line being an abbreviation of the 
 curve usually employed to designate the same.) 
 
 (4) The reason why I am happy. (Asking the Spirit for 
 
 life, which is granted. The singer's body is filled 
 with the heart enlarged, i.e., fullness of heart, the 
 lines from the mouth denoting abundance of voice 
 or grateful utterance, — singing.) 
 
 (5) The spirit says there is plenty of medicine in the 
 
 Mide wigwam. (Two superior spirits, Kitshi 
 Manido and Dzhe Manido, whose bodies are sur- 
 rounded by lines of sacredness, tell the Mide 
 where the mysterious remedies are to be found. 
 The vertical waving lines are the lines indicating 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 87 
 
 these communications; the horizontal line at the 
 bottom is the earth's surface.) 
 
 (6) The Spirit placed medicine in the ground, let us take 
 
 it. (The arm of Kitchi Manido put into the 
 ground sacred plants, indicated by the spots at 
 different horizons on the earth. The short verti- 
 cal and waving lines denote sacredness of the 
 objects.) 
 
 (7) I am holding this that I bring to you. (The singer 
 
 sits in the Midewiwin and offers the privilege of 
 entrance by initiation to the hearer.) 
 
 (8) I have good favor in the eyes of my Mide friends. 
 
 (The Good Spirit has put life into the body of the 
 singer, as indicated by the two mysterious arms 
 reaching toward his body; i.e., the heart, the seat 
 of life.) 
 Song B runs along in quite the same line of thought, 
 as follows: 
 
 ( 1 ) I hear the spirit speaking to me. 
 
 (2) I am going into the medicine lodge. 
 
 (3) I am gathering medicine to make me live. 
 
 (4) I give you medicine, and a lodge, also. 
 
 ( 5 ) I am flying into my lodge. 
 
 (6) The spirit has dropped medicine from the sky where 
 
 we can get it. 
 
 (7) I have the medicine in my heart. 
 
 Song C is reproduced from the Report of the Bureau 
 of American Ethnology for 1888-89. It is interpreted 
 as follows: 
 
 ( i) My arm is almost pulled out with digging medicine. 
 It is full of medicine. 
 
 (2) Almost crying because the medicine is lost. 
 
 (3) Yes, there is much medicine. You may cry for it. 
 
 (4) Yes, I see there is plenty of it, 
 
88 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 (Rest. Dancing begins.) 
 
 (5) When I come out the slcy becomes clear. 
 
 (6) The spirit has given me power to see. 
 
 (7) I brought the medicine to bring life. (The Thun- 
 
 der Bird who brings rain. A common ideograph 
 among the Indians.) 
 
 (8) I, too, see how much there is. 
 
 (9) I am going to the medicine lodge. 
 
 (10) I take life from the sky. 
 
 (11) Let us talk to one another. 
 
 (12) The spirit is in my body, my friend. 
 
 W. J. Hoffman in referring to these songs says : " The 
 mnemonic songs of the Ojibwas present the most inter- 
 esting pictographs, and evince the highest degree of 
 graphic skill attained by the Ojibwas. Almost every 
 form of simple or complex ideograms is here portrayed; 
 presenting types of simple delineation as well as abstract 
 ideas and various attributes thought to be almost beyond 
 the range of portrayal without the aid of a more advanced 
 method of writing." These ceremonial songs will afford 
 the reader ample opportunity to observe the probable 
 mode by which in the development of writing pictographic 
 signs have developed into constant, ideographic symbols 
 of recognized currency. Also the way in which by pic- 
 torial synecdoche a part of a body or thing, by its action, 
 attribute or function, came to represent an idea connected 
 with the thing itself, — as the eye for seeing; the ear for 
 hearing; the mouth for speaking; the uplifted hand for 
 reaching; etc. In the same way, if the Indians could have 
 been allowed to develop their own ideography, the hat — 
 which was their distinguishing symbol for the white 
 man — in the course of time probably would have become 
 the phonogram for their spoken word for white man, and 
 eventually in a highly conventionalized and simplified 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 89 
 
 form possibly become the alphabetic character for the 
 Initial sound of this same word. Such considerations make 
 the pictography of our American Indians, more particu- 
 larly that of the Ojibwa, of unusual interest, for we see in 
 it writing in the first stage of its genesis. Unfortunately 
 for science — possibly for the Indians, who can tell? — 
 the chapter closed at this stage, and a new and better 
 system of writing was adopted. 
 
 As in the historic East, mortuary inscriptions in tombs, 
 on stele and in other forms, have preserved more of an- 
 cient writing than any other agency, we naturally look for 
 evidences of this form of inscription among the Indians. 
 Nor are we disappointed, for pictorial epitaphs on Indian 
 grave-posts were quite common in the early days of the 
 New World. But being painted on wood, most of them 
 have perished. Longfellow in his " Song of Hiawatha " 
 thus alludes to this custom: 
 
 " And they painted on the grave-posts, 
 On the graves yet unforgotten, 
 Each his own ancestral Totem, 
 Each the symbol of his household ; 
 Figures of the Bear and Reindeer, 
 Of the Turtle, Crane and Beaver, 
 Each inverted as a token 
 That the owner was departed. 
 That the Chief who bore the symbol 
 Lay beneath in dust and ashes." 
 
 Three of these grave-posts, or " adjedatigs," are illus- 
 trated in Fig. 27. They are reproduced from School- 
 craft's " Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge." The first 
 one is the grave-post of Shingabawassin, — " Image- 
 Stone," a noted chief of the St. Mary's band of Indians 
 who inhabited the regions about Lake Superior. His 
 
go A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 totem, the crane, Is depicted reversed, which is the signifi- 
 cant mode of representing totems on Indian grave-posts. 
 The Australian aborigines have a similar custom of Invert- 
 ing the totem. Indeed, in medieval times the leopards on 
 the escutcheons of the English kings were reversed to In- 
 
 Fig. 27. Indian grave posts. 
 
 dicate the decease of the king. We may recall here the 
 inverted torch which denoted death In the classic sculp- 
 tures. The six marks on the right indicate the number of 
 Important enterprises, probably battles, in which the chief 
 had been engaged. The three different marks on the left 
 record the number of treaties of peace which he had at- 
 tended. The other symbols are not all so easily under- 
 stood. The calumet Is of course the symbol of peace, and 
 the hatchet below It that of war. The cross Is probably a 
 totemic sign of Insignia. The deer's head. may only refer 
 to the deceased's chief occupation of the chase. The other 
 signs appear undecipherable. 
 
 The second Illustration shows the adjedatig of Wabo- 
 jug, a celebrated war chief who died near Lake Superior 
 In 1793. The family totem, the reindeer. Is represented 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS gi 
 
 reversed as customary. The horizontal marks on either 
 side of the totem sign indicate the number of important 
 enterprises in which he had been engaged, probably bat- 
 tles, expeditions or treaties of peace. The three vertical 
 lines beneath the totem indicate the number of wounds 
 received in battles. The moose's head refers to a desper- 
 ate encounter with this animal. The hatchet symbolizes 
 war. The significance of the remaining signs is not clear. 
 The crescents maybe bows and refer to the chase, or they 
 may refer to some moonlight expedition. The third adje- 
 datig is that of another chief of the crane clan, inverted 
 like the others, with lines of credit for courage in battles. 
 We will close this interesting, but what plainly threat- 
 ens to be digressing, phase of Indian pictography by one 
 more ritualistic song, the most noble of any on record ; one 
 that rises to the level and dignity of an epic. Among the 
 many manuscripts left at the time of his death by Samuel 
 Rafinsque-Schmaltz, a learned scholar residing in Phila- 
 delphia, was a copy of a cycle of records written in picto- 
 graphic or ideographic characters by the Leni-Lenape In- 
 dians. E. G. Squire, the literary executor of Rafinsque, 
 says in his " Historical and Mythological Traditions of 
 the Algonquins " : " Among these manuscripts was one 
 entitled the Walam Olum (literally, ' painted sticks ') , or 
 painted and engraved traditions of the Leni-Lenape, com- 
 prising five divisions; the first two embodying the tradi- 
 tions referring to the creation and a general flood, and the 
 rest comprising a record of various migrations, with a 
 list of 97 chiefs, in the order of their succession, coming 
 down to the period of the Discovery. This manuscript 
 also embraces 184 compound mnemonic symbols, accom- 
 panied by a sentence or verse in the original language, of 
 which a literal translation is given In English. The only 
 explanation which we have concerning it is contained in a 
 
92 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 footnote in the hand of Rafinsque in which he states that 
 the manuscript and wooden originals were obtained in In- 
 diana in 1822, and that they were for a long time Inex- 
 plicable, until with a deep study of the Delaware and the 
 aid of Zeisberger's Manuscript Dictionary in the library 
 of the Philosophical Society, in Philadelphia, a translation 
 was effected. This translation, it may here be remarked, 
 so far as I have been able to test it, is a faithful one, and 
 there is slight doubt that the original is what it professes 
 to be, a genuine Indian record. The evidence that It Is so 
 Is, however, rather internal and collateral than direct. . . . 
 As already observed, it has strong internal evidence of 
 being what it purports to be, evidence sufficiently strong 
 In my estimation to settle Its authenticity. I may how- 
 ever add, that, with a view of leaving no means unem- 
 ployed to ascertain its true value, I submitted It without 
 explanation to an educated Indian chief, Kahgegagah- 
 bowh, George Copway, who unhesitatingly pronounced it 
 authentic. In respect not only to the original signs and 
 accompanying explanations in the Delaware dialect, but 
 also In the general Ideas and conceptions which it em- 
 bodies. He also bore testimony to the fidelity of the 
 translation." 
 
 This Is Rafinsque's Walam Olum of the Lenl-Lenape 
 Indians, which. If authentic,^ is one of the most remark- 
 able documents ever inscribed by an uncivilized race. It 
 Is the first of the three songs constituting the Walam 
 Olum, and describes the creation and cosmogony of the 
 world from the Indian's point of view: 
 
 1 The text and drawings which follow have been taken from no less 
 an authority than the eminent Americanist, Daniel G. Brinton, published 
 in this author's "Library of Aboriginal American Literature," 1885. 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 93 
 
 (( 'I ■ At first, in that place, at all times, above the earth, 
 
 On the earth (was) an extended fog, and there 
 the great Manito was. 
 
 At first, forever, lost in space, everywhere, the 
 great Manito was. 
 
 He made the extended land and the sky, 
 .y^Vj \. He made the sun, the moon and the stars. 
 
 Sl^ 
 
 He made them all to move evenly. 
 
 /^'^^~%^ Then the wind blew violently, and it cleared, and 
 (( ^\\ the water flowed off far and strong. 
 
 And groups of islands grew newly, and then re- 
 
 ■ mamed. 
 
 XI>\ Anew spoke the great Manito, a manito to mani- 
 
 ^^\ To beings, mortals, souls and all. 
 
 And ever after he was a manito to men, and their 
 He gave the first mother, the mother of beings. 
 
94 
 
 ^ <H? 
 
 ^^ 
 
 5 
 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 He gave the fish, he gave the turtles, he gave the 
 beasts, he gave the birds. 
 
 But an evil Manito made evil beings only, monsters. 
 
 He made the flies, he made the gnats. 
 
 ro^ o 
 
 J ^ 
 TO o 
 
 All beings were then friendly. 
 
 Truly the manitos were active and kindly 
 
 To those very first men, and to those first mothers; 
 fetched them wishes, 
 
 And fetched them food as they desired it. 
 
 And all had cheerful knowledge, all had leisure, all 
 thought in gladness. 
 
 But very secretly an evil being, a mighty magician 
 
 came on earth. 
 And with him brought badness, quarreling, un- 
 happiness. 
 
 ). JL X X^ J Brought bad weather, brought sickness, brought 
 ^ death. 
 
 All this took place of old on the earth, beyond the 
 great tidewater, at the first. 
 
 
 A few examples of the graphic art of the Lenape In- 
 dians are extant, and give corroboration of the reputed 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 
 
 95 
 
 artistic skill of this tribe of American aborigines. One of 
 them (Fig. 28) is a slate gorget or charm, which these 
 Indians were sometimes wont to bury with the dead, on 
 which has been etched a remarkable hunting scene. It was 
 found near Doylestown, Bucks Co., Pennsylvania, by Ber- 
 nard Hansell, in 1872. It is now in the possession of Col. 
 H. D. Paxson, of Philadelphia, and its authenticity is 
 vouched for by Henry C. Mercer, late curator of the Mu- 
 seum of American and Prehistoric Archaeology in the 
 
 
 Fig. 28. Slate gorget of the Lenape Indians found near 
 Doylestown, Pennsylvania. 
 
 University of Pennsylvania. The etching which is repro- 
 duced from an article on " Prehistoric Art " by Thomas 
 Wilson, in the Smithsonian Institution Report for 1896, 
 depicts a traditional combat between the Indians and the 
 mammoth, which is known to have inhabited North Amer- 
 ica at the close of the glacial epoch and possibly to have 
 tarried long thereafter.^ Its wonderful similarity to the 
 art of the Cave Men of the Reindeer Period is most start- 
 hng, as. will instantly be noted by the reader. But there is 
 
 1 Candor compels us to state that few archaeologists believe that life 
 in America dates back to so remote a period. While some, like Ales 
 Hrdlicka, Curator of the Division of Physical Anthropology, U. S. Na- 
 tional Museum, Washington, D. C, do not believe in an antiquity above 
 10,000 years, others double this period and yet are far this side of the 
 glacial epoch. 
 
96 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 no known ethnological reason for this similarity, nor any 
 archaeological reason other than the very early age of 
 primitive art development common to both. 
 
 Among the various tribes of the North American In- 
 dians, more especially those dwelling east of the Missis- 
 sippi River, perforated shell beads were extensively em- 
 ployed both as articles of personal adornment, as neck- 
 laces, bracelets and other ornaments of dress, as well as 
 the basis of exchange of goods and property. It being 
 their most prized and valuable possession, it passed as cur- 
 rency among them. Under the name of " wampum," it was 
 in general use throughout the eastern part of the country 
 and was the medium of exchange in trading and bartering. 
 Land was sold by the Indians to the white men for wam- 
 pum, sometimes made by the shrewd white man himself 
 for this most profitable market. From the weaving of 
 wampum beads into collars and belts originally intended 
 and worn as articles of bodily adornment, it seemed but 
 a natural step to utilize these, their most precious posses- 
 sions, in sealing compacts, treaties and land exchanges. It 
 thus came about that wampum in the form of belts was 
 used as a mnemonic record of important events. It ac- 
 tually became a material for writing, as much so as papy- 
 rus, parchment or birch bark. This use of wampum by 
 the unlettered savages of the new continent forms a ro- 
 mantic chapter in their history and development toward 
 civilization. 
 
 Wampum belts were extensively used by the Indians 
 in ratifying treaties between tribes and in recording 
 events of unusual importance and significance, and as such 
 they were held in the most sacred reverence. The par- 
 ticular record took the form of the principal idea in the 
 event memorialized, portraying it objectively or by attri- 
 bute or metaphor. If the subject matter were not capable 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 97 
 
 of pictorial illustration, any conventional form or pattern 
 agreed upon was selected as the " memory jog." These 
 pictures, forms or patterns, woven into these ornamental 
 belts, served as a record of history, a primitive registry 
 of deeds. One of the sachems of the tribe, a man noted 
 for his robust memory, was appointed " Keeper of the 
 Wampum," just the same as the Peruvians appointed the 
 keeper of the quipus, and, as we shall see later on, with 
 the Babylonians also ; except that the records of the latter 
 could be read, whereas the shell records of the Indians, 
 like the quipus records of the Peruvians, first had to be 
 learned by rote and memorized under the suggestion of 
 the pictures or pattern on the belt. To quote from W. H. 
 Holmes, former Chief of the Bureau of Ethnology, 
 Washington, D. C. : " At a certain season each year the 
 belts were taken from the treasure house and exposed to 
 the whole tribe, while the history and import of each were 
 publicly recited." Loskiel, in his " Missions of the United 
 Brethren," in referring to wampum belts somewhat sim- 
 ilarly records: "They (the Indians) refer to them as 
 public records, carefully preserving them in a chest made 
 for that purpose. At certain seasons they meet to study 
 their meaning and to review the idea of which they were 
 an emblem or confirmation. On such occasions they sit 
 down around the chest, take out one string after the 
 other, handing it about to every person present; and that 
 they may all comprehend its meaning, repeat the words 
 pronounced on its delivery in their whole convention." 
 
 The uncertainty and fallibility of this most inadequate 
 method of record is too obvious to call for comment. It 
 is not surprising to learn, through their history, of the 
 pitiful misunderstandings between contracting parties in 
 regard to the true interpretation of certain compacts over 
 which wampum belts had mutually been exchanged, and 
 
98 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 which eventually led to war with all Its concomitant evils. 
 Captain de Lamothe Cadillac in 1703 tells of an Indian 
 chief whose nation had received through the hands of the 
 Ottawas a wampum collar from the Iroquois. They had 
 had It some time, the chief pathetically said, and " the old 
 men had forgotten what the collar said ! " 
 
 One of the mo.st noted and successful attempts at picf- 
 tography with wampum Is the famous Penn Treaty belt 
 shown In Fig. 29, now In the possession of the Penn- 
 sylvania Historical Society in Philadelphia. It Is claimed 
 to be the original belt given by the Lenl-Lenape sachems 
 to William Penn at the time of the famous treaty at 
 Shackamaxon on the Delaware In 1682. The belt Is of 
 white wampum with two figures in the middle in dark 
 colored beads representing respectively an Indian and a 
 white man clasping hands in a bond of friendship. A 
 compact, by the way, that was never broken. The white 
 man Is depicted in the manner common with most In- 
 dian scribes, with a hat. The authenticity of the belt Is 
 guaranteed by the facts of its transfer to the Pennsyl- 
 vania Historical Society. In 1857 Granville John Penn, 
 a great-grandson of William Penn, presented the belt to 
 the Society. At the time of Its transfer Mr. Penn said 
 In guaranteeing the reliability of the belt: " In the first 
 place, its dimensions are greater than those used on more 
 ordinary occasions, . . . being composed of eighteen 
 strings of wampum, which is a proof that it was the record 
 of some very important negotiation. In the next place. In 
 the center of the beads, in a rude but graphic style, are 
 two figures, — that of one evidently intended to be rep- 
 resented in the European costume, wearing a hat; which 
 can only be interpreted as having reference to the treaty 
 of peace and friendship which was concluded between 
 William Penn and the Indians and recorded by them in 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 99 
 
 their own simple but descriptive mode of expressing their 
 meaning, by the employment of hieroglyphics." 
 
 It is known that large numbers of wampum belts were 
 in the possession of the Wyandotts, Hurons, Iroquois 
 and other tribes of Indians inhabiting the tract of coun- 
 
 Fig. 29. The Penn Treaty Belt. Given by the Indians to William Penn. In 
 the Pennsylvania Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 
 
 try now covered by the states of New York, Ohio and 
 Pennsylvania. They had in most cases a significant ideo- 
 graph, representative of the event memorialized by the 
 belt, — the calumet or peace pipe, a totemic pictograph 
 of the contracting nation, or later Christian crosses, 
 worked into the groundwork of the beads. A very few 
 other wampum belts are in existence. In the agency build- 
 ing of the Onondagas in Onondaga County, New York, is 
 one of the most perfect specimens of wampum belts in 
 existence. One of the chiefs of the Onondagas declares 
 that there is a tradition that it commemorates a covenant 
 between the Indians and the government of the United 
 States. Fig. 30 is a picture of this belt. In the center 
 is a house which appears to have three principal divi- 
 sions. (It is more than likely that the Indian who wove 
 the pattern had been to Washington with the commis- 
 sioners and had seen the Capitol with its central rotunda 
 and dome and the flanking wings.) On either side of the 
 house are two men " who appear to stand beneath pro- 
 tecting arms which pass over their heads, connect with 
 the house and grasp the hands of the first personages 
 immediately on the right and left." Any one familiar 
 
ICX) 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 with the imaginative mind of the Indians will at once 
 recognize this sketch as their mode of objectifying in 
 metaphorical form the protection afforded by the govern- 
 ment from its official center, the Capital of the nation. 
 There are in all no less than fifteen figures of men who 
 stand clasping hands left and right around the belt. There 
 can be little doubt that this commemorated an important 
 treaty. The nature of the pictographic design, as well 
 as the fact of its unusual size, proclaims this. There are 
 fifteen rows of wampum, with 650 beads in each row, 
 making a total of 9,750 beads. 
 
 
 1 &_ 
 
 
 ,-Wimmm,tr^^'^—m . ^ .-^ ^"^^"rr^'-i^S 
 
 Fig. 30. Wampum belt belonging to the Onondaga Indians. 
 
 Fig. 31 is a beautiful wampum belt eleven and one- 
 half inches long made of six strands of blue beads with 
 a white cross in the middle. It belongs to the class known 
 as " Missionary Belts," and is similar to the Jesuit mis- 
 sionary belts of the Hurons. Dr. Daniel G. Brinton sug- 
 gests that the two pyramids on either side of the cross 
 are symbolical representations of church steeples. The 
 belt probably commemorates some friendly alliance be- 
 tween two Christian communities of converted Indians. 
 
 The Eskimos, or Innuit, residing on the Pacific Coast 
 in Alaska have developed a remarkable talent for pic- 
 tographic record. As these Indians are very generally un- 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS loi 
 
 lettered, this graphic mode of record is their chief means 
 of communication when absent in person, and they make 
 extensive use of it. As their artds contemporaneous, speci- 
 mens are easily procurable, and most museums contain 
 excellent specimens of it. The National Museum in 
 Washington is particularly rich in specimens, and contains 
 a large number of fine examples. The drawing in most 
 of these carvings, which are generally etched on bone, 
 ivory or wood, is very truthful, and evidences a high 
 degree of technical skill and considerable attainment in 
 art. We are indebted for the greater part of the follow- 
 
 Fig. 31. Wampum Missionary belt. 
 
 ing brief account of the art of the Eskimos to Walter J. 
 Hoffman, M. D., from whose admirable work " The 
 Graphic Art of the Eskimos," published by the Smithson- 
 ian Institution in 1895, we have freely borrowed. 
 
 Fig. 32 (A) is the record of a hunt, and is similar 
 to many other such records made by the natives residing 
 on the coasts of the Bering Sea and the Pacific, in Alaska, 
 to inform their visitors or friends of their departure for 
 a designated purpose. They are depicted upon pieces 
 of wood, which are placed in conspicuous places near the 
 doors of their habitations. The following Is Dr. Hoff- 
 man's explanation of the characters: 
 
 "No. I, the speaker, with the right hand indicating 
 himself and with the left pointing In the direction taken; 
 No. 2, holding a boat paddle, ' going by boat'; No. 3, 
 
I02 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 the speaker holding the right hand to the side of the 
 head, to denote ' sleep,' and the left elevated with one 
 finger erect to signify ' one night ' ; No. 4, a circle with 
 two marks in the middle, signifying an island with huts 
 upon it; No. 5, same as No. i ; No. 6, a circle to denote 
 another ' island ' where they touched; No. 7, simiilar to 
 No. 3, with an additional finger elevated to signify ' two 
 nights ' or ' sleeps ' ; No. 8, the speaker with his harpoon, 
 the weapon with which he sometimes hunted, and with 
 the left making the gesture sign to denote ' sea lion.' The 
 hand is held edge-wise, with the thumb elevated, then 
 pushed outward from the body in a slightly downward 
 curve. No. 9 represents a 'sea lion,' which the hunter. 
 No. 10, secured by shooting with bow and arrow. No. 
 1 1 is the boat with two persons in it, the paddles pro- 
 jecting downward beneath it. No. 12 is the winter habita- 
 tion of the speaker." The story may be told somewhat 
 as follows: " I am going on a canoe trip and shall stay 
 over night in one of the huts on the island. From there 
 I shall go to the next island, where I shall remain two 
 nights. I shall hunt for sea lions while there, and shall 
 return home by canoe, bringing my friend with me." 
 
 K T Xo j( r^^^^^^ 
 
 B 
 
 Fig. 32. Pictographic notices of tlie Eskimos of Alaska. 
 
 A. Record of a liunt. 
 
 B. Record of departure. 
 
 Fig. 32 (B) is another example of the graphic records 
 of the Innuit. Dr. Hoffman describes it as follows: 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 103 
 
 " Nos. I, 3, 5 and 7 represent the person spoken to. 
 No arms are Indicated, as no response is supposed to be 
 made by him. No. 2 indicates the speaker with his right 
 hand to his side or breast, indicating ' self,' the left hand 
 pointing in the direction in which he is going. No. 4, both 
 hands of the speaker are elevated, with fingers and thumbs 
 extended, signifying ' many.' When the bands are thus 
 held up, in sign language, it signifies ' ten,' but when they 
 are brought forward and backward from one to another, 
 many. (Among the " Plains Indians " of the Indian Ter- 
 ritory, when both hands are thus held up for ' ten,' and 
 then thrown downward to the left, it signifies ten times 
 ' ten ' or ' one hundred.' The latter practice of Indicating 
 any number multiplied by ' ten,' by thus throwing to the 
 left both hands, has not been found to obtain among the 
 Alaskan natives.) No. 6, the right hand is placed to the 
 side of the head to denote ' sleep ' or ' night ' ; in this 
 Instance denoting ' many sleeps ' ; or, in other words, 
 ' many nights and days ' ; and the left hand points down- 
 ward to denote ' at that place.' No. 8, the right hand 
 is directed toward the starting point, while the left Is 
 brought upward toward the head — 'to go home,' or 
 ' whence he came.' " This simple narrative may briefly be 
 stated thus : " I am going on a journey to a distant place. 
 I shall remain there many days (or nights) ; but I shall 
 return home again." 
 
 The most characteristic art of the Innuit is manifested 
 in the carved records of hunting and fishing expe-ditlons 
 etched on bone and Ivory, upon their implements, house- 
 hold utensils and other articles. Their drawing of ani- 
 mals in Its truthfulness to nature and Its spirited action 
 Is strongly reminiscent of the Cave Men. So striking Is 
 this similarity that W. Boyd Dawkins In his " Early Man 
 In Britain," 1880, p. 233, says: "On passing in review 
 
I04 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 the manners and customs of all the savage tribes known 
 to modern ethnology, there is only one people with whom 
 the Cave Men are intimately connected in their man- 
 ners and customs, in their art, and in their implements 
 and weapons. . . . The most astonishing bond of union 
 between the Cave Men and the Eskimos is the art of rep- 
 resenting animals. Just as the former engraved bisons, 
 horses, mammoths and other creatures familiar to them, 
 so do the latter represent the animals upon which they 
 depend for food. On the implements of the one you see 
 the hunting of the urus and the horse depicted in the same 
 way as the killing of the reindeer and walrus on the im- 
 plements of the other." Mr. Dawkins believes that they 
 belong to the same race, having been driven northward 
 by sturdier peoples. Arthur J. Evans in his lecture : " The 
 European Diffusion of Pictography and its Bearings on 
 the Origin of Script," delivered before the University of 
 Oxford, also alludes to the apparent racial affinities be- 
 tween the existing far northern races and the Cave-Men. 
 He siays : " It is interesting to observe that it is in 
 the extreme north of Europe, where the conditions most 
 approach those of the Reindeer Period, that purely pic- 
 tographic methods have remained the longest." In re- 
 gard to the art work of the Lapps, Prof. Evans says: 
 "The Lapp troll drums (Fig. 33), used as a means of 
 divination by the native shamans, show a variety of linear 
 figures and symbols which had a traditional interpreta- 
 tion. The variety of gestures displayed, somewhat rudely 
 it is true, by the various figures on this drum, illustrate 
 the intimate and ever recurring connection between 
 pictography and gesture language." 
 
 The strong similarity between these Lapp pictographic 
 records, as shown in the drum illustrated and those of the 
 Eskimos, is so striking as to suggest an artistic inheritance 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 105 
 
 Fig. 33. Lapp troll drum. (From A. J. Evans.) 
 
 descended from some common, ancient, ancestral source. 
 It is a remarkable fact, if this connection between the Es- 
 kimo and the Reindeer Man of antiquity can be estab- 
 lished, that they have conserved their art so many 
 centuries, losing nothing, yet on the other hand gaining so 
 little. But before we accept such a theory, we should bear 
 in mind the probable historic migrations of these different 
 peoples. The Eskimos of America, in common with all the 
 aboriginal inhabitants of the country, north or south, are 
 believed to have descended from Mongol tribes emigrat- 
 ing from Mongolia, and entering the extreme northwest 
 of the country, over the Aleutian Islands. The Lapps, 
 somewhat akin to the northern Mongolians, and speaking 
 a language of the Mongol type, are believed to have 
 been forced northward in Europe into their present semi- 
 
io6 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 arctic home by the more southern races. We certainly 
 shall need much more knowledge concerning these races 
 than we have at command to-day before we can be cer- 
 tain of the racial affinities that seem to lie on the surface. 
 
 It would seem as though the rigors of an extreme 
 northern climate to which the Eskimos have been so long 
 inured had checked the further development of their art, 
 arresting it in its earliest stage. This is no more surpris- 
 ing than the arrest in a later stage of its development of 
 the written language of the Chinese, a people enjoying 
 a salubrious and temperate climate. In any event, we 
 witness in these Eskimo inscriptions writing in its mak- 
 ing, and they are interesting to this extent that they offer 
 us perhaps the very best examples of graphic record that 
 the world has to offer, if it is primitive. They are frank 
 to a fault. Their message is mainly that of the sign-lan- 
 guage, and the pictographs consist almost wholly of pic- 
 tures of objective things and of man's reaction In his rela- 
 tions to them. Their records are almost wholly devoid 
 of any subjective thought; the subtle metaphor, figure 
 and synecdoche that permeate the pictography of the 
 American Indians are quite absent. 
 
 Two more examples of Eskimo graphic art will be 
 given; the first. Fig. 34, being a carving made of walrus 
 ivory, now In the office of the Alaska Commercial Com- 
 pany, San Francisco, California. The following inter- 
 pretation of the pictographs was verified by Vladimir 
 Naomoff, a Kadiak half-breed, to Dr. Hoffman: "No. 
 I Is a native whose left hand is resting against the house, 
 while the right is directed toward the ground. The char- 
 acter to his right represents a ' shaman stick ' surmounted 
 by the emblem of a bird — a ' good spirit ' — in memory 
 of some departed member of the household. It was sug- 
 gested that the grave stick had been erected to the 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 
 
 107 
 
 memory of his wife. No. 2 represents a 
 reindeer. No. 3 signifies that one man, 
 the designer, shot and killed another with 
 an arrow. No. 4 denotes that the narrator 
 has made trading expeditions with a dog 
 sledge. No. 5 is a sailboat, although the 
 elevated paddle signifies that that was the 
 manner in which the voyage was last made. 
 No. 6 represents a dog sled, with the ani- 
 mal hitched up for a journey. No. 7 is a 
 sacred or ceremonial structure. The four 
 figures at the outer corners of the square 
 represent the young men placed on guard, 
 armed with bows and arrows to keep away 
 those not members of the band, who are 
 depicted as holding a dance. The small 
 square in the center of the inclosure repre- 
 sents a fireplace. The angular lines ex- 
 tending from the right side of the struc- 
 ture to the vertical partition line show in 
 outline the subterranean entrance to the 
 structure or lodge. No. 8 is a pine tree, 
 upon which a porcupine is crawling up- 
 ward. No. 9 is a similar species of tree 
 from the bark of which a bird (a wood- 
 pecker) is extracting larvae for food. No. 
 10 is a bear. No. 11 represents the owner 
 of the record in his boat holding aloft his 
 double-bladed padclle to call for help to 
 drive fish into a net. No. 12 is an assistant 
 fisherman, one who has responded to the Fig. 34. Carving- 
 call, and is observed driving fish by beating ^^^Ty, in pos- 
 the water with a stick. No. 13 represents fusion of the 
 
 , 1 • , ^ Alaska Com- 
 
 the net which, a& |g customary apiong many pany_ 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
io8 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 of the tribes of the Great Lakes, is usually set in mod- 
 erately shallow water. The figure over the preceding 
 characters denotes a whale, with line and harpoon at- 
 tached, which was caught by the fisherman during one 
 of his fishing trips." 
 
 Fig. 35. History of a year of the Chukchi. 
 
 In Fig. 35 is reproduced a " History of a Year of 
 the Chukchi." The original was drawn on walrus skin 
 and records the life and activities of the tribe through 
 one year. This cycle is indicated by the two suns, the 
 dark or winter sun near the center of the skin and the 
 summer sun appearing just above the northern horizon, 
 shown to the right. Around the outer margin may be 
 seen the shore line, while upon the space within are de- 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 109 
 
 picted rather indiscriminately ships, boats, whales, habi- 
 tations and scenes of hunting and adventure. The well- 
 known Eskimo hut with its tunneled approach is rep- 
 resented, as are also other smaller habitations with boat 
 scaffolds. The well-filled umiaks between the two suns 
 and others in the various groups are particularly well 
 drawn. The greater part of the pictographs illustrate 
 fishing exploits in which whales are being harpooned and 
 pursued by fleets of hunters in their umiaks. In one draw- 
 ing the whale is represented as " blowing." In other 
 scenes are shown sledges drawn by long strings of dogs 
 or reindeer; encounters with bears, seals and walruses; 
 and many other activities of Arctic life. The general 
 similarity of this winter record to the buffalo robe 
 " count " of the Dakota Indians is truly remarkable. 
 But for versatility and naivete the Chukchi greatly excel 
 the Dakotas. 
 
 In concluding this rather lengthy but we trust not un- 
 interesting description of the graphic art of the North 
 American Indians, as employed by them to record events 
 ■and for purposes of communication, in short writing iii its 
 widest significance, we will refer the reader to Fig. 36, 
 where we have assembled in one chart pictographic char- 
 acters selected from Indian inscriptions, ceremonial songs 
 and other sources. Many of these pictographs or sym- 
 bols by their wide currency among scattered tribes as- 
 sume the importance and arrive at the stage of develop- 
 ment of ideograms. They are highly simplified, conven- 
 tional characters, which in most cases hardly could be 
 reduced to simpler, graphic elements. It will be of in- 
 terest to the reader to compare them with the earliest 
 symbols of the pre-Babylonian script out of which the 
 cuneiform writing of the Babylonians, Assyrians and 
 Persians developed. He will find in Fig. 80 and Fig. 81 
 
no A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 characters no less pictorial In form than these Indian Ideo- 
 grams. There Is this important difference, however: the 
 linear Babylonian inscriptions are actual, phonetic writ- 
 ing; the characters, though originally only pictures, as 
 those of the Indians, are definite, phonetic signs for sylla- 
 bic sounds. The inscriptions can be read and interpreted 
 by those who know the ancient Sumerian vocabulary. On 
 the other hand, as we already have remarked, Indian pic- 
 ture-writing is not writing at all. The pictures or symbols 
 do not always convey to the mind fixed ideas. Often the 
 subject pictured is not Intended at all, but instead some 
 attribute of it or a metaphorical allusion which must be 
 surmised by the context. A cursory glance at Fig. 36 will 
 reveal quite a few of these metaphorical symbols. 
 
 It Is a pitiful commentary on the stage of culture 
 of the North American Indians that they had no more 
 reliable mode of recording their tribal history than one 
 that could not be read after the heat of the events which 
 It fatuously presumed to record had cooled down. But 
 we should not in our Inherited self-suffi'clency be unchari- 
 table toward these otherwise Intelligent and In many 
 ways noble-minded Children of the Plains. They were the 
 victims of their age-long isolation from all sources of 
 civilized culture. We do not have It on record In any 
 museum In the world that our illiterate ancestors of 
 Northern and Western Europe even possessed the knowl- 
 edge or skill of picture-writing when Caesar's armies in- 
 troduced the Roman alphabet among them about the 
 beginning of the ist Century A. D. There is no tradition 
 of any form of record practiced by the Britons prior to 
 the Romans, unless it be the use of cord tallies and 
 notched sticks. 
 
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 
 
 III 
 
 r~\ Mh 
 
 fflffff^ 
 
 A>r 
 
 . LIOHrniHO 5VM(jOL^ 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 
 4UM SYMBOLS 
 
 MOOf* LiCH 
 
 CCLIP6C. And mlthor 
 
 .2.^ 
 
 .-K 
 
 4 6 6 4 
 
 CT) 
 
 SYMBOLS Of TimL. - YEARS 
 
 ONt OAV TWO DAY5 THREe OAVi OHr, h 
 
 A 
 
 ^ A A 
 
 MtN 3Yr^DU1.5 
 
 WOMCN DLAO I- LlPt, l-e,itOKCH lCC 
 
 BtAO 2-DC.AT11 3-&MAH. fox 
 
 na SPtAMHO CONVCnSATIOH I- POwLftFUL 
 
 2- RuMMiHO 
 
 .t- 
 
 OWtULIMC HtAftT , ■ 
 
 MOMt_ tMOPl) PtCTOHAl. OP 
 
 ^ITL MAM PUtH- 
 
 ft 
 
 -> K- 
 
 riBOi-i oi' wArt_ 
 
 Symbols or ptACtl. 
 
 Fig. 36. Graphic symbols selected from pictographic records of the 
 North American Indians. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 PICTURE WRITING OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 
 
 At the time of the Spanish Conquest in the i6th century 
 there existed contemporaneously in Mexico two centers 
 of civilization, the Maya in the peninsula of Yucatan and 
 the Aztec in the broad table-land of central Mexico where 
 the present City of Mexico stands. Judged by the very 
 scant remains of the arts of architecture, sculpture and 
 writing saved from the ruins of these two Indian nations, 
 their civilization and culture were quite the same, though 
 the Maya was somewhat further advanced than the Aztec. 
 But the conquest of the country was so complete and 
 thoroughgoing, that when these Europeans had finished 
 with their preliminaries, there was hardly a vestige of 
 native culture left for rehabilitation. The Spaniards un- 
 der Cortes entered Mexico April 21, 15 19. On August 
 13, 1521, the Aztec nation around the present City of 
 Mexico was practically annihilated, even the majority of 
 the inhabitants sharing the almost total destruction of the 
 temples and almost every local evidence of native art and 
 culture. Though the Aztecs were inexpressibly cruel in 
 their customs, they had advanced to a comparatively high 
 plane of civilization. It Is true that they practiced hor- 
 rible barbarities in the human sacrifices made in their 
 temples by the priests, under a religion reeking with 
 primitive belief in bloody atonement and sacrificial offer- 
 ings of human souls for the propitiation of their avenging 
 gods. But it always has been a question for Individual 
 judgment whether the followers of Cortes, carrying on 
 
 112 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 113 
 
 their flags the motto : " Friends, let us follow the Cross, 
 and under this sign, having faith, we shall conquer," were 
 •any less cruel than the poor Aztecs whose institutions they 
 all but utterly destroyed, when they could have spared 
 and built upon them. 
 
 Cortes had no regard for any form of religion that 
 was not based on orthodox Christianity. He was a re- 
 ligious bigot, so common in that age. Witnessing, there- 
 fore, religious ceremonies cruel in themselves and re- 
 pugnant to his inherited beliefs, he ordered the destruc- 
 tion of every record that might perpetuate this native 
 religion. Obeying his harsh orders to the letter, his 
 equally ruthless and ignorant followers set out upon the 
 1 systematic destruction of the thousands of books, manu- 
 1 scripts and documents which this really highly advanced 
 civilization had accumulated up to that time. Zumarraga, 
 first bishop of Mexico, burned the precious manuscripts 
 by the " mountain heap," five cities alone yielding up 
 16,000 books to the relentless Spanish governor, who 
 destroyed every leaf. In Yucatan a similar fate over- 
 whelmed the Maya civilization. The Spanish priests de- 
 stroyed all books and manuscripts wherever they were 
 found. Diego de Landa, second bishop of Yucatan, 
 wrote: " We find great numbers of these books, but as 
 they contain nothing that did not savor of superstition 
 and of the devil, we burnt them all; at which the natives 
 grieved most keenly and were greatly pained." Out of the 
 tens of thousands of these sacred ceremonial books used 
 by the Maya priests in their temples, and possibly other 
 forms of native literature of a secular character, only a 
 paltry few fragments are known to have been saved from 
 this heartless and bigoted destruction. Of these manu- 
 scripts, or " codices," as they are called, only four have 
 been published. They are the Codex Troanus and the 
 
114 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Codex Cortesianus in Madrid, probably being the two 
 halves of the same codex; the Codex Pereslanus in Paris; 
 and the Codex Dresdensis in Dresden. 
 
 Of the Aztec writing there are nine principal codices 
 scattered over Europe or in private libraries : two in the 
 Vatican Library, one in Vienna, one in Boulogne, one in 
 the British Museum, one in the Bodleian Library, Ox- 
 
 Fig. 37. Mexican picture writing. Roman catechism subsequent to the Con- 
 quest. The arrow heads indicate the direction of the reading. 
 
 ford, one in Liverpool, and two privately owned. There 
 are many other codices which are post-Columbian. There 
 are in addition sixteen small fragments collected in Mex- 
 ico in 1803 by the famous scientist Alexander von Hum- 
 boldt. These are all the important manuscripts known to 
 be in existence. The Humboldt fragments are now in the 
 Royal Library of Berlin. They are written — drawn — 
 on paper made from the Agave Americana, some being 
 painted In blacic outline, others in colors used symbolically 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 115 
 
 to represent various meanings. Some of these codices are 
 quite long, being made of short pieces of paper care- 
 fully pieced into one long strip and then folded up. One 
 of them measures fourteen feet in length. At least one 
 of these fragments (Fig. 37), a Roman catechism, was 
 written immediately subsequent to the Conquest; but as 
 it is in the mode of picture-writing practiced by the na- 
 tive Aztecs and familiar to them, we will employ it as an 
 introduction to the native manuscripts, concerning which 
 we are forced to confess that after four hundred years 
 of persistent study they are only a little more intelligible 
 to scholars to-day than when first studied by them. 
 
 The pictures in this catechism read boustrophedon, the 
 first, third, fifth and seventh lines reading from left- to 
 right; while the second, fourth and sixth lines read re- 
 verse, from right to left, as is Indicated by the profiles in 
 the majority of cases facing one as he reads. In this latter 
 respect it conforms to what appears to be the universal 
 custom In all picture and hieroglyphic writing of every 
 nation. Its striking similarity In arrangement to the early 
 stages of Babylonian writing Is most remarkable when 
 we consider the separation in time and space of these 
 two civilizations. In order that the reader, probably un- 
 familiar with the primitive appeal of pictures to the mind, 
 may get from this manuscript the knowledge which it Im- 
 parted to the unlettered Indian, we will very briefly ex- 
 plain the Ideograms and hieroglyphs. 
 
 The catechism begins In the first section of line i at 
 the left and runs : 
 
 Section I. "There are 14 articles of faith." The 
 hieroglyphs here are the tablet Indicating article and the 
 cross suggestive of faith. 
 
 Section II. " Seven appertain to the Deity." 
 
 Section III. " And the other seven to the holy human- 
 
ii6 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Ity of our Lord, Jesus Christ." The hieroglyphs here are 
 the cross, spear and sponge ; implying the passion of the 
 Lord. 
 
 Section IV. " Those (seven) which appertain to the 
 Deity are these: " 
 
 Section V. " The first (article) to believe in one omni- 
 potent God." 
 
 Section VI. " The second, to believe that He is God, 
 the Father." The imperial globe and scepter are muti- 
 lated in the manuscript. 
 
 Section VII. " The third, to believe that He is God, 
 the Son." 
 
 The second line begins on the right as follows : 
 
 Section I. " The fourth, to believe that He is God, 
 the Holy Ghost." The Holy Ghost is depicted as a 
 winged bird. 
 
 Section II. " The fifth, to believe that He is the 
 Creator." Above are the starry heavens, below a house 
 of bones, indicating the lower regions. 
 
 Section III. " The sixth, to believe that He is the 
 Savior." 
 
 Section IV. " The seventh, to believe that He is the 
 Glorified." The two black symbols may mean " com- 
 mandments." They seem to be so employed later on. 
 They very much resemble crudely pictured scrolls tied 
 up with cord. The Egyptians used a somewhat similar 
 hieroglyph which meant a book or document. 
 
 Section V. "Those (articles) which appertain to the 
 holy humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ are the (seven) 
 following " : 
 
 Section VI. " The first, to believe that our Lord Jesus 
 Christ in so far as He was a man, was conceived of the 
 Holy Ghost." 
 
 This ends the second line, and at this point the poor 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 117 
 
 scribe went astray. He should have introduced another 
 section with the two circles in it or placed the two circles 
 together with the one circle in Section VI at the end 
 of the second line instead of placing them in the first 
 section of line 3 ; for the catechism reads : " The second, 
 to believe that He was born of the Holy Virgin Mary, 
 she being a virgin before and after his birth." 
 
 The third line begins on the left and runs : 
 
 Section I. " The third, to believe that He suffered 
 and died to save sinners." The hieroglyph is a corpse in 
 a grave. The numbering from here on evidently is at 
 fault, as we have just explained. 
 
 Section II. " The fourth, to believe that He de- 
 scended into Hell and brought out the souls of the holy 
 fathers who were abiding there in hope of His blessed 
 coming." Besides the picture of God and the devouring 
 Hell, we may note three definite hieroglyphs frequently 
 occurring in other Mexican manuscripts and in the co- 
 dices ; — namely, the tablet, the short path with the foot 
 tracks and the symbol for the heart, here inverted, within 
 the yawning jaws. 
 
 Section III. " The fifth, to believe that He arose again 
 from the dead on the third day." The hieroglyph for 
 " arising " is represented by a line going up, down, and 
 then up again. 
 
 Section IV. " The sixth, to believe that He ascended 
 into Heaven, where He sitteth at the right hand of God, 
 the omnipotent Father." The ascent into heaven, judging 
 by the hieroglyph, looks very much as though the scribe 
 believed it to have been effected by a ladder. It will be 
 noted that the hieroglyph for heaven is rather a fixed 
 character, as shown in the two examples in this catechism. 
 In the following figure it is rendered very differently, yet 
 both are conventional representations of the sky and the 
 
ii8 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 stars. The Ojibwas and Egyptians also employed very 
 similar signs, differing only in the character of conven- 
 tionalization. 
 
 Section V. " The seventh, to believe that He shall 
 come to judge the quick and the dead." 
 
 The fourth line is not quite so easy of interpretation 
 as the rest of this most unique manuscript. It begins 
 on the right. Section I reads according to the catechism: 
 " The good should know, to give them glory, because 
 they kept His holy commandments." The seven circles 
 belong to the previous section. The import of this first 
 section seems to be the portrayal of a good man. The 
 conferring of honor is represented in the same way as 
 in the fourth commandment in the next line. The next 
 three sections illustrate the passage in the catechism: 
 " And to the wicked eternal punishment, because they 
 kept them not. Amen." We see flames, the heads of the 
 damned and an inverted heart. 
 
 The part of the manuscript relating to the Ten Com- 
 mandments begins at the end of the fourth line in the 
 extreme left-hand section. The catechism reads: "The 
 commandments of God's law are ten." 
 
 Sections I and II of the fifth line on the extreme left 
 are drawn as one, without any vertical dividing line. 
 The catechism reads: "The first three appertain to the 
 honor of God," and then : " And the other seven to 
 the advantage of the neighbor." The commandments 
 proper begin in the next section, the second apparent sec- 
 tion in the fifth line marked with one circle and repre- 
 senting God holding up a heart, and end on the sixth 
 line directly under this section, marked with ten circles. 
 The catechism reads: i. "Thou shalt love God above 
 all things." 2. " Thou shalt not take the name of God In 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 119 
 
 vain." 3. " Thou shalt keep holy the feasts." 4. " Thou 
 shalt honor thy father and mother." 5. " Thou shalt 
 not murder." (Sixth line) 6. "Thou shalt not commit 
 adultery." 7. " Thou shalt not steal." 8. " Thou shalt 
 not bear false witness or lie." 9. " Thou shalt not covet 
 thy neighbor's wife." 10. " Thou shalt not covet thy 
 neighbor's goods." 
 
 The three remaining sections, the one at the left of 
 the sixth line and the two on the seventh line, interpret 
 the three concluding paragraphs in the catechism: 
 " These ten commandments may be comprised in two : 
 (i) "To serve and love God above all other things," 
 (2) " And thy neighbor as thyself." (See Romans XIII, 
 
 9-) 
 
 This unique and naive example of picture-writing ad- 
 mirably illustrates the manner in which the Spanish priests 
 disseminated knowledge of the scriptures among the 
 Mexican people. They resorted to the mode of employ- 
 ing pictures, ideograms and symbols, with which the more 
 intelligent of the populace already were familiar. Beyond 
 a doubt pictures had been from the very earhest times 
 with the Mexican people the only means of communica- 
 tion, when, in the absence of oral authority graphic rec- 
 ords had to be resorted to. At the time we are writing 
 about the native priesthood appeared to have had a 
 written code understood by themselves, as we shall pro- 
 ceed to show; a highly conventionalized form of hiero- 
 glyphics probably relating only to religious ceremonials; 
 but to the great mass of the people pictures were still 
 the only mode of appeal. 
 
 In the Mendoza collection of Mexican manuscripts are 
 five sheets of picture-writing relating to the birth, educa- 
 tion, adoption of a profession and marriage of Mexican 
 
I20 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 @o©oo 
 
 OOOO A a 
 
 ooooc 3^ 
 
 /,/. 
 
 Fig. 38. Education of Mexican cliildren, eleven to fourteen years. 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 121 
 
 boys and girls. Fig. 38 ^ is a reproduction of the sheet 
 relating to the education of children between eleven and 
 fourteen years of age. The four sections respectively cor- 
 respond to the ages eleven, twelve, thirteen and fourteen 
 years. In the left-hand column are represented the father 
 and his son. In the right-hand column we see the mother 
 and her daughter. The "education" at eleven and twelve 
 appears to be chiefly corrective and repressive. The 
 father is represented punishing his son by compelling 
 him to inhale the noxious smoke of the aji plant, or leav- 
 ing him tied naked on the ground until obedience Is se- 
 cured. The girl of eleven is punished in the same way 
 as the boy, but at twelve her punishment is made salutary 
 and productive. The scribe illustrates her working " over 
 time " at night, sweeping up the house. Night Is repre- 
 sented by a hieroglyph showing the vault of the heavens 
 with both stars and darkness indicated. The other 
 hieroglyphs in the pictures are the circles to Indicate the 
 age of the children; the protruding tongue, always em- 
 ployed in Mexican pictures to indicate speech, advice and 
 authority ; and the full and half oval patterns to Indicate 
 the ration of one and one-half rolls a day as the reason- 
 able bounds of good breeding in eating, beyond which 
 would be gluttony. The remaining pictures illustrate the 
 occupations of boys and girls of thirteen and fourteen 
 years. The boys carry faggots On their backs, row canoes 
 laden with produce, or fish with the net; while the girls 
 make bfead or cakes, cook In utensils, or weave on the 
 hand loom. The allowance of food becomes more liberal, 
 being two loaves daily. 
 
 These two manuscripts give an excellent Idea of the 
 general nature of the native Mexican picture-writing. 
 The message or record desired to be expressed is con- 
 
 1 From the Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. 
 
122 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 veyed to the mind of the reader primarily through pic- 
 tures that vary in detail and rendering according to the na- 
 ture and development of the story; also by definite Ideo- 
 grams or hieroglyphs, more or less constant, generally 
 pictorial but often symbolic, that have come to repre- 
 sent an object or an idea, — as the tablet, the Holy Ghost 
 and the heart, in the Mexican catechism just described; 
 and the protruding tongue in the manuscript Illustrating 
 the education of Mexican children. In this mode of pic- 
 turing ideas the Mexicans proceeded along lines similar 
 to the Ojibwa Indians of North America in their cere- 
 monial songs, only their drawing was infinitely truer to 
 nature and far more artistic than the Ojibwa. In the 
 catechism there seems to be nothing more than a 
 mnemonic aid to the one who scans the record and who 
 already knows the general content and meaning of the 
 pictures. In the series of four pictures just described, 
 which are In every way similar to the remaining sheets In 
 the collection, the story is told In a way so fresh and 
 naive that " he who runs may read " the meaning. So 
 far Mexican picture-writing advances beyond the North 
 American Indians only in artistic technique, in which It 
 vastly excels the latter. 
 
 But the Mexicans progressed a long step beyond the 
 ideographic stage of writing. While they had not reached 
 at the time of the Conquest the point where each sound 
 was indicated by a sign or a hieroglyph, they had arrived 
 at la transition stage between the purely ideographic and 
 the phonetic stage of writing. According to Dr. Daniel 
 G. Brinton, the well-known Americanist: "the native 
 genius had not arrived at a complete analysis of the 
 phonetic elements of language, but it was distinctly pro- 
 gressing In that direction." 
 
 Many Instances can be given to show that in their pic- 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 123 
 
 ture-writing the Mexicans resorted to the rebus or " ikoti- 
 omatlc " form of indicating a word phonetically. In- 
 stead of picturing the thing itself, an attempt was made 
 to indicate its name; and this form of sound-writing was 
 carried out by them in the almost universal way of choos- 
 ing or substituting for the symbol expressing the idea the 
 picture or symbol of another idea the word name of 
 which — often only the initial sound of the word — was 
 the same or quite similar. For example, in Maya kayab, a 
 " month," is represented by a turtle head, ak or ac, and 
 a footprint, be (beil in Maya) ; chikin, "west," is rep- 
 resented by a hand, chi and the sun, kin. The name of 
 one of the Mexican chiefs was Itzcoatl, meaning " Knife- 
 Snake." In the manuscript known as Le Tellier Codex, 
 the name is represented in pure picture-writing by a 
 serpent, coatl, with stone knives, itzli, on its back. A 
 line connects this ideographic picture with the conven- 
 tional representation of la man. In the same manner as In 
 the Dakota census rolls. In the Vergara Codex the 
 king's name is rendered in rebus form. Itz is represented 
 by a weapon with blades of obsidian, itzt {tli) ; an earthen 
 pot, CO (mitl), and above it the sign of water, a (tl) . 
 In other words, phonetically: Itz-co-atl. 
 
 In the Miaya inscriptions, written or sculptured, It is 
 evident that there were employed together with the ideo- 
 graphic pictures other elements, known as glyphs or cal- 
 culi from their resemblance to pebbles, which symbolized 
 syllabic sounds. Bishop Landa, already quoted, quaintly 
 wrote of them nearly three hundred years ago: "This 
 people (the Maya) also used certain characters or let- 
 ters, with which they wrote in their books their ^ancient 
 matters and their sciences, and with them and figures 
 and some signs in the figures, they understood their mat- 
 ters and could explain them and teach them." After 
 
124 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 the zealous bishop had destroyed or ordered destroyed 
 every native book he could lay his hands on, he under- 
 took to study their written language and actually made 
 out an alphabet or syllabary giving to each hieroglyph 
 its alphabetic, phonetic equivalent in the Spanish tongue. 
 If the devout bishop had looked before he leaped, and 
 had been more of a student than a religious fanatic, his 
 belated researches might have been more reliable. It is 
 not believed to-day that the Maya writing is alphabetic. 
 It probably is partially syllabic to the extent that we 
 have just shown. But the reader must not expect even 
 at this late date any very complete or elaborate state- 
 ment concerning the principles of this syllabary, if syl- 
 labary it may prove to be. What is really known about 
 it is more suggestive and collateral than direct. E. 
 Forstemann, who has made an exhaustive study of the 
 Mexican inscriptions, says that " in their decipherment 
 we are as yet only at the very beginning." Nevertheless, 
 such satisfactory progress in their interpretation has been 
 made of late that there is good reason to hope that be- • 
 fore long the mystery of their complete meaning, thus 
 far so baffling to scholars, will be solved. 
 
 We will now give a few illustrations of the rebus plan 
 adopted and pursued by the Mexicans in their picture- 
 writing. Dr. Brinton in his " Essays of an Americanist " 
 refers to the writing of the name of the town " Tamoc." 
 A Mexican tribe speaking a different language from the 
 Aztecs, had a town named " Tamuch," meaning in their 
 language " near the scorpions." Of course the word had 
 no such meaning, nor any meaning, in the Aztec language; 
 consequently they could not picture it in its true meaning 
 and retain the native sound. They called it " Tamuoc " 
 and proceeded to find objects by which to picture it that 
 had names approaching in sound the native name. Fig. 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 125 
 
 39 shows the naive result. It is the picture of a man 
 holding a measuring stick. Now in Nahuatl the verb to 
 measure is tamachiua; the measuring stick is octocatl. 
 It was decidedly fortuitous that these allied words were 
 available from which they were able to take the initial 
 syllable for the foreign word " Tamoc." Then they did 
 exactly what the Egyptians often did, as we soon shall see. 
 To make the meaning clearer or the hieroglyph more 
 understandable, they added the footprints on the measur- 
 ing stick, in Nahuatl, xoctli; just to emphasize more 
 strongly the sound of the final syllable. 
 
 Fig. 39. Mexican picture-writing of the name of the town " Tamoc." 
 
 In the ethnological collection of the American Museum 
 of Natural History, in New York City, there is an ancient 
 Mexican map drawn 'on coarse native cloth, measuring 
 five feet by six feet, from the southwestern part of the 
 state of Oaxaca. The roads are indicated by foot tracks, 
 the same as in the codices and other examples of Mexi- 
 can picture-writing. It is known to be a map of the town 
 called by the Aztecs " Yolotepec " and by the Mixtecs, of 
 
126 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 whose culture this is an unique example, " Yucuini." This 
 seems to be a case in which the Aztecs instead of re- 
 taining the native name took the meaning of the word 
 and translated it into their own tongue. In both lan- 
 guages the meaning is the " Hill of the Heart." In the 
 Mixtec hill is yucu, and heart is ini. In the Aztec hill is 
 tepetl, and heart is yollotl. But how has the native scribe 
 indicated the name " Yucuini " on his map? By drawing 
 
 Fig. 40. Title on a map of the town " Yolotepec," Mexico. Original 
 in the Museum of Natural History, New York City. 
 
 in an unoccupied part of it the beautiful title-piece re- 
 produced in Fig. 40. It is nothing else than the picture 
 of a heart on a hill, both very highly conventionalized 
 and ornamented. The reader already is familiar with the 
 hieroglyph of the heart, as the poor Aztecs were with 
 the real thing; for had they not many opportunities of 
 seeing it offered up from the breasts of thousands of liv- 
 ing victims to their insatiable war god whose emblem 
 was a necklace of six human hearts ! 
 
 There are many other examples of rebus-writing by the 
 ancient Mexicans, particularly the Aztecs. One is the 
 representation of the well-known name Chapultepec, 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 127 
 
 meaning " Grasshopper Hill." The name was indicated 
 by the picture of a grasshopper on the conventionalized 
 representation of a hill, as in the former example. From 
 a few precious fragments of Aztec codices we will select 
 the pictured names of the two Mexican towns following. 
 One is the town 'of " Toltitlan," which means in Aztec 
 " near the place of the rushes." Now tollin means " place 
 of the rushes," so tol is illustrated by a picture of rushes. 
 The word tetlan means " near something," and its sec- 
 ond syllable, tlan is found in the word tlantli, meaning 
 " teeth." So in the picture a set of teeth are drawn right 
 among the rushes. Again, the town " Acatzinco " means 
 " the little reed grass." Reed grass was called acatl, and 
 this was illustrated by a picture of the reed grass. So 
 far so good. But some ideograph must be selected to 
 indicate the remaining sounds in the word. The lower 
 part of the body in Aztec was tzinco; so the hieroglyph 
 was finished by drawing the reeds growing out of the 
 hips of the body! Dr. Brinton calls this method of writ- 
 ing " ikonomatic writing." The reader who would like 
 further to pursue this matter of rebus-writing as carried 
 out by the ancient Mexicans will find in Antonio Pena- 
 fiel's " Nombres Geograficos de Mexico " over 450 
 facsimile illustrations in color of geographical names of 
 places in Mexico. 
 
 One of the fragments collected in Mexico by Alex- 
 ander von Humboldt is a unique manuscript which closely 
 corresponds to the Domesday book, in idea, not in form. 
 Parcels of land bounded by a main road and a cross road, 
 indicated by footprints between the lines, and running 
 back to a water course, appear divided into parallel 
 strips. Proprietorship in the lots Is Indicated at the right 
 on the lot frontage on the main road In every case by 
 the head of a man drawn conventionally and expression- 
 
128 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 less. From these several heads which indicate generlcally 
 " man " — women are represented either with a coiffure 
 or with two marks across the face — short lines are 
 drawn to the accompanying name hieroglyphs precisely 
 as in the census rolls of the Indians of North America. 
 Fortunately, some European scribe, probably soon after 
 the Conquest, has very neatly written the interpreted 
 name of each person beside his hieroglyph. They appear 
 to be, most of them, the names of the Aztec kings or 
 chiefs, as shown by the royal headband, or of prominent 
 chiefs ruhng or living at the time of the Conquest; making 
 this a most important archseologlcal document. It obvi- 
 ously is a survey or Inventory of the royal demesne, pos- 
 sibly a portion of the record of the division of the " crown 
 land" among the nobility. King Motecuhzoma (Mon- 
 tezuma) is represented at the bottom, which seems to be 
 as in other native Mexican manuscripts the beginning of 
 the record. He was the ninth king of the Mexicans, 
 reigning at the time of the Conquest, and was known as 
 Xocoyotzin, " the young"; not the elder Motecuhzoma, 
 the fifth king, otherwise known as Ilhulcamlna, " he who 
 shoots at the heavens." Motecuhzoma means in the na- 
 tive language " the angry lord." This could hardly be 
 expressed in picture-writing. If the attempt had been 
 made to depict it in his face, we fear the native scribes 
 would have been so successful that their king could not 
 have been distinguished from the gods, who are almost 
 always represented with the most grotesquely horrible ex- 
 pression of countenance. Ilhulcamlna, however, was 
 hieroglyphlcally represented In the codices by an arrow 
 piercing the symbol of the heavens. In another manu- 
 script the name Montezuma — which probably was pro- 
 nounced by the natives Moquauhzoma — is pictured In 
 the most novel and unique manner, significant of the pecu- 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 129 
 
 liar acrologic method of phonetic writing employed by the 
 Mexicans. The pictures chosen are a " mouse-trap," 
 montli; the head of an " eagle," quauhtli; a " lancet," zo; 
 and the " hand," maitl. The initial syllables of the pic- 
 tured words making up the name of the King. In the 
 seventh division from the bottom in this map is the name 
 of the prince Cuauhtemoc, who defended the City of 
 Mexico against the soldiers of Cortes for ninety days 
 after the death of Montezuma. His name literally means 
 " Swooping Eagle," and the hieroglyph represents the 
 head of an eagle with footprints directed downward. 
 
 Among the other twenty-five names, pictured in the 
 several parcels of land allotted to the proprietors or 
 their heirs, in this map, are the two represented in Fig. 
 41. The lower one, the seventeenth in the manuscript, 
 is the hieroglyph of the name Imexayacatzin, which the 
 Spanish scribe has written beside the picture. It exactly 
 interprets the meaning of the name, which is " the face 
 made of her thigh"; literally imex-xayacatl, from 
 xayacatl, " face," and metz-tli, " thigh." It refers to a 
 horrible festival of the Mexicans in which a woman 
 victim was sacrificed, flayed, and a priest dressed in her 
 skin wore a mask made of her thigh ! The upper one, the 
 eighteenth in the manuscript, is the hieroglyph of the 
 name Xipanoctzin, literally Xip-panoc-tzin; being derived 
 from xiutl, " turquoise," and panoc, " he who crosses a 
 river." The turquoise is represented by its recognized 
 symbol, which consists of concentric circles surrounded 
 by Fparkling lights, placed in a boat. 
 
 These examples will serve to illustrate the manner in 
 which the Mexicans represented polysyllabic words by 
 combining the pictures of words whose initial syllables 
 corresponded in sound to the syllables of the word to be 
 pictured. It is the principle of aerology or the rebus. 
 
I30 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 No positive evidence has yet been adduced to show that 
 the Mexicans advanced much beyond this stage. The 
 Egyptians, ages before them, proceeded in precisely the 
 same way; but they carried out the evolution of writing 
 to its ultimate conclusion, and in the last stage of develop- 
 ment dropped the syllabic sound, retaining only the initial 
 
 |. 
 
 I 
 
 Fig. 41. Mexican rebus-writing of two. proper names, — Xipanoctzin and 
 Imexayacatzin. From a native map. 
 
 sound, consonant or vowel, using the picture of the orig- 
 inal word or syllable to represent this elemental, alpha- 
 betic sound with which they built up words phonetically, 
 just as we do to-day. 
 
 Sylvanus G. Morley, who has published the latest 
 monograph on the Maya inscriptions, wrlltes:^ " Al- 
 
 1 " An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs," by Syl- 
 vanus Griswold Morley. Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American 
 Ethnology, Bulletin 57, 191 5. 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 131 
 
 though there are undeniable traces of phoneticism among 
 the Maya glyphs, all attempts to reduce them to a pho- 
 netic system or alphabet which will interpret the writing, 
 have signally failed." Continuing he says: "Unfortu- 
 nately, it must be admitted that but little advance has 
 been made toward the solution of this problem . . . 
 as each glyph Is In Itself a finished picture, dependent on 
 no other for its meaning, and consequently the various 
 elements entering into It undergo very considerable modi- 
 fications in order that the resulting composite character 
 may not only be a balanced and harmonious design, but 
 also may exactly fill its allotted space. All such modifica- 
 tions probably In no way affected the meaning of the 
 element thus mutilated. . . . Great license was per- 
 mitted in the treatment of accessory elements so long as 
 the essential element or elements of a glyph could read- 
 ily be recognized as such." There are many pitfalls for 
 the student who essays to Interpret the Maya glyphs. 
 Not only are any two glyphs meaning the same thing 
 rarely alike, but often they are utterly dissimilar. This 
 is the more unfortunate, as such signal success has been 
 achieved in the Interpretation of the very complicated 
 numerical and calendric signs, which constitute the great 
 bulk of all the Mexican and Yucatan hieroglyphic writ- 
 ing. Prof. Ernst Forstemann, of the Royal Library, 
 Dresden, In an extended study of the Dresden Codex, was 
 the first to work out the intricate vigesimal system of 
 numeration used by the Maya. Since this, practically the 
 entire body of numerical and calendric signs, with their 
 many cycles, has been interpreted. 
 
 Let us now examine the codices. As we have said, but 
 four of the Maya and only a few fragments of the Aztec 
 writing on paper exist. All the rest went up in burnt of- 
 ferings to the triune God of the Spaniards because they 
 
132 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 detected In them the worship of polytheism, so abhorrent 
 to the Intolerant Christians of that age. No thought of 
 native history, archeeology or culture stood before this 
 consuming bigotry; and in the name of perverted Chris- 
 tianity the abundant written literature of every nation 
 land people In Central America all but utterly perished 
 from the face of the earth. From the few specimens of 
 writing that have survived this holocaust scholars are 
 slowly and laboriously unraveling the mysteries of the 
 hieroglyphs. Very little progress has been made up to the 
 present time, and, outside of the numerical signs, only a 
 comparatively few symbols are definitely known. 
 
 The codices, as will be seen by consulting Fig. 42, 
 consist of pictorial drawings with hieroglyphs generally 
 placed above and to the left of them. The pictures are 
 drawn in outline and filled in with colors used conven- 
 tionally. The illustration is a reproduction of Plate 
 XXIX of the Codex Troano. It Is a characteristic exam- 
 ple of all the codices. The pictures in every Instance are 
 most grotesque and outlandish. Why this is so it is diffi- 
 cult to imagine. The technical skill employed often is un- 
 questionably of a high order. One is almost forced to the 
 conclusion that their mode of portraiture was controlled 
 by the hierarchy of the priests who may have prescribed 
 the style of drawing for each Individual god. If this 
 were not so. It is inconceivable that such monstrosities 
 ever could have been Invented, much less perpetuated. 
 We know that a somewhat similar state of affairs existed 
 in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians were capable of rising 
 to the highest levels of art expression; but for ages the 
 Egyptian artist was fettered by the narrow conventions 
 prescribed for him by the traditions of the priesthood. 
 But any one who does not see In the beautiful paintings 
 and sculptures of the Egyptian tombs and temples the 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 
 
 133 
 
 Fig. 42. Reproduction of Plate XXIX, Codex Troano. 
 
134 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 loftiest examples of dignified restraint and artistic imag- 
 ination fails to view them with sympathy and under- 
 standing. But the art of the Mexican codices, on the 
 other hand, while ingenious and interesting, is more apt 
 to inspire in our minds repugnance and disgust for their 
 gross distortion and hideous ugliness. If they were 
 meant to inspire fear of the gods, and nearly all of the 
 pictures are representations of the gods, they certainly 
 could not have planned much better than they did. 
 
 The hieroglyphs on the Maya codices are of two kinds : 
 
 IS ((2 
 
 Fig. 43. Variations of the hieroglyph employed for the numeral twenty. 
 
 first, the numerals. These are the dashes and dots seen 
 just above the pictures. Dots were used up to four, then 
 a dash indicated five. Dots above this dash were used up 
 to nine, then two dashes indicated ten. Again dots above 
 the two dashes were used up to fourteen, then three 
 dashes indicated fifteen. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and 
 nineteen v/ere similarly represented by one, two, three 
 and four dots over the three lines representing fifteen. 
 This is as far as this system was continued. It was not 
 carried over twenty. The hieroglyph for twenty had 
 many varieties in the different codices, all distinguished 
 by the jaw with two, sometimes more, teeth; as will be 
 seen illustrated in the upper row in Fig. 43. In the 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 135 
 
 sculptured inscriptions several variations of another type 
 were used to represent this important number; shown in 
 the lower row in this same figure. The latter appear 
 open on the right, as they were attached to the left of 
 the hieroglyphs. 
 
 The second class of hieroglyphs in the codices are 
 those just above the numerals and constitute the inscrip- 
 tion proper. Of these so-called inscriptions Cyrus 
 Thomas, who has made a thorough study of the codices, 
 says : " The general purport of the inscriptions has not 
 been ascertained with certainty, yet the fact that half 
 of them are numeral symbols, calendar symbols, etc., 
 leads to the conclusion that they contain little of anything 
 relating to the history of the tribes by whom they were 
 made." The Dresden Codex appears to consist wholly of 
 numeral series. It has come to be accepted as a general be- 
 lief that the subject matter of all the codices as well as of 
 the sculptured glyphs in the inscriptions on the monu- 
 ments chiefly if not wholly relates to calendric counts, 
 year series or astronomical references. Being so fre- 
 quently associated with the pictures of the gods and the 
 day signs known to typify them, the import of the in- 
 scriptions probably was to keep the run of the feast 
 days and ritual observances sacred to each particular 
 god. 
 
 The Mexicans computed time in so-called " months," 
 the years consisting of eighteen months of twenty days 
 each. The extra five days though intercalated were not 
 recognized. They were " superfluous " or " evil " days. 
 Bishop Landa says : " The entire year had eighteen of 
 these (20-day periods) and besides five days and six 
 hours." It is evident that the Maya knew the exact length 
 of the year ; but there is no evidence in their inscriptions 
 that they corrected their calendar to allow for the ac- 
 
136 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 cumulation of these six hours, as we do. Every four 
 years they discovered that they had an extra day in 
 their year, and every eighty years an extra month on 
 their hands; but they probably did not know how to 
 extricate themselves from the dilemma, for they had 
 planned their impossible calendar 3930 years ahead, as 
 has been deciphered from one of the sculptured stelas 
 (Stela N) at Copan.^ It is not known to this day what 
 year the series was begun, and if It were, probably all the 
 labor spent on the giant masses of sculptured blocks at 
 Copan, Quirigua, Palenque and other places were futile 
 on account of the false reckoning. Yet it is easy to mis- 
 judge a people, and it is obviously unfair to criticize a 
 nation that has been so grievously interrupted in the prog- 
 ress of its development. The Mexicans discovered that 
 their calendar was wrong and doubtless long discussed its 
 rectification. Who shall say that some Mexican Julius 
 
 1 The highest recorded period of time figured out by the Maya is in 
 the Dresden Codex, and consists of 12,466,943 days, or 34,156 years. The 
 Maya were exceptionally good mathematicians. In computing the revo- 
 lution of the moon they varied but .02 from the correct result in seventeen 
 revolutions. One of their periods, worked out in the Dresden Codex, 
 shows a remarkable ability in figuring out abstruse mathematical prob- 
 lems, as the least common multiple of several difficult cycles. The period 
 contains 113,880 days or: — 
 
 312 Solar years of 365 days each 
 
 195 Venus years of 584 days each 
 
 146 Mars years of 780 days each 
 39 Venus-Solar periods of 2,920 days each 
 
 438 Tonalamatls of 260 days each 
 
 6 Calendar Rounds of 18,980 days each 
 The Calendar Round of 18,980 days or 52 years itself indicates the solu- 
 tion of a highly abstruse mathematical problem which involved every 
 possible combination of the 260-day period (a tonalamatl) with the 365 
 positions of the year, and enabled the Maya to know in advance with 
 what name-days the successive years would begin, when the twenty name- 
 days repeated each other in an endless and invariable sequence. The 
 mathematics of the problem are too involved to be explained here as 
 it concerns difficult operations in the permutation and combination of com- 
 bined series. If one wishes to know more about this matter, he will find it 
 in Mr. Motley's excellent monograph. 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 137 
 
 Caesar, Augustus or Pope Gregory in time may not have 
 found a way to correct it? We have not yet extricated 
 ourselves from the astronomical muddle we are in con- 
 cerning the precession of the equinoxes through the an- 
 cient and honorable signs of the zodiac; and we continue 
 in our astronomical statements to locate the sun in signs 
 over 30" east of its true position in the heavens. Of 
 course we know better and realize the error, but we per- 
 petuate it month after month and year after year. If 
 some cataclysm should befall our civilization and a future 
 antiquary should come across this erroneous record of 
 time, he probably would not have a very high opinion of 
 our scientific attainments. 
 
 Another singular time count used more frequently by 
 the Mexicans throughout Central America as a cere- 
 monial or religious period than the secular year of 365 
 days was the cycle of 260 days, in 20 intervals of 13 
 days each. This sacred period was divided into four 
 parts of 65 days each, assigned to a particular planet, 
 star or cardinal point, with attendant divinities. Then 
 again each " month " was divided Into four periods of 
 five days each, each day having Its own divinity. All 
 these divisions of time with their divinities, stars and 
 other occult relationships, made up a multiplicity of signs 
 the majority of which are now recognized In the 
 hieroglyphs and properly Interpreted; but the key Is miss- 
 ing. No one knows when these periods started or where 
 they connect with the Gregorian calendar. We are in 
 the same dilemma In regard to the native table of meas- 
 ures. One Vicente Pineda in his " Gramatica de la Len- 
 gua Tzal-tal " (1887), defines the system as follows: 
 
 20 units = I net-ful 
 
 20 net-fulls = I bundle of bacs 
 
 20 bundles of bacs= i grandfather 
 
138 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 20 grandfathers = i grandmother 
 20 grandmothers = i great-grandfather ! 
 Fig. 44 1 contains the symbols of the twenty days of 
 each month with their names. Each is supposed to be the 
 picture of some object. It probably was originally, but 
 they have progressed so far in the process of convention- 
 alization that in the majority of cases the original object 
 cannot always be detected. We will venture to give the 
 meaning of some of these symbols, as given by Dr. Brin- 
 ton in " A Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics." Ik means 
 air, wind, breath, spirit, soul or life. The character 
 within the cartouches is that of the four winds. Akbal 
 probably is derived from akab, " night." Other examples 
 of this symbol distinctly show it to be a mouth with teeth, 
 perhaps suggesting the thought of annihilation. The sym- 
 bol for Kan Is believed to represent a shell pendant or 
 bead, kan, which was used for money, quite the same as 
 wampum with the North American Indians. Chicchan 
 probably is derived from chich kuch, " twisted threads." 
 They are suggested in the criss-cross lines. The symbol 
 for Manik is a hand grasping, and probably is a corrup- 
 tion of mach, " to grasp." The character representing 
 Chuen is the picture of a " mouth " with fangs, chi, 
 shown very clearly in other examples having cuspid and 
 fanged teeth. Sometimes a calabash, chti, also is drawn 
 within the circle to suggest the name sound more clearly. 
 Ix very probably is derived from xiix, " scattered grain 
 husks," which the symbol seems to indicate. In the sym- 
 bol for the month Caban we see very obviously delineated 
 a woman's " cork-screw curl," cab. The symbol for the 
 month, Ezanab, is the picture of the " sacrificial knife " 
 
 1 Reproduced from " Central American Hieroglyphic Writing,'' by- 
 Cyrus Thomas, Annual Report (1903), Smithsonian Institution, Washing- 
 |on, D. C. 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 
 
 139 
 
 of flint or obsidian of corresponding name. The symbol 
 for the month, Ahau, generally Is believed to be a con- 
 ventionalized representation of a " face." The name is 
 
 Manjk. 
 
 Eb. 
 
 Akbal. 
 
 Lamat. 
 
 Kzanab. 
 
 Muluc. 
 
 Chicclian. 
 
 Chuen. 
 
 Ahau. Ahau. Ahau. Ahau. Ahau. 
 
 Fig. 44. Symbols of the twenty days. 
 
 taken from two different sources, ah, " lord " or " king " ; 
 and ah, " to rise." Five other examples of this Important 
 day sign are given in the last row, chiefly taken from 
 the sculptured glyphs of the monumental inscriptions. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the meaning of the 
 hieroglyphs, that is, the things themselves, represented by 
 
140 A HISTORY Of WRITING 
 
 the pictures, primarily had any significance in the choice or 
 the hieroglyphs for the months. In some cases this may 
 have been true. But it is probable, as is exemplified in the 
 general character of Mexican hieroglyphs, that the de- 
 sired symbol chosen as the hieroglyph for the month was 
 that of some thing the name of which closely corre- 
 sponded with the name of the month. It is highly prob- 
 able, however, that the early Mexican scribes in look- 
 ing about for their corresponding word-symbols prefer- 
 ably selected, whenever possible, the names of objects or 
 things that had some correspondence of idea as well as 
 of sound to the things whose hieroglyphs were desired. 
 We already have given instances of this fact, and many 
 more have been noted. 
 
 Fig. 45, also taken from Cyrus Thomas, illustrates the 
 symbols employed by the Mexicans for the eighteen 
 months and the supplemental " month " of five days. 
 The word Pop means a " mat." It probably Is suggested 
 in the cross-hatch lines. It is doubtful what the character 
 for Uo Illustrates. The Mexican scribes had their own 
 doubts about it and sometimes appended a highly conven- 
 tionalized representation of the tongue, indicating 
 " speech," probably to Indicate the meaning uooh, a 
 " written character," as Dr. Brinton points out. Zip pic- 
 tures the sun below a flint knife, indicating the " slain " 
 or " departed sun "; a play on the phrase zipik kin, the 
 " sunset." That this Is the meaning Intended, Is Indicated 
 by the occasiomal use of a determinative sign, mac, sig- 
 nifying " to extinguish." The word Zotz means a " bat," 
 and the sign illustrates one. Xul probably is derived from 
 xulub, " horns." The deer, if not his horns, obviously 
 Is in evidence. Yaxkin means " new sun " or " strong 
 sun." It is represented in true rebus manner by the yax 
 sign above and that of the sun, kin. 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 
 
 141 
 
 In the case of the month Ceh, we have an excellent 
 example of ellipsis. The meaning c^lfc- i4 " deer," but 
 it is suggested by the flint knife usea'la- sacrifices of 
 this animal.. The lower part of this symbol, as in the sym- 
 bol for Yax and Zac, is the day sign, cauac. The month 
 called Mac probably was dedicated to the Bat God. 
 Above is the mac sign, the extended hands, generally in- 
 
 Kayab. Cumhu. 
 
 Fig. 45. Symbols of the months. 
 
 Uayeb. 
 
 dicating " nothing." Kankin means " the yellow sun," 
 and the symbol expresses it in true rebus manner, as it 
 combines the symbol for the sun, kin, and that for yel- 
 low. Pax isJhe picture of a " drum," pax che. 
 
 It may be* of interest to show the way in which the 
 Mexicans represented the cardinal points. They paid 
 great respect to them, and they frequently occur through- 
 out the inscriptions. They are shown in Fig. 46. 
 
 The sign for north, Xaman, has the picture of the 
 
t42 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 North Star god and the lunar prefix. That for south, 
 Nohil, has the extended hand, mac, and what appear to 
 be flames surrounding the yax sign. The sign for east, 
 Likin, consists of the sun symbol, kin, surmounted by the 
 twentieth day sign, Ahau. Edward Seler points out that 
 this probably comes from ahal kin, " the sun rises." The 
 sign for west, Chikin, represents the hand above the sun 
 
 :> 
 
 r ftu(n)))D .s 
 
 Xaman 
 
 Nohil 
 
 Likin 
 
 Chikin 
 
 Fig. 46. Hieroglyphs of the four cardinal points, North, South, East 
 
 and West. 
 
 sign. Dr. Seler explains it to indicate the hand in the 
 position of eating, and refers to the fact that in Maya 
 " to eat " is chi. 
 
 The most extensive Mexican remains bearing inscrip- 
 tions are to be found at Palenque. Here flourished, prob- 
 ably from the 2nd century to the 6th century, A. D., the 
 ancient Maya civilization in Its " Golden Age." There 
 were three principal centers of this early Maya civiliza- 
 tion : Palenque in southern Mexico, Quirlgua In Guate- 
 mala, and Copan In Honduras. During this period 
 sculpture reached its highest level of excellence. The best 
 examples are to be found at Palenque and Copan. Many 
 of the sculptured figures on the stelas at Copan have much 
 of the beauty and grace of Grecian sculpture at Its best. 
 This Is especially true of Stelae D and H and other stelse 
 ■and altars at Copan. There is much that is grotesque, as 
 everywhere in Maya and Aztec sculpture, but the finest 
 examples are as praiseworthy as any sculpture In existence. 
 
 There was a sudden termination of this civilization In 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 143 
 
 the south, and when it reappeared In northern Yucatan 
 at Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Mayapan and other centers, be- 
 tween 800 and 1000 A. D., the art 'of the period mani- 
 fested itself in a remarkable development of architecture, 
 with only very scant sculptured inscriptions. For two hun- 
 dred years prior to the Discovery great Internecine strife 
 was threatening the entire Maya civilization; the total 
 extinction of which was hastened and finally consummated 
 by the Spanish conquerors only a few years after their 
 arrival In America. 
 
 In Palenque are the massive ruins of several great tem- 
 ples. Here are the two Temples of the Cross, the Temple 
 of the Sun and another structure known as the Temple 
 of Inscriptions. All of these buildings are profusely cov- 
 ered with sculptures and inscriptions. Fig. 47 is a repro- 
 duction of the left-hand slab of the Tablet of the Cross 
 from the Temple of the Sun. To the right of the central 
 slab, which shows an elaborately foliated cross on a sacri- 
 ficial altar, is a third slab very similar to the first. On 
 each of the outer slabs, at the back of the priests, are six 
 vertical rows of glyphs, in seventeen horizontal lines, as 
 will be seen in the left-hand slab in the Illustration. The 
 glyphs on the left-hand slab, at least for several horizon- 
 tal rows down, are combined with the heads of the gods 
 who presided over the special days that they represent. 
 The glyphs are to be read downward In pairs, beginning 
 at the left. Dr. Forstemann interprets the entire inscrip- 
 tion to be a series of cycles of the thirteen- and twenty- 
 day periods, carried out over an Interval of nearly 400 
 years; the object probably being to fix the dates of the 
 recurrence of certain feast or fast days in the calendar. 
 The illustration gives an excellent idea of the general 
 character of the many inscriptions at Palenque, Copan, 
 Quirigua and other places in Mexico and Guatemala. 
 
144 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 The sculptured glyphs are in very strong relief, and the 
 excellent state of preservation of the giant blocks is such 
 that the glyphs are very easily distinguishable, and in 
 point of fact all have been translated and known to con- 
 sist of numerical and calendric signs. 
 
THE ANCIENT MEXICANS 
 
 145 
 
 Fig. 47. A portion of the Tablet of the Cross from the Temple of the 
 Sun, Palenque. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING OF THE SOUTH SEA 
 ISLANDERS 
 
 In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 2000 miles west of 
 South America and hyndreds of miles east of any other 
 island in Polynesia, lies the lonely speck of land known as 
 Easter Island, a small volcanic island, but fifteen miles 
 across at its widest diameter. Here lived at one time a 
 superior race of people in an advanced state of civiliza- 
 tion. The coast of this island, with some interruptions, is 
 surrounded by a wall or terrace, built of large stone slabs, 
 seven to eight feet long. Some of the terraces thus formed 
 are three hundred feet long, and contain vaults in which 
 the dead were laid, wrapped in native matting. On these 
 terraces were placed enormous monolithic statues of 
 super-men with long straight noses and unusually pendu- 
 lous ears, such as are produced by distending them by 
 heavy ear rings. Many of these statues are from twelve 
 to twenty feet high, the tallest being as much as thirty 
 feet in height. Many scores of these statues are to be seen 
 in all parts of the island, most of them fallen, while many 
 others evidently lie where they were being transported 
 from the quarries. In the quarries, which are of volcanic 
 rock, are scores of figures in every stage of completion, 
 some over sixty feet long. Besides these stone figures 
 there are to be seen In the island many wooden figures 
 carved in the form of bird-like men, the shape being that 
 of the frigate-bird. This bird is rarely if ever seen in this 
 distant land, and the bird-cult which formed the basis of 
 
 146 
 
THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS 147 
 
 Important rites of the natives now centers about the na- 
 tive tern, a very different kind of bird. This seems to 
 point to an exotic origin of this bird-cult. Many other 
 evidences of the comparatively high state of civilization 
 of the former inhabitants of the island seem to indicate 
 a culture not indigenous to the island, but coming from 
 without. 
 
 Easter Island was first visited, as far as definite records 
 show, in 1863. In that year Peruvian slavetraders landed 
 on the island and captured a large number of the inhabit- 
 ants, including among those kidnapped all of the native 
 chiefs and persons of authority. It has been reported 
 that at the time of the discovery of the island the inhab- 
 itants were cannibals. This seems quite incompatible with 
 the fact that they were in possession of a system of hiero- 
 glyphic writing or mnemonics, that appears to have been 
 well understood among the initiated. The writing was 
 executed on broad, flat boards, some of them as much as 
 six feet long, covered on both sides with finely engraved 
 hieroglyphic symbols. Many of these boards have been 
 discovered on the island, and these with fragments of 
 other boards now repose in various museums. After the 
 kidnapping of the leading men, the meaning of the sym- 
 bols seems to have been lost to the inhabitants. Besides, 
 Catholic missionaries, who followed the visit of the Peru- 
 vians, di-d not look with much favor upon this pagan writ- 
 ing, which to them seemed to savor of the evil one, and 
 ordered that the boards should be burned; which was 
 very generally done. 
 
 We shall follow very closely in our brief description of 
 this peculiar system of hieroglyphic writing the article 
 published in the Smithsonian Institution Report for 1889, 
 by Wm. J. Thomson, U. S. N. The writer says: "The 
 native traditions in regard to the Incised tablets simply 
 
148 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 assert that Hotu-Matu, the first king, possessed the knowl- 
 edge of the written language, and brought with him to the 
 island sixty-seven tablets containing allegories, traditions, 
 genealogical tables and proverbs relating to the land 
 from which he had emigrated. A knowledge of the writ- 
 ten characters was confined to the royal family, the chiefs 
 and to certain priests or teachers. But the people were 
 assembled at Anekena Bay once each year to hear all of 
 the tablets read." The cruel disaster that overtook these 
 people terminated this period of their civilization, and 
 the traditions of the tribe were all but forgotten. 
 
 Mr. Thomson's report continues : " A man called Ure 
 Vaeiko, one of the patriarchs of the island, professed to 
 have been under instruction in the art of hieroglyphic 
 reading at the time of the Peruvian visit, and claimed to 
 understand most of the characters. Negotiations were 
 opened with him for a translation of the tablets, but he 
 declined to furnish any information on the ground that it 
 had been prohibited by the priests. Finally the old fellow, 
 to avoid temptation, took to the hills with the determina- 
 tion to remain in hiding until after the return of the 
 Mohican (the U. S. S. Mohican under Lieut. F. M. Sy- 
 monds) . As a compromise it was proposed that he should 
 relate some of the ancient traditions. This was readily 
 acceded to, because the opportunity of relating the leg- 
 ends to an interested audience did not often occur, and the 
 positive pleasure to be derived from such an occasion 
 could not be neglected. . . . At an auspicious moment 
 photographs of the tablets owned by the bishop of the 
 island were produced for inspection. Old Ure Vaeiko had 
 never seen photographs before, and was surprised to 
 find how faithfully they reproduced the tablets which he 
 had known in his young days. A tablet would have met 
 with opposition, but no objection could be made against 
 
THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS 
 
 149 
 
 the photograph, especially something possessed by the 
 good bishop. The photographs were recognized imme- 
 diately and the appropriate legend related with fluency 
 and without hesitation from beginning to end. The story 
 of all the tablets of which we had any knowledge were 
 finally obtained, the words of the native language being 
 written down (by Mr. Salmon) as they were uttered, and 
 afterward translated into English." 
 
 The beauty of expression of the following lamenta- 
 tion, the translation of the tablet shown in Fig. 48, must 
 be admitted by every one: 
 
 The sail of my daughter, 
 
 Never broken by the force of foreign clans, 
 
 The sail of my daughter, 
 
 Unbroken by the conspiracy of Honiti ! 
 
 Ever victorious in all her fights. 
 
 She could not be enticed to drink poison waters 
 
 In the cup of obsidian glass. 
 
 Can my sorrow ever be appeased 
 
 
 Fig. 48. Hieroglyphic inscription carved on wood. From Eas.er Island. 
 
 Obverse. 
 
I50 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 While we are divided by the mighty seas? 
 
 Oh my daughter, oh my daughter! 
 
 It is a vast and watery road 
 
 Over which I look toward the horizon ; 
 
 My daughter, oh my daughter! 
 
 Mr. Thomson points out that a casual glance at the 
 Easter Island tablets is sufficient to note the fact that they 
 differ materially from other kyriologic writings. The pic- 
 torial symbols are engraved In regular lines on depressed 
 channels, separated by slight ridges intended to protect 
 the hieroglyphics from injury by rubbing. In some cases 
 the characters are smaller and the tablets contain a 
 greater number of lines, but in all cases the hieroglyphs 
 are inscribed on and cover both sides as well as the bev- 
 eled edges and hollows of the board upon which they are 
 engraved. The symbols on each line are alternately re- 
 versed; those on the first line stand upright, and those on 
 the next line are upside down, and so on by regular alter- 
 nation. This unique plan makes it necessary for the 
 reader to turn the tablet over and change its position at 
 the end of every line; the characters being found to fol- 
 low in regular progression. The reading should com- 
 mence at the lower left-hand corner, on the particular side 
 that will bring the figures erect, and follow as the charac- 
 ters face in the procession, turning the tablet at the end 
 of each line, as indicated. Arriving at the top of the first 
 face, the reading is continued over the edge, to the near- 
 est line at the top of the other side, and the descent contin- 
 ued in the same manner until the end of the inscription is 
 reached. This boustrophedon method is suoposed to have 
 been adopted in order to avoid the possibility of missing 
 a line of the hieroglyphics in reading. 
 
 Ure Vaeiko's fluent interpretation of the tablet was not 
 
THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS 151 
 
 interrupted, though It became evident that he was not 
 actually reading the characters. It was noticed that the 
 shifting of position did not accord with the number of 
 symbols in the line; and afterward where the photograph 
 of another tablet was sulbstituted, the same story was con- 
 tinued without the change being discovered. The old fel- 
 low was quite discomposed when charged with the fraud 
 at the close of an all-night session, and at first maintained 
 that the characters were all understood : but he could not 
 give the significance of hieroglyphs copied indiscrimi- 
 nately from tablets already read by him. He explained at 
 great length that the actual value and significance of the 
 symbols had been forgotten; but the tablets were recog- 
 nized by unmistakable features and the Interpretation of 
 them was beyond question; just as a person might recog- 
 nize a book in a foreign language and be perfectly sure 
 of the meaning without being able actually to read It. 
 
 The writing — drawing of course — on these tablets is 
 composed of pictorial symbols carrying the significatloji 
 of the images they represent or attributes of them. The 
 execution would be a creditable production with the assist- 
 ance of the best etching tools; and it is a truly wonderful 
 result of patience and industry, to have been accomplished 
 by means of obsidian points, or possibly shark's teeth. 
 The more so as the minute size of the hieroglyphs made 
 it well-nigh Impossible to convey anything more than the 
 general appearance of the objects delineated. 
 
 A critical study.of the hieroglyphics of Easter Island Is 
 being made with the hope that valuable information may 
 be secured in regard to the origin and history of these 
 people. 
 
 In the island of Oleai, or Uleal, one of the most west- 
 erly of the Caroline Islands, there has recently been dis- 
 covered a new native script which has been most interest- 
 
152 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 ingly described by J. Macmillan Brown. ^ The script is 
 unlike any other known script. It is partly ideographic, 
 partly geometric, and throughout is highly conventional- 
 ized and simplified. The syllabary consists of fifty-one 
 characters, which in their entirety seem to make a very 
 consistent series, evidently acquired through many gen- 
 erations of native culture. Mr. Brown reproduces in his 
 article the entire syllabary, as written down for him by 
 the chief, Egilimar, who signs the document, spelling out 
 his name in the native characters, with the English spell- 
 ing in parallel beside them. 
 
 Mr. Brown says: " This Oleai script is manifestly the 
 product of long ages, for the use of the organizers of a 
 highly-organized community of considerable size. In 
 other words, it must have belonged to the ruling class of 
 an empire of some extent, that needed constant record of 
 the facts of intercourse and organization." According to 
 Mr. Brown's account, there are many signs in this archi- 
 pelago of a former civilization of considerable antiquity 
 and extent. In the fringing reef of Ponape, there are vast 
 ruins of great houses with walls six to fifteen feet thick, 
 consisting of enormous basalt columns brought from 
 twenty miles away. The buildings and quays cover eleven 
 miles. 
 
 These two hieroglyphic scripts, coming unexpectedly 
 out of the Pacific Ocean, give us an altogether new con- 
 ception of the inhabitants of the islands of the South Sea. 
 The Caroline Islands are hundreds of miles east of the 
 Philippine Islands, visited only infrequently by sailing or 
 steam ships; while Easter Island is thousands of miles 
 further seaward, and is rarely visited by any packet ship 
 
 1 " A New Pacific Ocean Script," by J. Macmillan Brown. Article No. 
 43 in " Man, A Monthly Record of Anthropological Science," Vol. XIV 
 1914. 
 
THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS 153 
 
 throughout the entire year. We may well Inquire how 
 these totally different systems of writing developed in 
 these remote islands, and what their origin was. Scholars 
 are studying the question and we may hope that before 
 long we may be able to trace the sources of origin and 
 the lines of development of these two mysterious systems 
 of writing. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 
 
 It is to the Flowery Kingdom, the land of quaint customs 
 and queer ways, in which the past lives in the present, that 
 we must turn to find a modern language in which the 
 primitive pictures of a by-gone past still linger in the 
 written script of the living generation. In the written lan- 
 guage of the Chinese we find In every day use characters 
 which, If not recognizably pictorial in their modern form, 
 exhibit elements which Indubitably betray their descent 
 directly from the original pictures used In the primitive 
 days before writing was employed. Not a few of these 
 characters in constant use to-day by the Chinese are but 
 slightly modified by the process of conventionalization 
 from their ancient prototypes. Even where no trace of 
 their obvious source of derivation is manifest, and this 
 doubtless Is true of the great majority of all the Chinese 
 characters — the effacement due to ages of conventional- 
 ization being so nearly complete — there is yet in the con- 
 struction of most of the written characters ample testi- 
 mony of the original pictorial basis of the script. 
 
 The most cursory Investigation into the nature of these 
 characters will reveal the radical difference between Occi- 
 dental writing and that of the far Orient. This difference 
 is to be found not only in the shapes of the characters — 
 these differ In most languages — but in the fundamental! 
 construction of the written script. Chinese writing is notj 
 phonetic in the sense that European writing Is. In the 
 latter, as already has been explained, every constituent 
 
 IS4 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 155 
 
 syllable in every word Is represented by a character — an 
 alphabetic sign — which is the constant symbol of this 
 phonetic element wherever it occurs. With the exception 
 of a very few arbitrary signs and symbols used in arith- 
 metical notation and mathematical operations, music, 
 weights and measures, a few of which earlier were illus- 
 trated, there are no other written signs employed than 
 these few alphabetic characters. In Chinese writing, on 
 the other hand, the six hundred fundamental characters 
 or ideographs which form the basis of the written lan- 
 guage, and of which two hundred and fourteen, the so- 
 called " radicals " or " classifiers," enter into almost 
 every written word in the language, are not phonetic at 
 all. They are ideograms; now very much conventional- 
 ized, but originally representative of the things intended. 
 The characters and the sounds for which they stand have 
 no logical correspondence whatever. In, the last analysis 
 perhaps this also may be said of our own alphabetic signs 
 and of their proper sounds; but not so of the written 
 words which they spell, for they are phonetic. The Chi- 
 nese characters are strictly word-pictures, or more truly 
 idea-pictures, — ideograms. In most cases the symbols are 
 arbitrarily chosen ; in other cases — a very few — they 
 reveal themselves as very highly* conventionalized pic- 
 tures of the things intended. Each character is the symbol 
 of a simple, elementary sound, a monosyllable, whether 
 the symbol consists of one or of twenty or more brush 
 strokes, of one or of many fundamental characters in one 
 combined character. It is true that thousands of Chinese 
 words of the Kia-sbing classification have a phonetic ele- 
 ment. Most of the combined characters have a symbol to j 
 picture the monosyllable, the sound-word, together with I 
 one or more ideographs to picture its particular meaning; 
 as there are hundi-eds of homophones in the language. 
 
156 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Together they make up the written character for the 
 monosyllable. 
 
 The Chinese written language has no alphabet, for it 
 has no spelling. It likewise has no visible parts of speech. 
 The same character without change of form may be used 
 as a noun, verb or adjective; all grammatical relations 
 being Indicated by position in the sentence. It is a lan- 
 guage of roots and has no grammatical terminations to 
 denote number, case, tense, person or other grammatical 
 modifications. There are no inflections, the language 
 being devoid of conjugation, declension and every form 
 of grammatical construction. There are devices employed 
 for indicating parts of speech, but they do not affect the 
 drawing of the characters, which are made up of an odd 
 assortment of Ideograms, phonograms and arbitrary 
 symbols, often combined In the most illogical and whimsi- 
 cal manner. How can such characters be conjugated, de- 
 clined or Indicate tense and mood? 
 
 It follows from this very brief description of Chinese 
 writing that every distinct idea must have Its own proper 
 sign, and any and every new idea must require a new 
 symbol different from every other sign In the language. 
 No matter how involved an idea may be, a single charac- 
 ter, simple or complex, the correlative of a monosyllabic 
 sound, will be Its symbol. As the growing syllabary In- 
 creased In complexity and the language in descriptive 
 phrases, special characters had to be invented to Illustrate 
 ideas like the following: "a bay horse with a white 
 belly"; " a horse with a white spot on his forehead"; 
 " a dark horse with a yellow stripe along its back " ; " the 
 last pig in a litter"; " to look at a notice on a gate"; 
 " to lift up the dress when going up stairs "; " the noise 
 made by the grinding of the teeth " ; " reading the records 
 of the family in the hall of ancestors "; " an untimely 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 157 
 
 death under nineteen years " ; or " to announce the death 
 of a parent or relative by the nearest mourners on the 
 seventh day." Here is the character for the last defini- 
 tion : ^jl The left hand character in the compound is 
 
 the sign " to speak "; the right hand one is that for " to 
 divine." The square-shaped figure in the first character 
 is the picture of the mouth and is its written symbol. The 
 four lines above it represent " words." All three signs 
 are among the 214 radicals which form the basis of the 
 written language. The spoken word that stands for all 
 this circumlocution is simply " fu." The character for the 
 same word, fu, meaning " father," is a hand with two 
 marks over it; heing an illustration of the world-wide 
 ethics of domestic responsibility ! The reader will dis- 
 cover at the outset that we now are dealing with a peculiar 
 system of writing. It is not exactly ideographic nor is it 
 purely phonetic. Many words are wholly ideographic and 
 few are exclusively phonetic. It appears to be a system 
 based on ideography advancing into phoneticism but ar- 
 rested at this stage before it reached the alphabetic stage. 
 The result of this strange and arbitrary method of 
 writing is that with only a few hundred phonetic sounds 
 in the language to deal with, there are innumerable homo- 
 phones, signifying hundreds of different meanings, each 
 requiring a specific character. In the spoken language the 
 context and the very comprehensive system of intonation 
 and gestures elaborated by the Chinese amply suffice to 
 explain the meaning; but in the written language the Chi- 
 nese do precisely what the ancient Egyptians did : set the 
 picture of the specific idea or thing intended — the ideo- 
 graph — beside the phonogram to illustrate the particu- 
 lar meaning and to differentiate it from the many other 
 homophones. 
 
158 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 The Chinese written characters may be classified as 
 follows: I. Hsiang hsing, pictograms or hieroglyphs. 
 They include all the characters which represent the con- 
 ventionalized rendering of the primitive pictures that 
 composed the bulk of the ancient written language. 
 There are about 600 or more of these characters. Of 
 these signs 214 have been selected as keys or determina- 
 tives, the so-called radicals, which enter into the com- 
 pound characters making up the great bulk of all the 
 words in the language. They include signs and symbols of 
 natural and celestial objects, man, animals, habitations, 
 utensils and numerous other artificial objects. 2. Chih 
 shih, suggestive signs. Representing ideas to the mind by 
 the relative positions of the component parts of the sign: 
 
 — as the ideograph of the sun above a line — the horizon 
 
 — to suggest the idea of " morning " ; the sun beneath a 
 line or behind a tree to suggest " sunset " ; two doors with 
 several marks beneath them to indicate " a crowd in a 
 
 doorway," as here shown: HH or a piece of wood be- 
 tween two doors to indicate " an obstruction "; two lines 
 criss-cross forming a cross and the symbol of the hand in- 
 dicating " to lay cross-wise " ; the ideograph of a mouth 
 with a line in the middle — something in the mouth — to 
 suggest the idea of "to talk" or "sweet"; or a man 
 within a square meaning " a prisoner," or the same hiero- 
 glyph with the sign of water beside it meaning " to swim," 
 as in a pool. There are about 107 of these characters. 
 3. Hui i, combined ideograms. Characters made up of 
 two or more primitive signs so associated as to convey the 
 meaning of the idea to the mind through the eye: — as 
 the sun and moon to indicate " light " ; a mouth and a bird 
 to indicate " singing"; a dog and a mouth, " to bark"; 
 an ax and a tree, " cutting "; a man and a whip, " driv- 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 159 
 
 ing " ; a man on a cliff, " danger " ; a hand and a woman, 
 "safe"; a mouth at a door, "asking," or an ear at a 
 door, " listening." An ear and a knife picture the mean- 
 ing " to cut off the ears " ; two hands joined, " cordial- 
 ity"; a man and a child, " to carry"; a man and two 
 concentric squares, " to pace back and forth " ; and many 
 similar, fanciful characters. The character for " divi- 
 dend " : l-v> is a characteristic example of scores of Chi- 
 nese symbols. The left-hand symbol is the sign for man, 
 the upper one that for the number eight (which can be di- 
 vided!) and the lower one is the sign for knife, which 
 symbolizes division. As is the case in hundreds of other 
 Chinese characters there is no phonetic element. It is in- 
 teresting in this place to note that the compound character 
 composed of the sign for man and that for hand stands 
 for "gesture language," communicating at a distance; a 
 procedure ages ago fallen into desuetude. The persist- 
 ence of this sign in the written signary is sufficient evi- 
 dence of the existence of gesture language in the youth of 
 civilization before writing was evolved. There are about 
 740 of these combined ideographic signs in the language. 
 4. Chuan chu, inverted signs. Signs in which the meaning 
 is conveyed by the inversion of the character or a signifi- 
 cant change in position of its component parts : — as the 
 hands pointing to the right or the left to indicate these 
 directions, or characters above or below a line to indicate 
 these positions. There are about 372 of these signs. 5. 
 Chia chieh, metaphorical or "borrowed" signs; com- 
 pound signs that suggest a fanciful meaning borrowed 
 from the association of signs in the character: — as 
 " beautiful " represented by a woman and a bird; " love " 
 by a woman and a child; " forgetfulness " by a heart and 
 death; "time" by the sun, the earth and the sign for 
 
i6o A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 measure; and hundreds of similar metaphorical symbols, 
 for there are over 600 such signs in the language. 6. 
 Hsieh sheng, phonograms. These constitute the great 
 mass of the written characters in the language, 20,000 to 
 30,000 or more signs. They are composed of different, 
 specific, phonetic signs, combined with one or more ideo- 
 graphic determinatives or " radicals," to give the par- 
 ticular meaning and to distinguish between homophones. 
 Thus it will be seen that there are over 2400 characters 
 in the Chinese written language that, if not actually pic- 
 torial, are representative in one way or another of the 
 idea intended; either as simple ideographs or by the way 
 in which the parts of the characters are associated or 
 arranged. 
 
 In the earliest stages of writing the Chinese scribe 
 doubtless represented the objects Intended by rude out- 
 lines of them; then as the necessity for representing finer 
 shades of meaning manifested itself, qualities, attributes 
 and metaphorical deductions referring to objects already 
 recorded by ideograms became represented by modified 
 or associated forms of these objects or parts of them. 
 This may be called the process of trope or metonymy, by 
 which a part of an object suggests the whole, or some 
 quality of It. It Is precisely what all primitive people have 
 done at this stage of development. The ancient Babylon- 
 ians employed the arm to denote " strength "; the hand, 
 "authority"; the foot, "walking." The Egyptians em- 
 ployed the legs to denote " walking "; the eye to indicate 
 "judgment," an "overseer"; the feather to denote 
 " equality," as the feathers of a bird were assumed to 
 be equal; and wings to denote " protection." The Dakota 
 Indians, as we have seen, used parts of the body to denote 
 derived significances In much the same way as those just 
 mentioned. 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING i6i 
 
 The primitive pictures have now become almost en- 
 tirely obliterated in the modern Chinese script; lingering 
 only as an indistinct echo of their remote archetypes. In 
 certain archaic inscriptions, or in manuscripts that seem to 
 have escaped the edict of Emperor Tsin-Chi-Hoang-Ti, 
 who in the 3d century B. c. ordered that all books should 
 be burned, and in the earliest antique bronzes yet extant, 
 we may still see their earliest conventionalized forms. 
 But It is the Internal as well as the outward evidence that 
 confirms by silent witnesses on every hand the theory of 
 the descent of the Chinese characters from early picto- 
 gnaphic originals. As in other matters in the Celestial 
 Kingdom, the written language presents the spectacle of 
 arrested growth ; for the system lies intermediate between 
 primitive picture-writing and modern alphabetic writing. 
 It contains the run-down, almost indistinguishable ele- 
 ments of the former, and the undeveloped elements of 
 the latter. The Japanese, long since in adapting the Chi- 
 nese written characters to their spoken language, simply 
 picked out a sufficient number of symbols to form an al- 
 phabet of some forty-seven characters corresponding to 
 the simple, phonetic elements of their spoken language: 
 — i, ro, fa, etc. They gave the name " irofa " to their 
 alphabet, just as the Greeks formed their word, the basis 
 of ours, from the first two sounds in their alphabet, — 
 ", alpha beta." With these alphabetic characters the Japa- 
 nese spell out their word sounds very much the same as 
 we do. 
 
 In attempting to seek the original pictures in the pres- 
 ent Chinese script we shall be doomed to disappointment 
 except in a trifling number of instances. In Egypt the en- 
 tire process is set as la feast before our eyes; the original 
 pictures, the alphabetic signs and the cursive script all 
 attest to the long historic development of their system of 
 
i62 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 writing. Egyptian writing began with pictures, the hiero- 
 glyphs. So did the Chinese. It is not conceivable, how- 
 ever, that the latter ever approached even in the remot- 
 est degree to the naturalness and beauty of the Egyptian 
 hieroglyphs. Everything that has been preserved of the 
 earliest stages of Chinese writing points to the most gro- 
 tesque method of drawing. It never can be known how 
 many centuries these pictures were employed before the 
 conventionalizing process began to modify them, nor 
 through how many centuries this process extended. But 
 the same human influences that operated to transform the 
 early Sumerlan pictorial characters into the Babylonian 
 linear and later cuneiform, and that transformed the 
 Egyptian hieroglyphs into the hieratic and demotic forms 
 of writing, doubtless operated to modify and transform 
 the primitive picture-writing of the Chinese Into the Indi- 
 vidual elements of the odd-shaped forms that they employ 
 to-day. 
 
 What are judged to be the earliest examples of Chinese 
 writing occur on some bone carvings recently discovered, 
 one of which is reproduced in Fig. 49. We can best de- 
 scribe these Inscribed carvings by quoting the following 
 excerpt from a letter of Dr. Berthold Laufer, of the Field 
 Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois. " In 
 1899 several thousands of bone fragments and bone carv- 
 ings inscribed in a very archaic style of character were 
 exhumed in the Province of Ho-nan. Most of these ob- 
 jects apparently served for purposes of divination, and 
 contained oracles accompanied by the replies of the sha- 
 mans. Much work has been spent on the decipherment of 
 these inscriptions, land a good many characters can easily 
 be Identified; but a complete and in every respect satis- 
 factory result has not yet been attained. The date of 
 these bones also is still controversial, some assigning 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 163 
 
 them to the Shang dynasty (i 766-1 154 B. c.) ; others, to 
 the Chou dynasty (1122-255 ^- C-)'- The former period, 
 however, is more probable. The objects of bone are 
 usually miniatures made in imitation of larger objects of 
 bronze or jade. Thus, there are reproductions in bone 
 of all sorts of weapons, like swords, arrowheads, spear- 
 heads; further, bells, dragons, alligators, disks and so on. 
 Jade disks and rings play a prominent part in the earliest 
 period of China and at various functions. The disks sym- 
 bolize the Deity of Heaven, the rings were badges of rank 
 or emblems bestowed by emperors upon deserving of- 
 ficials. What the purpose of the rings in bone was is not 
 yet known. The characters in these bone inscriptions rep- 
 resent the earliest form of Chinese writing thus far 
 known." 
 
 Fig. 49. Inscribed bone ring. Earliest form of Chinese writing. 
 
 Fig. 50, reproduced from the Journal Asiatiqiie (April 
 and May, 1868), shows two examples of very ancient 
 Chinese inscriptions. No. i was engraved on a lance. It 
 dates from the dynasty of Hia, 2150 B. c. It reads in the 
 ordinary Chinese fashion down the columns and from 
 rirrhf tr\ lpf<- Ttip fir^if rharacter is the modern 4- 
 
164 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 meaning " master " or " king." The second and third are 
 doubtful. The fourth, fifth and sixth are the proto- 
 types of the modern ^FT^|nJ"vr » t^oh tiao ko, "to 
 
 carve a lance." The second inscription is from the dy- 
 nasty of Chang (1783— 1402 B. c.) and reads in modern 
 
 Chinese: ;|^f]E^E^BgX 
 
 «.« 
 
 ^ 
 ^ 
 
 Fig. 50. Chinese inscriptions from lances. No. i, Dynasty of Hia, 2150 B.C. 
 No. 2, Dynasty of Chang, 1783-1402 B. c. 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 165 
 
 wet tching yoneh wdng tchun kih jih ting. 
 
 " It was only the day Ting of the cycle, in the first moon 
 of Autumn, that the king fixed upon as favorable, or of 
 good augury." 
 
 It is perfectly possible by consulting certain Chinese 
 dictionaries or by tracing back the characters as they 
 occur in antique bronzes and coins, to establish a similar 
 genesis of many if not most of the Hsiang-hsing charac- 
 ters. The radicals, called tse-pu, selected from these 
 characters, and used as determinatives in the great ma- 
 jority of words in the language, are the symbols or ideo- 
 graphs principally of the material objects of nature that 
 early would lappeal to man and with which his first needs 
 in record making naturally would be concerned. They 
 may be classified about as follows : 
 
 1. Natural objects and phenomena; — sun, moon, hill, 
 valley, cliff, cave, desert, field, rain, wind, fire, evening, 
 time, etc. 
 
 2. Botanical and mineralogical objects; — wheat, rice, 
 bamboo, wood, grain, wine, salt, metal, stone, gems, 
 earth, etc. 
 
 3. Zoological objects; — man, including parts of the 
 body, — head, hair, whiskers, face, eye, mouth, teeth, etc.; 
 father, woman, child, horse, dog, sheep, ox, hog, tiger, 
 deer, tortoise, dragon, etc. 
 
 4. Utensils; — knife, spoon, chest, net, plow, vase, 
 boat, etc. 
 
 5. Actions; — to see, to eat, to touch, to walk slowly^ 
 to speak, to kill, to enter, to stride, to fly, etc. 
 
 6. Qualities; — large, small, high, low, slender, 
 square, black, white, yellow, azure, perverse, base, etc. 
 
 These are a few of the many ideas pictured by the two 
 hundred and fourteen radical signs that serve 'as inter- 
 
1 66 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 preters for almost every compound in the language, intro- 
 ducing and explaining it to the reader. They are not to be 
 read in the compound character. They simply are indica- 
 tive. 
 
 Fig. 5 1 illustrates a few of these radicals. One cannot 
 escape the significance of most of those shown. Neverthe- 
 less, it must be admitted that the great majority of all 
 the radicals have lost all trace of their former graphic 
 nature if not their pictorial signifiicance, and remain purely 
 arbitrary symbols. The two characters for " man " are 
 obvious in their significance. Both are in common use in 
 everyday writing. Almost every compound character re- 
 lating to man or ideas connected with him will have this 
 as an index sign. The characters for: " a man walking," 
 " the leg," and " to walk " (not shown in the figure), all 
 have the outstretched legs. The Sumerian scribes em- 
 ployed a somewhat similar sign for walking: J\^ . The 
 
 Egyptians used the two legs:/\^ as the Chinese do; and 
 
 we have seen that the North American Indians also used 
 the same graphic device (see Fig. 36). The sign for 
 " shelter " and " to cover," implying shelter or protec- 
 tion, are used with this obviously graphic significance in 
 many compounds for words conveying this meaning or for 
 metaphorical ideas closely related to it. The character 
 for " roof " is quite reminiscent of the familiar pictures 
 of the heavy roofs with their cumbrous cornices that cap 
 the Chinese temples. In most compound characters hav- 
 ing the idea of a protecting roof, either actual or meta- 
 phorical, — as "house," "palace," "sky," "night," 
 " grouping," " a place," etc., this sign surmounts the com- 
 pound; as in the following: 
 
 '^ 
 
 T 
 
 '^ 
 
 
 4 ' » 
 
 ^. 
 
 House 
 
 Porch 
 
 Palace 
 
 Tank 
 
 Cave 
 
 To contain, 
 as the earth does, 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 167 
 
 We will digress for a moment to analyze a few of these 
 characters, for they add their testimony to the present 
 inquiry. The character under the " roof " in the third 
 sign is a " spine." The middle character in the symbol 
 for " tank " is the radical sign for " streams " ; the upper 
 one pictures the overhanging sky, the lower one being the 
 tank. The symbol for " cave " consists of the signs 
 " roof " and " to enter." Again the legs. The last sym- 
 bol is compounded of the graphic idea of the roof or sky 
 and the radical character meaning " fields." 
 
 The series of archaic pictures for " roof," from which 
 the modern sign has descended, shown in the accompany- 
 ing ait taken from ancient bronze inscriptions, illustrates 
 conclusively the lineal descent of this symbol. The decid- 
 edly tent-like form of the first pictorial character is as 
 graphic a record of the early life of the Chinese or Mon- 
 golian tribes as a chapter of written history. It is the 
 picture of a man under a tent. The reader will note the 
 progressive stages of simplification and conventionaliza- 
 tion: 
 
 4^^ Ana 
 
 The significance of the characters for " receptacle," 
 " mountain," " hair " and " claws," in the selections from 
 the radicals, all are too apparent to require comment. 
 The circles in the signs for " sun," " mouth," " moon," 
 or any other round object, always are " squared " in the 
 Chinese characters. The character " to speak " is a 
 mouth with something in it! The divided fields of the 
 rice meadows are well illustrated in the character for 
 " field." " To see " is a compound radical consisting of 
 that for "one's self" — the upper part — and a man 
 walking; literally, " to go and see " or " find out." In the 
 
i68 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 character for " rain " we may detect the falling drops, 
 while the long horizontal line above undoubtedly indicates 
 the sky or clouds. The characters for " feathers," 
 " wings " and " whiskers," while clumsy and ridiculous as 
 pictures, nevertheless are recognizable or understandable, 
 graphic symbols of these objects. In many Chinese char- 
 acters where there are a number of small things to record, 
 as feathers, hair, rain (drops), salt, a mesh, the heart 
 (blood), or things In bulk or division, we are quite apt 
 to find many lines or marks in the characters. The charac- 
 ter for "door," a double-folding door apparently, — by 
 the way, almost exactly the same as the Babylonian char- 
 acter, — Is one of the most common symbols In the lan- 
 guage, being used in scores of words where the actual Idea 
 of a "door" or "opening" Is implied; of going in 
 or out; of bolting with a bolt, or "bolting" through 
 
 like a horse : Sh , or In all shades of metaphorical 
 
 meanings of related significance; as well as In scores of 
 cases where Its use Is apparently Indefensible except as 
 an arbitrary sign. So whimsical and unscientific is the 
 written language of the Chinese. Doubtless they can with 
 reason fling at the vagaries of our English writing and its 
 pronunciation; but at least we enjoy a consistent, alpha- 
 betic basis to our words If we occasionally do stray away 
 from It in phonetlclsm. The crosses on the characters for 
 " net "and " salt " illustrate the naive way, just referred 
 to, that the Chinese have of Indicating a collection of 
 many things, or bulk. Their position within the net or 
 hamper in which salt was carried evidences the simple- 
 minded ingenuousness of the early scribe when casting 
 about for pictures of these commodities. The character 
 for " wagon " Is the geometric top view of this object, 
 and is one of the very few pictures that has successfully 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 
 
 169 ' 
 
 resisted the conventionalizing processes so fatal to the 
 continuity of original types. Archaic forms of this sym- 
 
 I 
 
 } 
 
 u 
 
 m 
 p 
 
 Ik 
 
 i^^ »|> heart 
 g leg, foot 
 
 perpendicular 
 
 curved 
 
 hooked 
 
 man 
 
 a man walking 
 to cover 
 
 a shelter 
 
 roof 
 
 receptacle 
 
 mountain 
 
 streams 
 
 field 
 
 sun 
 
 mouth 
 to speak 
 ear 
 
 hair 
 
 nails, claws 
 
 X 
 
 broken leg 
 head 
 
 
 W'\ 
 
 ffii 
 
 
 bow 
 
 sign from heaven 
 
 rain 
 
 wings, feathers 
 
 whiskers 
 teeth 
 
 door 
 
 net, caught 
 wagon 
 
 grain for wine 
 
 vase (tripod) 
 salt lands 
 
 bird 
 
 deer 
 
 horse 
 
 tadpole 
 
 tortoise 
 
 Fig. 51. Selections from the 214 Chinese radicals, with their, significance. 
 
I70 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 bol in which the wheels are shown round, despite the 
 views, are illustrated in Fig. 53. The " tadpole " was 
 fearfully and wonderfully devised by the clever Chinese 
 scribe. Likewise the " tortoise " ! 
 
 When it comes to expressing implied meanings, occult 
 ideas, and all the flowery, fanciful ellipsis in which the 
 Chinese love to exercise their minds and Indulge their 
 vocabulary and in which they are such adepts, they exhibit 
 the most marked ingenuity in the combination of symbols 
 to express their particular thought. The analysis of a lim- 
 ited number of these symbols will suffice to explain to us 
 the general character of the majority of them and the 
 fanciful way in which they combine significant characters 
 to produce symbols pregnant with meaning. A Chinese 
 writer says: "A character is not sterile; once bound to 
 another it gives birth to a son, and if joined to another 
 a grandson, and so on." The characters which combined 
 to make up the symbol and convey the intended idea of 
 the word to the mind are for: house, " cover " and " to 
 conceal " ; song, " bird " and " mouth " ; profit, " grain " 
 and a "knife"; errand boy, "man" and "to assist"; 
 to nourish, " roof " and " son "; to preserve, " son " and 
 " man " under a line, denoting " protection "; twins, two 
 " son " signs; brilliant, three " suns "; whisperings in an- 
 other's ear (scandal), three "ears"; the rumbling of 
 carriages, three " wagon " signs ; map, " field " and " pen- 
 cil"; sty, "swine" within a square; furniture, "man" 
 and " fire " (it would be surprising If the Chinese have 
 any saying comparable to our proverb " three removes 
 are as good as a fire ") ; ashes, " fire " and " hand "; man- 
 kind, " man " and " two "; cross-roads, " hill " and " to 
 divide "; rain pattering; " rain " and " words "; winter, 
 "ice " and the obscured " sun " ; to scratch, " hand " and 
 " claws " ; to follow, " three men tandem " ; to carry pig 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 171 
 
 back, a "child" and "one's self" walking; storm, the 
 sign for " rain " surmounted by the sign for a " broom " ; 
 conspicuous, a " mountain " under a line denoting the 
 " sky " ; to curse, " two mouths " and a " man walking " 
 (men seem to have the same unenviable reputation the 
 world over!) ; to love, " woman " and " son "; beautiful, 
 "woman" and "bird"; intelligence, "head" and 
 " movement." " Sincerity " is represented by a man 
 standing beside his " word "; and " tear " by an " eye " 
 and the symbol for " water." A married woman is rep- 
 resented by the signs for a " woman," a " hand " and a 
 " broom." A mare is represented by the sign for 
 " horse " with the " woman " sign beside it. But the same 
 sign also means a " nurse " ! These are but a passing few 
 of the many hundreds of compound symbols for words 
 obtained by combining significant signs. They are charac- 
 teristic of the system in its totality. 
 
 We will now undertake to trace back a few of the 
 common symbols to their origin, or at least to the earliest 
 known archaic form; that the reader may judge for him- 
 self in his examination of these signs of the correctness 
 of the theory of the development of writing from primi- 
 tive pictures, and of the practical universality of the proc- 
 ess. The reader should be warned, however, that the Chi- 
 nese pride themselves, — perhaps unduly, on the facts 
 
 of this process in their writing, and are wont to see 
 strange parallels between their characters and the shapes 
 of objects. Nevertheless, there are so many patent and 
 undisputed correspondences that the evidence is over- 
 whelmingly in favor of their theory and of the practically 
 universal one of primitive picture-writing. It would be 
 idle, as well as foolishly skeptical, to doubt the authenticity 
 of the sequence of development of individual symbols 
 shown in the long series of pictures in their own die- 
 
172 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 tionaries by which the Chinese trace the historic develop- 
 ment of so many of their Individual characters, step by 
 step, from their earliest to their latest forms. These 
 forms have been obtained by the Chinese antiquarians 
 from many authentic sources : — ancient bronzes, coins 
 and sculptured Inscriptions in other imperishable mate- 
 rials. 
 
 Fig. 52 Illustrates a few characters selected mainly 
 from the two hundred and fourteen radicals, giving their 
 archaic prototypes as obtained from ancient dictionaries, 
 manuscripts and from antique bronzes and sculptures. It 
 will be noted how crude the original pictures were and 
 how far the later scribes departed from them. The sun 
 in the second character, " morning," is shown on the hori- 
 zon. The primitive character for " source " is symbolic, 
 but is altogether Intelligible. The Egyptians employed a 
 sign almost identical with this one to indicate " light." 
 The character for " rain " shows the drops beneath the 
 line of the sky, which Is arched In the ancient drawing. In 
 the sign for " thunder " we have represented the sky 
 above with clouds and the thunder beneath them. The 
 character for a " sign in the heavens " Is most interesting. 
 The ancient sign shows the sky line, two stars and the 
 oracle in the shape of a mouth with something of import 
 in It. The modern character Is a very exact counterpart 
 of the ancient sign. The primitive sign for " fire " is de- 
 cidedly representative, and the modern one follows It 
 rather closely. The modern' signs for "eye," "mouth," 
 " nose," " ear," " teeth " and " claws " are rather close 
 copies of the ancient signs, and exhibit no little resem- 
 blance to the real things. The circles and curves have 
 been " squared," but this was the fate of all the archaic 
 Chinese hieroglyphs In theli-' transformation Into the 
 modern brush characters. The modern character for 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 173 
 
 "heart " does not represent it objectively as the ancient 
 sign did, but suggests it functionally, by indicating the 
 drops of blood. In the sign " to steal and secrete " we 
 have a picture of the hand within a box. " Sincere conver- 
 sation " is represented by the picture of a man, a mouth 
 and streams flowing from it. The ancient signs for a 
 " place of rest " and a " hermit " are most suggestive. 
 In both the human figure Is most expressive. The sign for 
 " written documents " may need explanation. In the ear- 
 liest times writing was executed on split bamboo splints 
 which were subsequently tied together. Both signs in 
 their drawing Illustrate this and record the fact. We al- 
 ready have commented In a previous chapter on the use of 
 this sign by other nations. The arrow beside the bird 
 sign in the character for " pheasant " records a tale In 
 regard to the sport-loving peasantry of China. The mod- 
 ern character for " tadpole " is quite a fair reproduction 
 of the early drawing, and is much more successful as a 
 picture than the symbols for animals In general. They 
 mostly are very complicated, and generally have four 
 strokes at the bottom, denoting legs, as shown In the 
 character for " horse " In Fig. 51, with other strokes for 
 ears or horns. The wretched "dragon " could not have 
 been worse caricatured than by the early scribe, so the 
 poor medieval Imitator saved himself further trouble by 
 attempting to follow the original ! 
 
 There are many cases of drollery and humor among the 
 Chinese characters, some probably being accidental but 
 others beyond a doubt exhibiting the native sense of 
 humor of the early scribes. The character for " danger- 
 ous " : j/^ is indicated by a woman, a mouth and the 
 sign for deflected, or crooked; that for "arbitrary": 
 fllX. ^^ ^ ™^"' ^ woman and the sign for crooked; 
 
174 
 
 I II 
 
 O H sun 
 
 P morning 
 
 ^ El source 
 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 I II 
 
 (t) 1+J to hit the center 
 
 Q [51 to steal and secrete 
 
 m'^ I to protect 
 
 ■J' I a written character 
 
 Urn* iM sincere conversation 
 
 r£~\ ^ a place of rest 
 
 constellation 
 
 ^ w 
 
 thunder 
 
 y^ iiu 
 
 a hermit or recluse 
 
 ®^ imm 
 
 
 
 
 jf ^ 
 
 sign in the heaven 
 
 m 1E} 
 
 to till the ground 
 
 ^yc 
 
 fire 
 
 <<i(£P ^ 
 
 watchful 
 
 ^ A 
 
 man 
 
 ^ t 
 
 a fragrant plant 
 
 i T 
 
 child (son) 
 
 
 bow 
 
 © El 
 
 eye 
 
 arrow 
 
 « P 
 
 mouth 
 
 n^^ 
 
 hatchet 
 
 6 li 
 
 nose 
 
 w* m 
 
 written documents 
 
 /I 7T 
 
 
 > 
 
 
 § :&' 
 
 ear 
 
 #^J 
 
 boat 
 
 ^ >h 
 
 heart 
 
 ^ .^i 
 
 fish 
 
 
 teeth 
 
 ki m 
 
 pheasant 
 
 rt< A 
 
 claws 
 
 (%e1 
 
 tadpole 
 
 X© ;^0 
 
 tears 
 
 /uu\ ^Jt„ 
 
 elephant 
 
 A I^ 
 
 to stand erect 
 
 A II 
 
 dragon 
 
 Fig. 52. Evolution of modern Chinese characters from ancient ideographs. 
 Column I, the ancient ideographs. Column II, the modern characters. 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 175 
 
 that for "surfeited": /^ by a man, a woman and a 
 mouth; while for "talkative":/^ just a man and a 
 woman are employed, — this time the man coming first ! 
 "Tyrant ": /it is indicated by a man and the sign for 
 one's self; " quarreling ": P^ by a woman and two 
 
 mouths. " Intrigue " is represented by three woman 
 signs; and " fate " or " good luck " by a man and a spoon. 
 
 The character for wife: ^CffT ™"sists of the sign for 
 woman, the first sign, and that for broom, the upper part 
 of the right hand sign. So far the character is romantic 
 and inoffensive; but it assumes an ominous aspect when 
 we discover that the combined sign on the right is that 
 for " a storm " ! (One may see the streams descending 
 from the sky. ) 
 
 There is a unique domestic sequence, the significance 
 of which must be left to the reader's consideration, be 
 
 he man or woman. "Peace": ^T is represented by a 
 
 woman under a roof; " home ": ^^ by a pig under a 
 
 roof; " to marry a husband " : A^^ by a woman and a 
 pig under a roof ! To be unfortunate is represented thus : 
 
 1211 Is it not to be in a box? A mulberry tree is the 
 picture of a tree with three hands in the branches, — a 
 very poetical representation. The character for " slan- 
 der": "^ili is at once ideographic and fanciful. In it 
 
 we find the three radical signs for words, mouth and 
 mountain. It has no phonetic element. It literally means 
 in English: "making a mountain out of a mole hill." 
 
176 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 This character will serve to illustrate the artistic way in 
 which most of the signs in compound characters are 
 changed in proportion and so arranged as to balance and 
 " square up " the symbol; giving it, as in the majority of 
 Chinese signs, a definite, decorative character. 
 
 In Fig. 53 will be found a few further selections of 
 modern Chinese characters with several examples — as 
 far as we now can judge in progressive order of develop- 
 ment — of the archaic pictures that served for written 
 characters in the ages before conventional writing had 
 developed. They have been taken from the earliest 
 known manuscripts and inscriptions on stone, gems, ivory 
 and bronzes, — weapons, utensils, bells and art objects. 
 It would be difficult for the most skeptical critic — and 
 there are such — of the theory of the descent of written 
 characters from primitive pictures to deny this origin of 
 the Chinese characters, at least many of them. One notes 
 in the characters illustrated a consistent relation between 
 the following symbols In the series, not lost throughout, 
 though the final character may bear but a slight resem- 
 blance to the earliest one. The modern character Is given 
 on the right, at the end of the series. 
 
 The sign for " heaven " originally was very suggestive, 
 but seems early to have degenerated into a purely abstract 
 symbol of no graphic significance whatever. The curving 
 line of rolling cloud masses persists throughout the early 
 ideographs for " cloud." Evidently It represents the con- 
 tour of a cloud, and is suggested in a strange Inversion of 
 position in the modern character by the bottom sign which 
 is that for " crooked." As in many instances in the Chi- 
 nese characters, the original pictorial symbol has been 
 abandoned and the Idea which it represented is expressed 
 in a purely literary form. The dual signs employed to 
 picture the idea of " light," the sun and moon, seem to 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 177 
 
 have 'been used from time immemorial. The symbols for 
 " mountain " have varied throughout their transforma- 
 tions only in the matter of proportion. The several ar- 
 chaic characters for " child " all represent most graph- 
 ically the open sutures of the bones of the head, so peculiar 
 to very young children. They are indicated in the modern 
 character by the broken horizontal line in the middle of 
 the square. The progressive transformation of the char- 
 acters for " ear " is most interesting. The convolutions 
 are well expressed in two of the signs, and the idea is re- 
 tained in the modern symbol as a reminiscence by the two 
 horizontal lines in the middle of the character. Little 
 change of any significance is to be noted in the compound 
 symbols representing " singing"; the modern sign being 
 a conventional but strict interpretation of the earlier 
 forms. The " horse " becomes progressively and regu- 
 larly conventionalized as time advances; the four dashes 
 indicating the four legs being the only representative fea- 
 tures persisting in the modern character. The characters 
 for " wagon," as previously commented upon, are decid- 
 edly representative throughout, being quite as suggestive 
 in the modern rendering and even truer in diagram than 
 in any of the earlier symbols. The different drawings of 
 the " incense vase," though differing greatly in detail, 
 show common features recorded in the final, modern 
 character. 
 
 From what we have shown it appears that the modern 
 Chinese system of writing, though practiced in the 20th 
 century of the Christian era, really is a semi-primitive 
 system. It is not pictorial. It is not strictly ideographic. 
 It certainly is not alphabetic. There probably does not 
 exist another written script similar to it. Its development 
 seems to have been arrested at the critical point where 
 other ideographic and hieroglyphic systems have been 
 
178 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 6} 
 
 
 
 -e 
 
 e- 
 
 €5 
 
 n 
 
 ra 
 
 oe^ 
 
 ^> 
 
 heaven 
 
 | ~|~ | cloud 
 
 light 
 
 /\Aa ill 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 mountain 
 
 child 
 
 ^. a 
 
 — I ear 
 
 -^. 
 
 Pi 
 
 _| singing 
 
 J in) 
 
 horse 
 
 ■wagon 
 
 incense vase 
 
 ^ ¥ K K fff 
 
 Fig. 53. Successive stages of development of Chinese ideographic symbols 
 from the most archaic signs to the modern characters. 
 
 purged of their overburdened signary, first to a limited 
 number of syllabic signs, then to a mere handful of alpha- 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 179 
 
 betic characters derived from this reduced signary. The 
 Chinese written system has not undergone this selective, 
 phonetic process; but retains its lumbering signary, add- 
 ing to it day by day specific signs for new words entering 
 into the vocabulary. Its vast complexity must be the de- 
 spair of the youthful Celestial and the limit of endurance 
 of the patient printer, who must know the exact location 
 in his printery of the fonts of every one of the thousands 
 of characters required in the printing of modern books. 
 Such a thing as a typewriter, a linotype or a monotype 
 machine in China is inconceivable.^ 
 
 Before we proceed to the analysis of another system of 
 writing we will describe the picture-writing of a tribe liv- 
 ing in 'one of the border states of China, but long since 
 under the influence of Chinese civilization. A remarkable 
 pictorial script has somewhat recently been discovered in 
 the prefectures of Li-Kiang and Ho-King in the Chinese 
 province of Yunnan (N. W. Yunnan), just south of 
 Tibet. Here live the Mo-so, considered by the Chinese 
 as one of the aboriginal tribes occupying the country be- 
 fore the intrusion of the Chinese. They speak a Tibetan 
 dialect, not Chinese; and the few among them who can 
 write use either Tibetan or Chinese characters, according 
 to the latitude of the region. In early times the Mo-so 
 were ignorant of writing and used notched sticks, as Chi- 
 nese tradition asserts, and as recorded of them by Marco 
 Polo and referred to by us in the first chapter of this book. 
 The hieroglyphic writings discovered exist in a few rare 
 books which have found their way into Europe, England 
 
 1 As this book goes to press we read of a new simplified, national 
 phonetic writing in China, the Chu Yin Txu-Mu, authorized by the gov- 
 ernment and being officially introduced by it into the country. It consists 
 of thirty-nine symbols, — twenty-four initials, twelve finals and three 
 medials or connecting sounds. With these phonetic symbols every word 
 in the language may be expressed. 
 
i8o A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 and this country. They do not seem to belong to any his- 
 torical line of native paleographical development, and 
 they are still less the current writing of the tribe. Never- 
 theless, Prof. Lacouperie ^ believes that " this sacred 
 writing embodies survivals of the pictorial stage of nota- 
 tion independent of synchronical dates and progresses 
 elsewhere, which seems (within their limited area of self- 
 progress) to be proper to all races of mankind, the white 
 race with exceptions." 
 
 These Mo-so manuscripts are the work of the native 
 priests, the so-called Tong-pas, who are shamanistic sor- 
 cerers, " representing the aboriginal form of religion that 
 obtained in times prior to the introduction of Buddhism 
 among the M'o-so people of Tibet." The hieroglyphic 
 signs are arbitrary and symbolical, " known only to a 
 small number of initiates, who transmit their knowledge 
 to the oldest son and successor in their profession as sor- 
 cerers." 
 
 One of these rare manuscripts lately was presented to 
 the American Geographical Society by Francis H. Nich- 
 ols, author of " Through Hidden Shensi." The author 
 describes the manuscript, which he brought with him on 
 his return from Tibet, as " a book In the Tong-ke, the 
 original language of the Mo-so tribe, who now speak and 
 write Tibetan." " Books like this," says Mr. Nichols, 
 " are exceedingly rare and difficult to obtain. I consider 
 myself fortunate in having secured this manuscript. Part 
 of it I have been able to translate." Unfortunately, this 
 part of Mr. Nichols' papers never has been found, so 
 the manuscript remains untranslated up to the present. 
 
 1 " Beginnings of Writing in and around Tibet," by Terrien de La- 
 couperie, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. XVII. 1885. Lon- 
 don. In this article the author treats of the development of writing in 
 many different countries among primitive peoples, and gives many re- 
 productions in outline of Mo-so pictorial manuscripts. 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 
 
 i»i 
 
 However, the manuscript has been made the subject of a 
 monograph: "The Nichols Mo-so Manuscript," by Ber- 
 thold Laufer, Ph. D., Field Museum of Natural History, 
 Chicago, 111., and we are highly privileged to quote from 
 and use the material of this monograph. 
 
 The manuscript consists of four folios of two pages 
 each of heavy native paper sewed together on the left- 
 hand margin by means of treble, yellow silk threads. We 
 reproduce in Fig. 54 one of the four pages from this 
 manuscript, which are illustrated in fac-simile in Mr. 
 Laufer's pamphlet. The characters appear to be hiero- 
 glyphic, each one being an ideograph directly picturing 
 the object for which it is intended. There are also here 
 and there a very few apparently phonetic characters. The 
 writing is in black Chinese ink executed with a pointed 
 wooden stylus, as at present used by all Tibetan tribes. 
 The disposition of the writing between the long horizon- 
 tal lines, and the division of the space into sections by the 
 short vertical lines, is very similar to the Mexican cate- 
 chism and to the Babylonian tablet writing, which we are 
 soon to examine. It really is remarkable that there should 
 be this similarity in arrangement in systems of writing 
 so widely separated in point of time and geographical 
 location. 
 
 Mr. Laufer in describing the symbols says: " The sec- 
 ond folio (the one shown in our illustration) opens with 
 a design of waves, common to the art of the East in gen- 
 eral. It fulfills a purely ornamental function; likewise the 
 following spiral pattern, which is very frequently found 
 in the beginning of Tibetan books. The first symbols are 
 the sun and moon, or month. The striking characteristic 
 of Mo-so writing is the naive and refreshing realism 
 manifested by the representations bf animal pictures. We 
 see many birds on the wing, well outlined heads of mam- 
 
l82 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
CHINESE IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING 183 
 
 mals, and even complete beasts like a horse, a stag and a 
 tiger. ... In the human face we find the front as well 
 as the profile represented in the Nichols manuscript. As 
 a rule, the human figure is strongly abridged, character- 
 ized by a circle to which lines are attached, marlcing arms 
 and feet. In the first line (of our illustration) we observe 
 the outlines of a house, in the interior of which are stand- 
 ing two persons, the second being distinguished by a head- 
 dress. This design is many times repeated in our text. 
 ... It is an expression of the idea of the family, man 
 and wife in their house. . . . Headgear, presumably a 
 helmet, is met also in connection with warriors brandish- 
 ing a weapon, a symbol meaning ' to fight.' " 
 
 There is another primitive, ideographic system of writ- 
 ing in China, that of the Lo-lo, a tribe showing strong 
 ethnic and linguistic affinities with the Mo-so. They speak 
 a language somewhat similar to the latter and to the 
 Tibetan. Mr. Laufer speaking of this system of writing 
 says : " In the writing 'of the Lo-lo the pictographic char- 
 acteristics, if they ever existed, have disappeared; and the 
 symbols are composed of decidedly geometric elements. 
 They are preeminently ideographic, while Mo-so has a 
 pictographic substratum, with a tendency to strive for 
 simplification. There is no similarity or coincidence be- 
 tween Lo-lo and Mo-so characters." (A Lo-lo manu- 
 script of twenty folios recently has been reproduced in 
 fac-simile by Prof. F. Starr, of the Chicago University.) 
 
 In closing this chapter we again will refer to Lacou- 
 perie's article in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 
 The author is strong in the belief that the Chinese char- 
 acters came from the early Babylonian signs and symbols. 
 He says: "The few thousand written words which 
 formed the whole material of the ancient Chinese books 
 rest on a basis of SQm? five hundred different signs (t?a- 
 
i84 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 dition says 540) ; the oldest forms of the half of these 
 have been preserved. Compared with the few hundred 
 characters which, in the same way, form the basis of the 
 ancient writing of Babylon, they display the most remark- 
 able likeness. Taking into account the allowance to be 
 made for the difference of material used for writing — 
 which has caused the wedge to vanish — their identity is 
 indisputable. This identity goes beyond the mere shapes, 
 sounds and meanings, as many other peculiarities are 
 common to the two writings; the Chinese presenting an 
 imitation, somewhat imperfect, of the other. Compara- 
 tive researches on a scientific footing show, beyond any 
 doubt, that the elements of the early civilization of the 
 Chinese, and the basis of their knowledge and institutions, 
 were borrowed from a region or people connected with 
 the old culture fostered In Babylon." Others have pointed 
 out the general similarity between the Chinese characters 
 and those of the linear Babylonian writing; but no one, 
 we believe, has carried the comparisons quite so far as 
 has Lacouperle. The reader, himself, will note the simi- 
 larity between the symbols engraved on the bone ring. 
 Fig. 49, one of the oldest known Chinese writings, and 
 the most ancient forms of the linear Babylonian writing 
 shown In Fig. 80. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 
 
 Or all the systems of hieroglyphic writing that the people 
 of any age have devised for recording or transmitting 
 thought that of the ancient Egyptians stands preemi- 
 nent, and looms In the popular Imagination as the hiero- 
 glyphic system par excellence. It Is the one that has given 
 Its own and the classic name to all such systems of writing. 
 It maintains this unique position not alone on account of 
 Its historic and romantic associations, but for the artistic 
 perfection, variety and clever Ingenuity of Its wonder- 
 fully fascinating symbols. Nothing in the way of writing 
 ever has equaled the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing for its 
 quaint picturesqueness, its extreme human Interest, or for 
 its beautifully decorative effect, whether sculptured on 
 stone, painted on tombs or written on papyri. Entirely 
 apart from their literary content, the arrangement of the 
 hieroglyphic characters on the temple fagades, friezes, 
 columns, and over the broad wall spaces, added ornamen- 
 tal effectiveness to the architectural construction and en- 
 livened its severe monumental dignity with their pictur- 
 esqueness and variety of detail. 
 
 The exact period of time when the Egyptian hiero- 
 glyphs were evolved Is utterly lost in the impenetrable 
 depths of ancient history. Herodotus saw them in the 
 6th century B. C, and writes that the Egyptian interpreter 
 translated them for him. He calls them by their own 
 Egyptian name which he translated into Greek, — 
 UpoyXvcj>LK6s, or " sacred writings " ; from lepo's, " sacred," 
 
 i8s 
 
1 86 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 and yX.v<j>eiv, " to carve." The earliest Greeks who ever 
 went down Into Egypt, and there is authentic historic evi- 
 dence of their having been there as early as the 8th cen- 
 tury B. c, looked upon the perfected hieroglyphic inscrip- 
 tions at Memphis and other Important centers of Egyp- 
 tian culture, at that time many centuries above a thousand 
 years old. Joseph no doubt learned to read them with 
 ease, and when Moses floated in his tiny ark among the 
 bulrushes of the Nile the neighboring temples that cast 
 their reflections in the swift current of the sacred river, 
 and the subterranean tombs slumbering beneath the warm 
 sands in their vicinity, bore Inscriptions that had been read 
 by successive generations of Egyptians for untold cen-- 
 turles. Indeed, before the Greeks had emerged from bar- 
 barism or Abraham had founded Judea or the pyramids 
 were, the hieroglyphs had been invented and were in use 
 as a national writing In lower Egypt for many centuries. 
 
 Civilization developed early and rapidly In the Nile 
 valley, and the " dawn of history " broke upon the early 
 culture of this fertile valley ages before its first faint glim- 
 merings penciled the rougher lands of Europe. Writing 
 in an advanced stage of development, we may say In Its 
 final stage, antedated the pyramids, those early mile 
 stones of history, by many centuries of advanced culture. 
 Ameha B. Edwards, In " A Thousand Miles up the Nile," 
 says : " The Egyptians invented their alphabet so incon- 
 ceivably long ago that they were In the full possession of 
 vowels and consonants and the art of spelling words by 
 means of letters instead of syllables, when they carved 
 the oldest inscriptions In existence." Champollion, the 
 younger, son of the renowed French savant who discov- 
 ered the key and first translated the hieroglyphs, says: 
 " One seeks In vain in all Egypt for traces of the infancy 
 of writing. The greater part of existing edifices upon the 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 187 
 
 ancient soil appear to be not first essays, but a renaissance 
 of the art of a civilization that had been interrupted by an 
 invasion of barbarians anterior to the year 2000 before 
 the Christian era. The Inscriptions which decorate these 
 monuments show us, in effect, the hieroglyphic writing 
 already as complete in form as the last sculptured writings 
 of the Egyptians of the second and third centuries after 
 Christ." 
 
 It Is no mere flight of fancy to say that in her burled 
 tombs and porphyry sarcophagi, in her ruined temples 
 with their gigantic statues, Egypt renews her youth and 
 breathes again her ancient life in every mummy exhumed 
 from her pregnant sands; a living death, a deathless life, 
 strangely and prophetically substantiating her ancient 
 belief In the resurrection of the soul after 3,000 years of 
 transmigration. Rameses the Great, lying — or rather 
 standing — In the Boulak Museum in Cairo, eloquent of 
 the history of the sesqui-millennium before Christ, mutely 
 communes with the moderns of the closing years of the 
 sesqui-millennium after Christ. His grandiloquent In- 
 scriptions on the temples with which he covered Egypt 
 can be read to-day with as much ease as the writing of 
 any existing nation. But for long ages up to the opening 
 years of the last century these hieroglyphic Inscriptions 
 were as a sealed book. They were not only undecipher- 
 able, but the fact that they were inscriptions at all seri- 
 ously was questioned. 
 
 In Rome there had stood since the time of the Caesars 
 as many as twelve Egyptian obelisks brought from Egypt 
 by the early emperors to adorn the temples of the Eternal 
 City. The import of their hieroglyphic Inscriptions was 
 not even guessed for over eighteen hundred years. It 
 was not until Napoleon's spectacular invasion of Egypt 
 offered the opportunity, that the decipherment of the 
 
i88 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Egyptian hieroglyphs was finally attempted and consum- 
 mated. Every student is familiar with the story, now an 
 historic romance, how Boussard, a young French artillery 
 officer, discovered in the year 1799 near Rosetta, a few 
 miles from Alexandria, the now famous Rosetta Stone 
 (Fig. 55), a slab of slate containing a tri-lingual inscrip- 
 tion in hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek writing. The 
 Greek inscription of course could be read; but the 
 hieroglyphic, the sacred writing of the Egyptian monu- 
 ments, and the demotic, the writing of the educated Egyp- 
 tian people, were undecipherable, being In the unknown 
 characters of an unknown tongue. The world long had 
 awaited the genius of French initiative and scholarship 
 to unlock the mysteries of Egyptian epigraphy and was 
 Immediately to be enlightened. Jean Francois Cham- 
 poUion, a noted French scholar, turned his attention to 
 the inscriptions and applied his scholarship to their trans- 
 lation with the most memorable success. He detected 
 and rightly guessed that the name of Ptolemy, plainly 
 read in the Greek inscription, was contained within the 
 cartouches or ovals, several times repeated throughout 
 the hieroglyphic inscription. It is now known that the 
 royal names always were so written within these car- 
 touches. Champollion previously had seen on the Island 
 of Phllse, before the Temple of Isis, an obelisk, since re- 
 moved to Corfe Castle, England, with a single vertical 
 line of hieroglyphs down the middle of each face con- 
 sisting mainly of cartouches similar to those In the 
 Rosetta inscription. Fortunately, at the base of this 
 obelisk were two Inscriptions in Greek, a petition to 
 Ptolemy Euergetes II, consort of Queen Cleopatra, by 
 the priests of the Temple of Isis, and the reply of the 
 king. The Inscriptions are so historically interesting that 
 we cannot quite resist this appeal from the depths of 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS i8g 
 
 Fig. 55. The Rosetta Stone. Original in the British Museum, London. 
 
I90 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 time, feeling sure that we shall not lose the interest of the 
 reader if we venture to reproduce them here; they are 
 so very human in their implications, even if the social 
 amenities existing between traveler and entertainer were 
 so completely reversed from our sordid modern days ! 
 The petition of the priests is as follows : 
 
 " To King Ptolemy and Queen Cleopatra his sister 
 and Queen Cleopatra his wife, gods Euergetae, welfare : 
 We, the priests of Isis the very great goddess (wor- 
 shiped) in Abaton and Philae, seeing that those who 
 visit Philae, — generals, chiefs, governors of districts in 
 the Thebaid, royal scribes, chiefs of police, and all other 
 functionaries, as well as their soldiers and other attend- 
 ants, oblige us to provide for them during their stay, the 
 consequence of which is that the temple is impoverished 
 and we run the risk of not having enough for the cus- 
 tomary sacrifices and oblations offered for you and for 
 your children, do therefore pray you, O great gods, if 
 it seem right to you, to order Numenius, your cousin 
 and secretary, to write to Lochus, your cousin and gov- 
 ernor of the Thebaid, not to disturb us in this manner, 
 and not to allow any other person to do so, and to give 
 us authority to this effect, that we may put up a stele 
 with an inscription commemorating your beneficence to- 
 ward us on this occasion, so that your gracious favor 
 may be recorded forever; which being done, we and the 
 Temple of Isis, shall be indebted to you for this among 
 other favors. Hail." 
 
 Here follows the King's order: 
 
 " King Ptolemy and Queen Cleopatra the sister and 
 Queen Cleopatra the wife, to Lochus our brother, greet- 
 ing: Of the petition addressed to us by the priests of 
 Isis in Abaton and Philae, we place a copy below, and 
 you will do well to order that on no account they be 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 191 
 
 molested in those matters which they have declared to 
 us. Hail." 
 
 Little did these very clever priests of Isis dream that 
 this stele, erected through such a transparent but suc- 
 cessful palaver to the august Ptolemy, ultimately would 
 become a potent factor in -the decipherment of the 
 hieroglyphs in which the inscription was written; far 
 transcending in importance the trivial cause of its dedica- 
 tion and erection. Champollion in his investigations noted 
 the similarity of the cartouches of Ptolemy in the Rosetta 
 stone and on the obelisk of Philae and subsequently iden- 
 tified the cartouches of Cleopatra in the latter inscrip- 
 tion. By the help of common letters in the two names 
 he soon was able to assign phonetic values to the twelve 
 different hieroglyphic characters in these three cartouches. 
 
 The reader will find the cartouche of Ptolemy in the 
 bottom line of our reproduction of Line XIV of the 
 Rosetta Stone (Fig. 57) and in the central cartouche 
 of the three cartouches given in Fig. 56, reproduced 
 from " Dictionnaire E'gyptien en E'criture Hierogly- 
 phique " by Champollion the Younger, who completed 
 in 1 841 the great work begun by his illustrious father. 
 The name Ptolemy (Ptolmais) is spelled the same way in 
 both cartouches, as follows: the " square " (a shutter or 
 door), P; the "semicircle" (a cap or stone polisher), 
 T; the " knotted cord," O; the " lion," L; the " tongs," 
 M; the two " reeds," AI; and the " crochet " or " yoke," 
 S. The remaining signs in the cartouche, as translated in 
 Line XIV of the Rosetta Stone, read: " ever-living, be- 
 loved of Ptah." The two cartouches of Cleopatra (Fig. 
 56), read downward, the same as all vertical cartouches 
 on the Egyptian monuments; but the horizontal reading 
 where there are two hieroglyphs side by side differs in 
 the two cartouches. As indicated by the facing of the 
 
192 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 pictures as one reads — as far as we know a universal 
 custom in all hieroglyphic writings — the left-hand car- 
 touche reads from right to left, the general custom 
 throughout all Oriental writing, while the right-hand one 
 reads from left to right. Many instances of this counter 
 direction in reading is found in the Egyptian hieroglyphs. 
 The name Cleopatra (Kleopatra) is spelled as follows 
 in the cartouches: the "quadrant," K; the "lion," L; 
 the "reed," I (English E) ; the "knotted cord," O; 
 the "shutter," P; the "eagle," A; the "hand," T; the 
 "mouth," R; and the " eagle," A. The remaining hier- 
 oglphs are determinative signs, used precisely as the 
 Chinese employ their radical signs, to indicate the par- 
 ticular meaning and to avoid misconception through 
 similarity of sound. The egg indicates the feminine gen- 
 der, and the image that the one intended is a deified 
 person. 
 
 ^1 
 
 \^A^j 
 
 \. I 
 
 r^\ 
 
 rliiiiiri. 
 
 Fig. 56. Cartouches of Egyptian monarchs. i and 3, Cartouches of 
 Cleopatra. 2, Cartouche of Ptolemy. 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 193 
 
 This was the clue, rather a slight one, it must be ad- 
 mitted, upon which Champollion had to work. But slen- 
 der as was the thread and extensive as was the tangled 
 tapestry of concealed thought that he had to unravel, 
 after many years of painstaking and tireless effort, aided 
 by rare scholarship and assisted by a knowledge of the 
 Coptic language, the language of the modern fellaheen, 
 which proves to be quite the same as the ancient Egyp- 
 tian, Champollion, assisted largely by his son, eventually 
 translated the entire inscription on the Rosetta Stone 
 and restored the ancient language of the hieroglyphs. No 
 more superb example of scholarship ever was consum- 
 mated, and the entire world of letters to-day acknowl- 
 edges its deep indebtedness to these brilliant French 
 scholars.^ 
 
 The Rosetta inscription, as will be seen, consists of 
 fourteen lines of hieroglyphic, thirty-two lines of demotic 
 and fifty-four lines of Greek writing. It turned out to 
 be a decree of apotheosis of another Ptolemy, Ptolemy 
 Epiphanes, King of Egypt (204-180). To give the 
 reader a better idea of this memorable inscription we have 
 reproduced from William Osbourn's " The Monu- 
 mental History of Egypt," line XIV, the concluding line 
 of the inscription (Fig. 57) . It is reversed from the orig- 
 inal, as the reader will see by comparing it with the re- 
 production of the stone itself, in order to read with 
 the Greek and English from left to right. The inscrip- 
 tion at once reveals to us the peculiar nature of Egyp- 
 tian hieroglyphic writing. The characters are largely 
 pictorial, and one sees images, parts of the human body, 
 an owl, a bee, a snail, plants, implements, as well as con- 
 
 ilt is recorded that Dr. Thomas Young, the noted English scientist 
 and scholar, as early as i8i8 assigned the proper phonetic value to six 
 of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. 
 
194 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 M 
 
 
 WQ H 
 
 schai 
 
 pn hi 
 
 koi nte - nsht 
 
 writing 
 
 this upon 
 
 a tablet of hard stone 
 Tepeou \i8o\i 
 
 X r- 
 
 : T(i 
 
 T&i n 1/ 
 
 rt- m m 
 
 schai n 
 
 - ntr - tu schai n 
 
 granite in 
 
 writing 
 
 sacred, writing of 
 
 Tois re 
 
 
 iepois KOI 
 
 
 n\\y^ 
 
 m^i s 
 
 sha'i 
 
 schai - n 
 
 rta 
 
 the country, 
 
 writing of 
 
 the Greeks, that it may 
 
 e7xwp'<»s Kai 
 
 
 'EWiji/iKois Kat 
 
 V:^ ik lU 
 
 ra 
 
 X 
 
 ka....f 
 
 m 
 
 be set up 
 
 in 
 
 arriaai 
 
 eveKc 
 
 cx-x OCX ocrx 
 
 1 II 
 
 i II 
 
 mre - ei - hk nb - hi - rn 
 
 the temples of Egypt all in the King's name 
 
 a* 
 
 ■^2 f y !€> 
 
 mmh - I mh - II mh - in r-ma sl-nt n 
 
 of the first, second, third where (is) consecrated image of 
 
 (degrees) 
 TWj/ re TrpoJTojv Kat devT. 
 
 St 
 
 the King 
 
 ^a s<o 
 
 W^nM 1^ nx 
 
 Ptolmais - enh - pth - mei ntr - hr nb - nfru 
 
 Ptolemy, ever-living, beloved of Phtah, god Epiphanes, very gracious. 
 
 Fig. 57. Line XIV of the Rosetta Stone, with phonetic and Greek 
 transliterations. 
 
 ventlonal geometric figures. By the accompanying trans- 
 lation, given in parallel, it will be noted that the char- 
 acters are largely phonetic signs, but that purely Ideo- 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 195 
 
 graphic signs also are employed. For instance, the word 
 for " writing," schai, in the opening word of the line, 
 is spelled phonetically, but with the added figure of a 
 man in the attitude of writing. The next time the word 
 occurs it is not spelled out at all, but is represented 
 ideographically by a picture of a split reed used for writ- 
 ing attached to a cord from which is suspended the hang- 
 ing ink bottle carried by the scribes. That is, the word 
 is suggested by the picture of the writing materials. This 
 hieroglyph occurs twice in the second line. The word 
 " tablet," koi, is first spelled phonetically, then the pic- 
 ture of a tablet immediately follows for more perfect 
 identification, precisely as the Chinese do. The words for 
 " image " and " king " are not spelled out phonetically 
 but are represented, the one ideographically by the pic- 
 ture of a man, the other symbolically as a metaphor. 
 The character for " name," in the phrase: " in the king's 
 name," is represented symbolically by a blank cartouche. 
 
 Before entering upon our brief analysis of the Egyp- 
 tian hieroglyphic system of writing we will give one or 
 two characteristic specimens of the inscriptions. Fig. 58 
 is a reoroduction of the celebrated obelisk in Central 
 Park, New York City, popularly known as " Cleopatra's 
 Needle." It is one of the few obelisks outside of Egypt. 
 There is one in London on the Thames Embankment, 
 removed there in 1877. Another is in Paris, removed 
 there in 1843 from the Temple of Luxor, where Rameses 
 II — Rameses the Great — erected it sometime in the 
 1 6th century, B. C. There is another in Constantinople 
 bearing the cartouche of Thothmes III, set up by the Em- 
 peror Theodosius in 399 A. D. ; besides several in Rome, 
 as we already have mentioned. 
 
 The Central Park Obelisk and its companion on the 
 Thames Embankment, also called by our English cousins 
 
196 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Fig. 58. Egyptian Obelisk in Central Park, New York City. 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 197 
 
 " Cleopatra's Needle," stood together for hundreds of 
 years in Alexandria, Egypt. The Romans had removed 
 them from the ruins of the Temple of On, Heliopolis, 
 where they were erected by Thothmes III in the i6th 
 century B. c, to adorn the Temple of Caesar in the year 
 22 B. c. The New York obelisk was presented to that 
 city by the generous Ismail, Khedive of Egypt, and trans- 
 ported to this country in 1880. The view shown in the 
 illustration is the east face, which, like the north one, 
 Is entirely uninjured except at the extreme bottom; the 
 hieroglyphs being wonderfully preserved by reason of 
 their strong intaglio relievo. As will be noted, there are 
 three vertical rows of hieroglyphs in each face. The 
 hieroglyphs in the central row in each face relate to 
 Thothmes III and probably were cut by his directions; 
 spaces being left for his successors, whether intentionally 
 or not it is hard to say. The. hieroglyphic inscriptions on 
 the outside lines relate to Rameses II, and doubtless were 
 cut by his orders; the spaces on the obelisk being appro- 
 priated by this spacious and spectacular monarch for his 
 glorification. And amply has he taken advantage of the 
 opportunity — as was his custom — to resort to grandilo- 
 quent language. Since the hieroglyphic characters are so 
 clear in the illustration, we will g*e a full translation 
 of the inscription, based on the interpretation of the two 
 scholarly Egyptologists, Brugsch and Chaba. 
 
 Left-Hand Line 
 
 Horus: the Strong Bull 
 
 Son of the Sun-God Kheper. 
 
 The King of Upper and Lower Egypt 
 
 (Ra-user-ma-Sotep-en-Ra) , 
 
 The Chosen One of the Sun, 
 
 The Golden Horus. 
 
198 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Rich in years; Grand in victories. 
 
 Son of the Sun, 
 
 (Ramessu Meriamun). 
 
 He issued from the loins 
 
 To receive the crowns from the 
 
 Sun God Ra, 
 Who created him to be the 
 
 Sole Monarch, 
 Lord of the two Worlds. 
 (Ra-user-ma-Sotep-en-Ra) . 
 
 Son of the Sun. 
 (Ramessu Meriamun) 
 The Splendor of Osiris 
 
 Like the Sun. 
 
 Center Line 
 
 Horus: the Strong Bull 
 
 Crowned in Thebes 
 
 The Lord of Diadems 
 
 His Kingdom is as lasting as the 
 
 Sun in the Heavens. 
 
 (Beloved of Tum, Lord of On (He- 
 
 liopolis) , Son of his loins 
 
 Thoth created him Thothmes) . 
 
 They created him in the Grand Hall 
 
 From the "rfection of their own limbs, 
 
 Being conscious of the Great Deeds 
 
 he was to accomplish. 
 He whose Kingdom should be of 
 
 long duration. 
 The King of Upper and Lower Egypt 
 ( Ra-men-Kheper) , 
 Beloved of Tum, the Great God, 
 
 and of 
 The Circle of his Divinities. 
 He who gives all Life, Stability 
 and Happiness. 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 199 
 
 Right-Hand Line 
 Horus: the Strong Bull, 
 Beloved of the Sun-God Ra, 
 King of Upper and Lower Egypt 
 ( Ra-User-ma-Sotep-en-Ra) 
 The Chosen One of the Sun 
 Possessor of the Two Worlds. 
 Son of the Sun, 
 (Ramessu Meriamun). 
 A handsome and Kind Hearted Youth: 
 Resplendent as the Solar Orb on the Horizon. 
 Lord of the Two Worlds 
 ( Ra-user-ma-Sotep-en-Ra ) . 
 The Chosen One of the Sun 
 Son of the Sun 
 (Ramessu Meriamun). 
 The Reflected Splendor of 
 The God Turn 
 Who gives Life. 
 
 Possibly the reader may be able to make some sense 
 out of the hieroglyphic Inscriptions on this obehsk, the 
 characters are so largely ideographic. If he will exam- 
 ine with a reading glass the right-hand vertical column 
 of hieroglyphs, he may, after a fashijj^n, be able to follow 
 the translation. Above the upper cartouche — Indicated 
 by brackets in the printed translation — Is a bee, the 
 character employed for " king " and selected on account 
 of the bee's wonderful faculty for organization. Below 
 the cartouche " the chosen one of the sun " is repre- 
 sented in person seated beside the sun, which Is shown as 
 a circle. Above the middle cartouche the " son of the 
 sun " is represented by a goose and the circle of the sun. 
 The goose being especially delectable to the Egyptians, 
 its picture was used by them to Indicate a child, more 
 
200 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 particularly a son. Below the third cartouche Is the same 
 character with the corresponding significance. The phrase 
 " resplendent as the solar orb on the horizon " is rep- 
 resented ideographically by rays radiating from the orb 
 of the sun, while the horizon Is represented by the sun 
 just above a curved line, almost precisely as the Ojibwa 
 and Chinese represented it. 
 
 Not alone have the sculptured monuments of Egypt 
 supplied us with specimens of the beautiful writing of 
 these talented Orientals of antiquity. They are the most 
 conspicuous examples of the art, and challenge our at- 
 tention and admiration from almost every standing ruin 
 or. fallen architrave throughout the land. They are for 
 the greater part the proud glorifications of the kings 
 and of their mighty achievements over their enemies 
 extending over a score of centuries from the time of 
 the great pyramids — which by the way are notably silent, 
 being probably the work of alien conquerors, about 3000 
 B. c. — to the Ptolemies in the 3rd century before Christ. 
 It is from the tombs of Egypt, brilliant with their frescoed 
 inscriptions on walls and ceilings recounting the dally life, 
 the moral and religious aspirations of the deceased kings, 
 priests, courtiers and civilians, that we obtain some of 
 the most valued and' intimate records of the past of this 
 truly wonderful people. It is from the tombs also, where 
 they have been presecved from Injury through the ages 
 of political vicissitudes, that there have come the prlce- 
 les papyri, examples of which are scattered through the 
 museums of Europe. 
 
 Many of these papyri are transcriptions of the 
 very ancient " Book of the Dead," a work correspond- 
 ing in Its moral and spiritual thought to the He- 
 brew scriptures. There are many versions of It ex- 
 tant, all characterized by lofty and inspiring religious 
 
5' „;; THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 201 
 
 ideals dnd aspirations. They are variously entitled: 
 '' dhaptfers of the Coming Forth by Day," " Chapters 
 of Making Strong the Beatified Spirit," etc.; but the 
 most common hame for these books of the sacred litera- 
 ture of the Egyptians is the one first given, the " Book 
 of the Dead." Many of the passages in these papyri are 
 as noble in thought, broad in humanity and devout in true 
 religious spirit as anything ever penned by the Hebrew 
 prophets. This is said with no discredit to the lofty 
 thought of the Old Testament, but as the highest eulog- 
 ium of the Egyptian sacred writings. The papyri consist 
 of sheets of beautiful, fine paper made from the papyrus 
 plant neatly glued together in long strips and subse- 
 quently rolled up and tied with a cord. A picture of one 
 of tliese papyrus rolls with the cord tied about it may be 
 seen in the third character beneath the horizontal line 
 in the first word in the inscription given in Fig. 60. Some 
 of these papyri are very long. The Papyrus of Ani is 78 
 feet long. That of Nebseni from Thebes, 1600 B. c, is 
 77 feet long. The Papyrus of Nu, one of the oldest, is 
 65 feet long. 
 
 One of the most perfect of the Egyptian papyri is that 
 of Hu-nefer, Hu the Good, found^at Thebes. It is 18 
 feet long and of superb artistic execution, being drawn in 
 color with illuminated chapter, rubrics and important 
 words in red. Hu-nefer was the overseer of the palace, 
 inspector of cattle and scribe to his august majesty Seti I, 
 King of Egypt, about 1370 B. c. We give in Fig. 59 > 
 a reproduction of the beginning of the Papyrus Hu-nefer. 
 It is one of the many versions of the " Book of the 
 Dead." The inscription opens with a hymn to Ra and 
 Osiris. It begins in the left-hand upper corner and reads 
 
 iFrom "The Book of the Dead." E. A. Wallis Budge, Keeper of the 
 Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum. 
 
202 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 v<^.^y^^WJ\ N^t: 
 
 
 i ?lg^f^^g^'SM?^gi);]lK'^i;gi?^JiT{S\r.i^fi^£^ 
 
 \\nMm\'<-\mm¥:^^-mmw 
 
 r^a'ilN^;l>-.=^tvNi^':'^\t]^Hi?l':?,c ^,i 
 
 J<:<irc^l 
 
 #^€;5H^li:ir-Mrg-SJiiai-^#»}'Kl:Bi/iaHm 
 
 lIIIi3a^^liWSMlS±l^MMM!13M 
 
 i3^MiH]SS?!iMMlii5^^MMM^ 
 
 EMMHlEllllv-i 
 
 ^ti^ S&i^°t^li#®i^i'illi^'^'iOi]3lgl>em 
 
 ^Hv^S}f:S:;1i 
 
 SBXiSi^i^H^i'^Gl^^.giil^lMl 
 
 >:N4a:ll.o?rJJiVHQg^Jl',I^J<Hu^30S]^iqia3>! 
 
 liiMliMiMiSiilSSSSll 
 
 SS^MMB 
 
 iMaiMi 
 
 ^Siiai 
 
 ilM^iMSM 
 
 aiilNai'^^l 
 
 I^i^l^HI,. 
 
 1111^^ 
 
 ::^;5I"1l5M^iy 
 
 3 
 
 a 
 n 
 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 203 
 
 downward and to the right in the nine vertical columns 
 over the beautiful vignette of Hu-nefer and his wife, then 
 continuing in the long vertical columns from left to right, 
 interrupted by pictures and vignettes throughout its en- 
 tire length. Though the progression of the writing in 
 the hieroglyphs Is downward In the vertical columns and 
 from left to right as the columns run. In each long hori- 
 zontal line where there is more than one hieroglyph the 
 reading is from right to left. In this connection a re- 
 mark by Herodotus concerning the Egyptians Is inter- 
 esting. He says: " When they write or calculate, instead 
 of going like the Greeks from left to right, they move 
 their hand from right to left; and they Insist, notwith- 
 standing, that it Is they who go to the right and the 
 Greeks who go to the left " (Herodotus, Book II, Chap- 
 ter 36). Herodotus probably did not know that his 
 ancestors in Greece only a few hundred years before his 
 time wrote like the Egyptians and Orientals from right 
 to left. 
 
 In Fig. 60 we give Budge's transliteration and transla- 
 tion in Egyptian and English of the nine vertical columns 
 of hieroglyphs over the vignette of Hu-nefer and his wife, 
 ending with the first character at the top of the tenth 
 column, the first' long column of hieroglyphs. As In the 
 translation of the Rosetta Stone, the characters are re- 
 versed to read with the English from left to right. As 
 the characters are larger and clearer than in our repro- 
 duction of the original papyrus, an analysis of them is 
 more practicable. Again we find, as in the Inscription on 
 the Rosetta Stone, numerous pictures, recognizable in 
 most cases, of birds, animals, men and utensils ; Including 
 the chicken, owl, beetle, crane, snail, serpent, images, men 
 and parts of men, — head, foot, arm, leg, hand, eye and 
 mouth; also a lute, bowl, tongs, vases, and other objects; 
 
204 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 as well as representations of the sun, stars, heaven, the 
 horizon and many other symbols. 
 
 The word Hu-nefer in the second line is spelled al- 
 phabetically throughout. The square " scroll " is h, the 
 " chicken " is u, the " lute " is n (in some cases nefer), 
 the " snail " is /, and the " mouth " r. The statue is an 
 indicative character and informs us that this is the name 
 of a man. Ancient Oriental languages always had a 
 strange aversion for vowels. Some were indicated while 
 others had to be supplied by the reader. In the 
 Phoenician writing there were no true vowels, as we 
 shall discover later on. In the first line the word keft is 
 spelled phonetically. The " shaded circle " is k, the 
 " snail " is /, and the " semicircle " is t. Again, uhen-f, 
 " he riseth," also is spelled phonetically. The " chick " is 
 u, the " leg " is b, the " zigzag " line, which primar- 
 ily represents water, is n, and the " snail " is /. Again e 
 is suppressed and must be supplied. Lest this word might 
 be confounded with a homophone of a different meaning, 
 the sun is shown with its scintillating rays of light, to 
 indicate the particular meaning in the text. The first word 
 in the second line, pet, is spelled alphabetically; the 
 " square " being p, and the " semicircle " t; then the ideo- 
 graph of the sky, quite the same as the Ojibwa and Chi- 
 nese, is added for identification. When the word occurs 
 again in the fifth line, it is represented only ideographic- 
 ally. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the Egyptian hieroglyphs con- 
 sist of alphabetic, syllabic and ideographic signs used side 
 by side often in the same word. It was not always neces- 
 sary. The alphabetic signs after they were evolved out 
 of the original ideographs were all-sufficient; but the 
 Egyptians were notably conservative. They loved the 
 beauty and variety of their written characters, as well they 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 205 
 
 ^•41 !^ 4^JSi— k ^ -■ 
 
 tua Rd xeft uben - f em xut dhiet eat 
 
 Adoration of Ra when he riseth in the horizon eastern of 
 
 a a 
 
 pel an Ausar Hu-nefer madxcru t'et-f anet' - lira- k 
 
 heaven. Behold Osiris Hu-nefer, triumphant, he saith ; Homage to thee, 
 
 Rd em uben - f Temu em heiep - f uhen - k 
 
 Ra in his rising. Temu in his setting. Tliou risest 
 
 t ^\\\°-^ n ^-m k V ll ^ 
 
 Sep sen pest - k sep sen xdd - 9 em sutenet neteru entek 
 
 (twice), thou shinest (twice), diademed as king of the gods. Thou art 
 
 neb pet neb ta ari heru 
 
 lord of heaven, lord of earth, maker of the beings of heaven 
 
 ffl 
 
 ,Mi i^iil 1 ^-ko"*; t 
 
 Xeru neter ud Xeper em sep tep 
 
 and of the beings of earth, God One, who came into being in time primeval. 
 
 
 1 !■ i A^..VA 
 
 ari taiu qema rexit art Nu qema 
 
 maker of the world, creator of mankind, maker of the god Nu, creator of 
 
 Hdpi ari net se-dnx am 
 
 Hapi, Creator of the watery abyss, making to live what is therein, 
 
 se-Ses tuu se-xeper reQ 
 
 binding fast the mountains, making to come into existence men and women. 
 
 Fig. 6o. Transliteration of the first nine columns of hieroglyphs of the 
 Papyrus Hu-nefer 
 
2o6 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 might, and were loath to lose any of them from their 
 signary. In consequence, although having an extensive 
 alphabet of characters sufficient for every possible ele- 
 mental sound in their vocabulary, and many duplicate 
 characters of the same letter, for varying meanings and 
 references, they used also the syllabic characters em- 
 ployed in the older signary, and the representative pic- 
 tures used before either syllabic or alphabetic hieroglyphs 
 were invented. It is true that the ideographic, Interpre- 
 tative pictures, met with so frequently in later Egyptian 
 writing, are comparatively rare In the most ancient writ- 
 ing. Probably as the homophones in the language multi- 
 plied it became increasingly necessary, or was the custom, 
 to employ these Ideographs more extensively as deter- 
 minative signs. 
 
 The reader by this time must be eager to see and refer 
 to the Egyptian alphabet, that he may himself be able 
 to spell out the hieroglyphic words; for the majority 
 of the characters are alphabetic, though there are many 
 ideographs and syllabic signs that make the reading of 
 the Egyptian hieroglyphs somewhat difficult. Possibly 
 he already has learned to recognize many of these char- 
 acters, for in the cartouches examined and in the inscrip- 
 tion on the Rosetta Stone and In the perusal of the In- 
 scription of Hu-nefer he has met with a large majority 
 of the common alphabetic signs employed by the Egyp- 
 tians. We say common, for the Egyptians employed a 
 large number of different hieroglyphic signs for 'the same 
 alphabetic sound, choosing them according to the senti- 
 ment. Implication, and In some cases the delicacy of the 
 context. For example, in the case of the letter L, if it 
 occurred in the name of man, the " Hon " was used; In 
 the name of a queen, the " lotus " was employed. There 
 were twenty different A's to choose from, thirty H's, and 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 
 
 207 
 
 AAA^^^ 
 
 .^::^ 
 
 ', a 
 
 labyrinth h (soft) 
 
 twisted loop h 
 
 double reed ai 
 
 0= 
 
 shovel 
 ^ chair back 
 crochet 
 
 VT 
 
 tank 
 cup 
 
 kh 
 
 ch 
 
 sh 
 k 
 
 P 
 f 
 
 owl m 
 
 tongs 
 
 zigzag (water) n 
 
 mouth r 
 
 j) cerastes 
 
 lion 1 X 
 
 Fig. 61. The common Egyptian alphabet. 
 
 quadrant or kne« 
 
 qor 
 
 k 
 
 altar 
 
 g 
 
 
 polisher or cap 
 
 t 
 
 
 hand 
 
 d,t 
 
 
 looped cord 
 
 th 
 
 
 many different duplicates of nearly every letter in their 
 alphabet. 
 
 In Fig. 61 we give a table of the Egyptian alphabetic 
 characters with their names and phonetic values. It is 
 not arranged historically, as it contains signs used in the 
 earliest period together with a few evolved in later times. 
 The alphabet employee! in the Old Kingdom consisted of 
 23 characters, chiefly consonants. The vowels came first, 
 but they mostly were disguised sounds. The first one, the 
 "eagle," was hardly a, but a mere breathing. So also 
 was the " arm." The " chick " represented a sound 
 
2o8 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 something like our w. The two " reeds " and the alterna- 
 tive parallel lines, ai; the alternative characters for u 
 and for m; the " Hon," /; and the alternative characters 
 for i are not included in the ancient alphabet, although 
 they were employed by the Egyptians In their hieroglyphic 
 writing for many centuries. The hieroglyph of the 
 " mouth " originally was used alike for the two conso- 
 nants I and r, the context alone indicating the one In- 
 tended. Later when the need of differentiating and ex- 
 pressing both consonants became necessary or desirable, 
 the " mouth " was retained as the symbol for r, and the 
 " Hon " was chosen to Indicate /. The selection of the 
 Hon to represent the consonant / was made on the prin- 
 ciple of aerology, already explained and further to be 
 Illustrated in connection with the evolution of the Egyp- 
 tian alphabet. The native name of the lion, labo, began 
 with I, as in our English name; consequently the lion was 
 chosen from among other words beginning with / on ac- 
 count of Its appropriateness as a symbol, or possibly its 
 claim upon the popular Imagination. 
 
 By far the greater number of the alphabetic signs as 
 well as most of the hieroglyphs used by the Egyptians 
 were pictorial. There are very few conventional or 
 geometric symbols. ChampolHon has classified the 
 hieroglyphic characters as follows : — heavenly bodies, 
 the human figure and Its parts, domestic and wild ani- 
 mals, birds, reptiles, fishes, Insects, plants, fruits, flowers, 
 clothing, furniture, armor, utensils, Instruments, build- 
 ings, geometric forms and grotesque Images. In the al- 
 phabet given one finds the eagle, reed, extended arm, 
 chicken, leg, shutter, snail, owl, flowing water, mouth, 
 Hon, twisted cord, shovel, tank, bowl, altar, cap, hand, 
 tongs and the serpent. These signs were the ones most 
 commonly used, and constitute what may be considered 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 
 
 20Q 
 
 the Egyptian alphabet proper. But the Egyptians used a 
 very much more extensive palette in their word painting, 
 having as we have said many duplicate signs and a great 
 number of syllabic symbols. We give in Figure 62 a few 
 additional alphabetic and syllabic signs in frequent use in 
 the inscriptions through hundreds of years. Among the 
 symbols we recognize a crane, battlement, hoe, stylus, 
 lute, knotted cord, headdress, throwing stick, plants, 
 feather, lasso,. whip and the plan of a house. This list 
 practically constitutes a secondary alphabet. Yet we 
 could add to it many more symbols that the Egyptians 
 frequently used for the sake of variety, as we use different 
 words of the same meaning to avoid repetition and re- 
 dundancy. 
 
 Let us consider now how the Egyptians came by their 
 
 |l 1 1 1 1 1 1 , draughts board m 
 vj^ hoe m 
 
 T 
 
 
 stylus 
 
 lute 
 
 knotted cord 
 
 headdress 
 
 throwing stick s 
 
 lant 
 
 feather 
 
 plant 
 
 lasso 
 
 sh 
 
 ch 
 
 th 
 
 per 
 
 Fig. 62. Selections from supplemental alphabetic and syllabic hieroglyphs 
 employed by the Egyptians, with their names and phonetic equiv- 
 alents. 
 
2IO A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 unique alphabetic signs. We find them in the full flower 
 of mature development even In the very earliest inscrip- 
 tions extant; and there was but little material change in 
 their form in the hundreds of centuries during which 
 they served this wonderful nation with the elements of 
 their written language. The fully developed system of 
 hieroglyphic writing with phonetic alphabetic characters 
 was in use in the time of Menes, the first king of the 
 First Dynasty, which date is fixed by Dr. Flinders Petrie 
 at 4777 B. c. It is a remarkable triumph of archseology 
 and a veritable romance of history that the mummy of 
 this king, who but yesterday was supposed to be purely 
 mythical, discovered at Thebes in 1897, now reposes in 
 the Gizeh Museum in Constantinople. In the great pyra- 
 mid of Cheops (4th dynasty, 3700 B. c.) there have 
 been found one or two hieroglyphic inscriptions, prob- 
 ably quarrymen's or inspectors' brush-painted memo- 
 randa, being cartouches of King Suphis or Chufu, pro- 
 nounced by the Egyptians " Kufu," but wrongly inter- 
 preted by the ear of the Greek Herodotus as " Cheops." 
 Here is one of the cartouches taken from Prisse 
 D'Avennes " Histoire de L'Art figyptien " : 
 
 .i.^iB 
 
 It is written with rare facility by one practicing a fully 
 developed system of writing. Reading from right to left 
 the first character is k, the chick is 11, the snail is /, and 
 the chick again is u. 
 
 One of the oldest Egyptian inscriptions known is 
 that of King Sent (2d dynasty) written to his grandson, 
 Shera, before 4000 B. c. King Sent's cartouches are 
 rather frequently met with. The spelling is alphabetic, as 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 211 
 
 will be seen In the accompanying cut, and the characters 
 are the same as those used by the Ptolemies of the sec- 
 ond century b, c. : ^"n* 
 
 I % 
 
 In the absence of any earlier record the antecedent 
 stages of development of the Egyptian hieroglyphs must 
 be purely conjectural and based on analogy. Some emi- 
 nent authorities dispute the claim that the hieroglyphs 
 have developed out of original pictures, but that at 
 some brilliant epoch in the early Egyptian hierarchy they 
 were Invented by fiat, as it were. They point out that in 
 many cases the ancient names of the characters became 
 obsolete so early that no explanation for their phonetic 
 value is discoverable even In the earliest Inscriptions. 
 But the general argument is far from convincing, nor is It 
 natural. It is Inconceivable that a people at any stage of 
 civilization could, out of hand, from no Inherited ma- 
 terial, have Invented such a wonderful alphabet. It Is 
 quite too superhuman an effort to believe of any people, 
 no matter how advanced In culture. The overwhelming 
 evidence of the hieroglyphs themselves, the analogy of 
 the growth of other written languages, as well as the 
 consensus of opinion of the majority of Egyptologists, 
 favor the belief that the alphabetic signs have descended 
 from primitive pictures many of which are still retained 
 In the signary. Fig. 63 illustrates a few of these primi- 
 tive ideograms taken from the inscriptions. They are 
 wonderfully like the Ojibwa and Chinese symbols, and 
 give every evidence of having come down from the most 
 remote era of antiquity. They were used with almost 
 
212 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 no modification as long as the hieroglyphs lasted into 
 the Greek and Roman classic period. 
 
 o 
 
 .9^ 
 
 /k 
 
 Ik 
 
 sun, day 
 
 light 
 
 star, god 
 
 
 one month 
 
 /""'N AA/SA/ the third month 
 1 1 1 y'N/vw the " Inundation" 
 
 heaven (sky) 
 night, obscurity 
 
 
 /NA/VV 
 
 EE 
 
 horizon 
 
 hilly country 
 
 water 
 
 land with canals 
 
 Fig. 63. Selections from primitive Egyptian ideographs. 
 
 It requires no stretch of the imagination to believe, 
 for the nature of the hieroglyphs Incontestably points to 
 the fact, that the early- Egyptians in their first attempts 
 at written record drew the pictures of the things referred 
 to In their records the same as the American Indians, 
 both of the Plains and of Mexico, the primitive Chinese, 
 and the people about whom we are yet to speak. The 
 facts seem to prove that in the evolution of their art 
 of writing the Egyptians progressed along these three 
 stages of development : — I. Representative or Imitative 
 signs. In this archaic stage the Egyptian scribe simply 
 drew or painted representations of the sun, moon, stars, 
 mountains, plants, animals, weapons, utensils, etc., as 
 necessity required In communicating or recording facts. 
 These in time became somewhat conventionalized and 
 laid the foundation for the determinative Ideograms used 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 213 
 
 In later times. II. Symbolic signs. When It became 
 necessary to portray actions, motives and sentiments, the 
 scribes resorted to: (i) Synecdoche, — using a signifi- 
 cant part instead of the whole of the figure of repre- 
 sentation; — as the legs drawn forward or backward to 
 Indicate "going" or "coming," or bent to indicate 
 "jumping"; the eye with drops to Indicate "crying" 
 or "grief," or two eyes to indicate "seeing"; the ear 
 to indicate "hearing"; the tongue "speaking"; the 
 hand holding a vase to indicate "offering"; two arms 
 holding a paddle meaning " to convey," or an arm hold- 
 ing a shield meaning " combat "; and many similar sym- 
 bols. (2) Metonymy. Portraying cause for effect and 
 vice versa ; employing the Instrument to represent the 
 effect produced; — as the sun to represent day or time; 
 the moon to represent a month; the pictures of the vari- 
 ous implements used In writing to indicate the act of 
 writing, as we already have learned; and many like ex- 
 amples. (3) Metaphor. Representing an idea by a re- 
 semblance real or fancied to the properties of some ob- 
 ject; — as a book to represent "knowledge"; a lute, 
 " goodness " ; an eye, " judgment " ; a crocodile, " evil " ; 
 a bee, "king"; or the head of a lion to indicate "su- 
 periority." III. Phonetic signs. In this last period of 
 development of the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing there 
 probably were two stages : syllabic and alphabetic pho- 
 neticism. This can only be surmised, as we have no rec- 
 ord of priority of the one over the other. We find syllabic 
 and alphabetic signs used side by side from the very ear- 
 liest historic times. 
 
 The inadequacy of ideographic writing to minister to 
 the needs of the rapidly advancing nation must very 
 early have manifested Itself in an) effort to Invent a 
 more flexible and responsive medium of communication. 
 
214 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 that more closely would coordinate with the native 
 speech, and be its ready and legible means of written ex- 
 pression. Undoubtedly the Egyptians at a very early pe- 
 riod must have conceived the desirability of selecting 
 symbols to represent the elemental phonetic sounds in 
 their spoken words instead of contenting themselves with 
 different individual symbols for every object and idea, 
 as in the Chinese system of writing. Our very first ac- 
 quaintance with the hieroglyphs is at this advanced stage. 
 The alphabetic characters already had been chosen and 
 the scribes were in possession of an extensive alpha- 
 bet, syllabary and ideographic album of signs capable 
 of expressing by writing every shade of meaning that the 
 mind could conceive and the tongue express. Our next in- 
 quiry then is : how was the selection of these syllabic and 
 alphabetic signs effected? 
 
 It Is probable that for a long period prior to the final 
 invention of alphabetic signs a very large number of 
 syllabic symbols had been in use to express the phonetic 
 values of monosyllabic words and syllables. These syl- 
 labic signs probably had been selected from among the 
 simplest or commonest ideograms of monosyllabic or 
 polysyllabic words and used thereafter in writing as the 
 phonograms of the initial syllables in these words. The 
 difference in use then was that the symbol which formerly 
 was employed to indicate the name of an object or idea 
 was later used as the sign for the sound of the first syl- 
 lable of this name wherever it occurred in writing any 
 polysyllabic word whatever. As an illustration of this we 
 again will refer to the sign pet, occurring several times 
 in the inscription of Hu-nefer. Originally it was the ideo- 
 gram for " heaven," pet. Subsequently it was employed 
 as the sign for the syllable pet in any other word wher- 
 ever it occurred. Scores of similar Instances might be 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 215 
 
 cited. Finally a finer analysis and differentiatron of the 
 syllabic sounds into their simplest phonetic elements be- 
 ing desired, the alphabetic signs were evolved as a con- 
 sequence of this cultural advance of the Egyptian scribes. 
 The presumptive evidence is almost overwhelming that 
 the Egyptians in the great majority of cases chose for 
 these alphabetic characters signs already popular of syl- 
 labic or monosyllabic words whose initial, elementary 
 sound corresponded to the alphabetic sound for which a 
 sign was sought. This was carried out on the principle 
 of acrophony or aerology, as already explained. 
 
 No inconsiderable proportion of the common hiero- 
 glyphs betray by their native names the source of their 
 derivation, and substantiate the generally accepted theory 
 in regard to the manner of selection of these signs. Run- 
 ning over the characters in the common Egyptian alpha- 
 bet (Fig. 61), we may note a number of these instances. 
 The native name for " eagle " is ahom; for " reed," ake; 
 for the " arm," da; for the " leg," or rather " to walk," 
 bu; for " shutter," pu; for " snail," fent; for " owl," 
 moulak; for " water," nu; for mouth," ro; for " lion," 
 labo; for the " fret " or " labyrinth," meaning " to en- 
 ter," ha; for the " twisted loop," hake; for the " tank," 
 she; for the " hand," tot; for the " looped cord," thethet; 
 and for the " serpent," zst. Following Fig. 62 we find 
 that the native name for " crane " is bak; for the " lute," 
 nefer; for the " headdress," klaft; for the " throwing 
 stick," hu; and for the " feather," shu. The author is 
 not certain that every one of these names is entirely 
 authentic. They have been taken from the lists of vari- 
 ous eminent Egyptologists, who do not always agree with 
 one another. It may be in some cases that the names 
 as given are not those in vogue in ancient times when 
 the hieroglyphs were being evolved. It has not been 
 
2i6 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 possible to verify this and probably it never will be. We 
 believe, however, that no further facts are necessary to 
 prove the origin of the Egyptian alphabetic characters. 
 That we cannot find any transitional stage of pictography 
 or ideography antecedent to the alphabetic stage is no 
 vahd argument against the development of the latter 
 signs out of the former; but rather an evidence of the 
 immense age of Egyptian civilization, through the far- 
 thest stretches of which much doubtless has been lost. 
 
 When the complete alphabet was once selected, a new 
 difficulty must have confronted the scribes, which they 
 solved in a most unique and picturesque way. The lan- 
 guage abounded in homophones; some sounds having as 
 many as twenty or forty different meanings. To indicate 
 the particular meaning in the text, after the word had 
 been phonetically spelled out, a pictorial, interpretative 
 ideograph of the thing intended was added for more com- 
 plete identification. For example, there were forty differ- 
 ent meanings for the monosyllable ha, twenty for ab, 
 twenty for apt, fifteen for aft and for ant, eleven for ah, 
 and so on. When ah was used to mean " dancing," the pic- 
 ture of a girl dancing was drawn after the phonetic char- 
 acters, a reed and a leg. When ab was used to indicate the 
 meaning " thirst," three determinative ideograms were 
 appended ; first a dog jumping up, then the symbol for wa- 
 ter, and then a man pointing to his mouth, as here shown : 
 
 When apt was used to mean " judgment," it was fol- 
 lowed by the picture of an eye; when used to mean a 
 " duck," the picture of a duck was added; when used to 
 mean a " measure," the picture of a wooden measure was 
 drawn. If aft was used to signify " four," four marks 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 217 
 
 were added. If used to Indicate " jumping," the word 
 was first spelled out phonetically, — a reed, a snail and a 
 hand, and then legs were added, as shown In the 
 sketch : — 
 
 ^b:iA 
 
 When the word was used to mean " rest," a man was 
 drawn In a reclining attitude. Ant meaning " time of 
 day " had a picture of the sun. When it meant " to de- 
 stroy " It was followed by the picture of a bird of prey. 
 The word taben had several meanings. One of them 
 meant " to move around." The syllable was spelled with 
 a hand, a leg and the character for n; then a spiral and a 
 pair of legs were added as here shown : — 
 
 /SAAAA. 
 
 
 Sef, meaning " yesterday," was followed by the sun, the 
 day sign. When It meant a " baby," It was indicated by a 
 child sucking Its thumb! There were several meanings 
 to the word seseft. One of them was " disgusting." 
 This was Indicated by the Ideograph of a nose and the 
 representation of a man holding his nose, thus : — 
 
 There Is abundant evidence of the fact that the Egyp- 
 tians at times resorted to the rebus form of writing, the 
 same as the Mexicans. An example of this — possibly in- 
 tentionally humorous — comes from an Inscription of 
 Ptolemy XV at Edfu. The name lapis lazuli, which in 
 Egyptian is khesteb, appears. Instead of writing the 
 word phonetically In alphabetic characters, the scribe has 
 
2i8 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 whimsically borrowed the meanings " to stop," khesf, and 
 " a pig," teh, and thus illustrated the word by a picture 
 of a man holding a pig by the tail ! 
 
 We will close this description of the hieroglyphic writ- 
 ing of the ancient Egyptians by giving examples of their 
 "hieratic" and "demotic" writing. The characters 
 used in the hieratic style of writing were a highly con- 
 ventionalized and cursive rendering of the hieroglyphs. 
 Inscriptions in hieratic characters date from the very ear- 
 liest dynasties, and so far as we know seem to be con- 
 temporaneous with the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions. 
 Fig. 64 is a fragment of the Papyrus Prtsse, now in the 
 Bibleotheque Natlonale, in Paris. It Is a copy made about 
 2500 B. c. of the Precepts of Ptah-hotep, written to his 
 son, Instructing him how to behave in the various condl-' 
 tions of life. The original was composed during the 
 
 reign of Assa, 
 
 'T 
 
 UJ 
 
 eighth king of the fifth dynasty 
 
 (about 3350 B. c). It is replete with the most beauti- 
 ful homilies, as trite to-day as when penned over five 
 millenniums ago. The sage father enjoins his son as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 " If thou hast become great after thou hast been 
 lowly, and if thou hast amassed riches, after poverty, 
 so that thou hast become, because of this, the first in 
 thy city; and If the people know thee on account of 
 thy wealth, and thou art become a mighty lord, let not 
 thy heart be lighted up because of thy riches, for the 
 author of them Is God. Despise not thy neighbor who 
 Is as thou wast, but treat him as thine equal." 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 
 
 2ig 
 
 The third hne in the fragment reads : 
 
 "Who shall make me to speak noble words? How 
 shall I tell him (my son) the words of those who have 
 heard the wise counsels of olden times, the counsels 
 which have been heard from the gods? " 
 
 These moral precepts were written over five thousand 
 years ago; yet the father refers in these early years of 
 human history to the wisdom of the men of old and de- 
 sires his son to follow their example. 
 
 Fig. 64. Egyptian hieratic writing. A page from the Papyrus Prisse. 
 About 2500 B. c. 
 
 It will be interesting to compare the development of the 
 Egyptian hieratic characters from the parent hieroglyphs 
 with the somewhat similar evolution of the Chinese script 
 from their primitive pictures. While the ultimate sym- 
 bols, except in a few individual cases, are wholly dis- 
 similar in the two systems of writing, the character of 
 the transformation is quite the same In both. In both 
 systems, as a rule, the resulting characters bear little posi- 
 tive resemblance to the parent pictures. In Fig. 65, 
 adapted from ChampoUIon, we have selected seven ob- 
 jects, and show the transformation of their respective 
 written characters from the early hieroglyphs to the final 
 
220 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 conventionalized symbol. The objects in their order are: 
 bird, fish, vase, son, gate, star and ax. The first two 
 horizontal lines are Chinese, the lower two are Egyptian. 
 Throughout, the Egyptian hieratic signs are very much 
 simpler and less complex than the Chinese. The whole 
 process affords us an illustration of the general evolution 
 of writing from the primitive pictures employed in 
 archaic times to the simplified symbols used In the later 
 stages of civilization. Historical and archasological facts 
 substantiate the belief that this evolution Is practically 
 universal. Although carried out in symbols and signs 
 greatly varying from each other, every great original 
 system of'natlonal writing seems to have progressed along 
 the same lines of development. 
 
 I. CHINESE WRITING 
 
 ^ ^ m eft) C:^ 
 W M \^ ^ f^ ^ ^ 
 
 \\\\ 
 
 II. EGYPTIAN WRITING 
 
 X X ^' ^ N ^ 1 
 
 Fig. 65. Comparative development of Chinese and Egyptian hieroglyphic 
 characters from the earliest archaic symbols to the later conventional 
 signs. (The signs in the last row are the Egyptian hieratic characters.) 
 
 The Egyptians carried the process of simplification of 
 their hieroglyphic writing to a yet more advanced stage, 
 
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 221 
 
 developing a third system of writing, the demotic, al- 
 ready familiar to us in the Rosetta Stone. It was vir- 
 tually a shorthand rendering of the hieratic characters, 
 only still further simplified. They were used by the edu- 
 cated Egyptian people in the ordinary affairs of life, in 
 legal and business documents, letters and in civil and 
 domestic affairs, in general. We will give one example of 
 demotic writing, Fig. 66. It is from a parchment found 
 in Egypt and dates from the eighth year of the reign 
 of Ptolemy Epiphanes (196 B. c). It is the protocol of 
 a judicial contract, naming the contracting parties, and be- 
 gins as follows : 
 
 " The year 8 of (the month of) Choi'ak, the 4th of 
 King Ptolemy, son of Ptolemy and Arsinoe, gods Phi- 
 lopatores, and of the priests of Alexander, and of the 
 gods Adelphes," etc. 
 
 The writing is in a beautiful hand, and is legible and 
 elegant. Calligraphic skill could hardly be carried to a 
 higher degree of perfection. 
 
 -,. fou'iXy/^^ ^ ^jJ i)mi3j/(^'^ n>fii). i':ifjz^<j.^h 
 
 yiQ/ - ilh vt>iJik3.>^J^ "h^^^yioj* ln-oa a^Jtio 
 
 A f. ■ 1 
 
 Fig. 66. Egyptian demotic writing. Parchment from the reign of 
 Ptolemy Epiphanes. 
 
2.22 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Surely the art of Egypt as shown in her sculptured 
 monuments, in her painted tombs and in her wonderful 
 hieroglyphs and written papyri reveals to us a nation ad- 
 vanced to the very highest levels of civilization. Truly 
 the men of old received their inspiration from the gods, as 
 Pliny has said. In no other way has knowledge and the 
 experience of civilization with its moral and religious 
 reactions more surely descended from generation to gen- 
 eration than through the art of writing. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CUNEIFORM WRITING 
 
 Everybody Is familiar with Talleyrand's facetious re- 
 mark that " language is intended for the concealment of 
 thought." We remember too that Trench speaks of 
 words as " fossil history." How true these statements 
 are of many lost languages which have concealed for 
 ages the thoughts of their scribes, yielding up their buried 
 secrets only after generations of devoted archaeologists 
 and philologists had earnestly labored toward their de- 
 cipherment. Some of these lost languages only recently 
 have been recovered after having remained undeciphered 
 for countless centuries; while others, the languages of 
 great and powerful nations of antiquity, still await the 
 scholar who shall discover the key to unlock their hid- 
 den mysteries. Fortunately, keys lately have been tried 
 upon those mystic writings hitherto unlocked, the HIttlte 
 and Maya ; and the hieroglyphs of Hamath and Carchem- 
 ish, as well as those of ancient Yucatan and Mexico, are 
 slowly unfolding like shrouded mummies, soon, let us 
 hope, to reveal the content of their meaning. 
 
 It Is entirely Inconceivable to us of the present age that 
 knowledge of our language ever could become lost to the 
 world, or that the language of any existing nation could 
 utterly disappear from the face of the earth and knowl- 
 edge of its very existence be forgotten. Such an event 
 probably never again could happen under the present im- 
 proved conditions of international comity. Yet in the 
 
 223 
 
224 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 past this fate has happened as a matter of course, and has 
 been the Nemesis that has overtaken some of the great- 
 est nations of antiquity. Disaster in war generally meant 
 national annihilation. The cities of the conquered peo- 
 ple were destroyed, their entire country was devastated, 
 and those of the inhabitants who escaped the sword were 
 carried away into captivity. Their language was blotted 
 out of existence and remained dead to the world, as in 
 the case of Babylonia and Assyria, until the genius of 
 the last century revived its spirit and recovered Its ancient 
 message to men. Herodotus referring to the fate of 
 Babylon says : " Darius having become master of the 
 place destroyed the wall and tore down the gates; for 
 Cyrus had done neither the one nor the other when he 
 took Babylon. He then chose out near three thousand 
 of the leading citizens and caused them to be crucified." 
 In Joshua VI, we read concerning his capture of Jericho : 
 " And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both 
 man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and 
 ass, with the edge of the sword"; and in Joshua XII, 
 of the capture of Hazor : " And they smote all the souls 
 that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly de- 
 stroying them; there was not any left to breathe; and he 
 burnt Hazor with fire." In II Kings XXV, we read In 
 turn of the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar and 
 the captivity of the Jews: "And he carried away all 
 Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of 
 valor, even ten thousand." 
 
 So it has ever befallen the great nations of antiquity, 
 who have developed their racial characteristics and their 
 languages through ages of peaceful isolation, until be- 
 coming a numerous and powerful people, they have en- 
 tered upon an era of conquest over their less powerful 
 neighbors; only in turn to be ruthlessly vanquished by 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 225 
 
 other nations more powerful than themselves. As an- 
 nihilation was the fate that almost invariably overtook 
 any nation that was overcome in the vicissitudes of war 
 — and the mightier the defense and the more heroic 
 the struggle the heavier were the vengeance and retribu- 
 tion visited upon the vanquished armies by the conquering 
 nation — it is little wonder that so much in the way of 
 record has been lost. On the contrary, it Is a marvel 
 that so much has been recovered, and that we are able 
 almost entirely to restore the chain of the development of 
 culture with only a few missing links here and there. 
 
 Fortunately, the Hebrew race, while suffering as much 
 as. If not more than, any other nation through war and 
 conquest, has by Its tremendous conservatism and individ- 
 uality preserved Its literature through disaster, captivity 
 and expulsion. But of their conquerors and all other na- 
 tions that preceded them, — Babylonian, Ninevlte, Hit- 
 tite, Persian, excepting only the Egyptian, almost every 
 vestige of the art and literature, their palaces and popu- 
 lous cities, became lost and forgotten for thousands of 
 years. Xenophon only 300 years after the fall of Nineveh 
 passed over the ruins of the city without knowing it. 
 So soon after her glories burned out In that terrible holo- 
 caust when the victorious Medes captured and destroyed 
 the city in 606 B. c. was the prophecy fulfilled that we 
 read in Nahum III : " And It shall come to pass that all 
 they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say: 
 Nineveh Is laid waste; who will bemoan her? Whence 
 shall I seek comfort for thee? " So also In turn was the 
 might and pride of Babylon humbled and her cities and 
 palaces destroyed, until the prophecy of Isaiah was ful- 
 filled : " And Babylon, the glory of Kingdoms, the beauty 
 of the Chaldee's excellency, shall be as when God over- 
 threw Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, 
 
226 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 neither shall It be dwelt in from generation to generation. 
 . . . But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and 
 their houses shall be full of doleful creatures." 
 
 It will be irrelevant further to remind the student of 
 history of any succeeding national cataclysm beyond the 
 destruction of the powerful Persian monarchy and the 
 overthrow of Cyrus and the destruction of Persepolis by 
 Alexander the Great in 333 B. c. In these succeeding, 
 annihilating waves of struggle for national supremacy 
 we witness, when we include the fall of Carchemish, the 
 Hittite capital, in 717 B. c, ending that great monarchy, 
 the successive blotting out of the Babylonian and As- 
 syrian cuneiform writing, the Hittite hieroglyphic writ- 
 ing, and finally of the Persian cuneiform writing; all of 
 which as far as the intelligibility of their message to men 
 was concerned remained lost to the world down to the 
 last century. 
 
 The story of the recovery of the lost languages of 
 Babylon and Assyria is a profoundly fascinating tale, 
 one of the absorbing romances of history. It Is not with- 
 out its pathetic side, for it is shot through and through 
 with the long historic development of man as he slowly 
 has risen in the scale of civilization, gradually perfecting 
 the means whereby he has conserved the sum of knowl- 
 edge acquired from his ancestors and transmitted it with 
 all its added human experiences to posterity. For ages 
 the story remained a sealed book, whose secret was long 
 locked up in the desert sands of Mesopotamia far beneath 
 the arid, wind-swept surface, whereon here and there 
 through the long centuries past have been picked up an 
 occasional tablet containing inscriptions in a script and 
 language unknown to men. 
 
 But these occasional relica antiqua, found on the un- 
 suspected sites of Babylonian and Assyrian cities and 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 227 
 
 distributed among the museums of the world to excite 
 the wonder or encourage the scholarship of investigators, 
 were not the only witnesses of the departed literature 
 of the past. For centuries the remarkable cuneiform in- 
 scription on the great rock fagade at Behistun (Fig. 
 67) had been the wonder and mystery of generations of 
 men. For over two thousand years men came and went, 
 gazed up at this mighty cliff rearing its crown over six- 
 teen hundred feet above the plain, wondered and specu- 
 lated over the unknown characters and went their way 
 no wiser than the rest of mankind before them. So thor- 
 oughly was the thought of their author concealed in 
 the strange and inscrutable vehicle of its expression. 
 All sorts of wild and unreasonable conjectures were 
 made concerning the inscription even by scholars; but 
 no progress toward its decipherment was made until 
 the German scholar, Dr. Georg Friedrich Grotefend, in 
 1 82 1 suspected the presence of the name of Darius in the 
 lines of the inscription. Detecting the regular recurrence 
 of a sequence of certain characters and reasoning by 
 analogy he assumed the correspondence between the In- 
 scription and the translations of Persian literature in the 
 classic authors. Many of these translated phrases began 
 
 with the reiterated formula : " I King of Kings, son 
 
 of King of Kings," etc. He thus was able to locate 
 
 the name of the king and. to suspect the characters that 
 composed the word. However, no further progress was 
 made until Sir Henry Rawllnson In 185 i, after years of 
 persistent and scholarly Investigation combined with rare 
 erudition, discovered the key to the decipherment of the 
 cuneiform characters, wrested from the almost inaccess- 
 ible heights of the Rock Its historic secret, and translated 
 the entire inscription. This feat of scholarship was per- 
 haps the most brilliant single effort ever accomplished In 
 
228 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 archeology, and redounds with everlasting credit to the 
 memory of this talented English scholar. 
 
 f^ 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 r'l f 
 
 "W |vkF|!.BMi 
 
 Fig. 67. Cuneiform inscription of King Darius. Rock of Behistun. 
 
 The Behistun inscription proved to be a proclamation 
 by no less important a personage than Darius the Great. 
 The inscription is trilingual, being in Persian, Medic and 
 Babylonian, as Grotefend correctly suspected. The Per- 
 sian, being in the mother language of the modern Persian, 
 having first been deciphered, it was not so difficult a task 
 to decipher the other parallel inscriptions, the Medic and 
 the Babylonian, and to restore the old languages. This of 
 course was not done all at once, but the thousands of in- 
 scriptions translated since Rawlinson's day constantly 
 have added to the known vocabulary of these ancient lan- 
 guages. 
 
 Before entering upon an analysis of the cuneiform 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 229 
 
 mode of writing, we will briefly recall the history of the 
 ancient peoples who have Inhabited the valleys between 
 the Persian Gulf and the Caucasus Mountains, that the 
 reader may the better be able to attach a human Interest 
 to these Inscriptions and their archaic prototypes. In the 
 long, narrow valley between the Tigris and the Euphrates 
 rivers, known In classical times and to-day as Mesopo- 
 tamia — "between the rivers" — civilization dawned at 
 a period far more remote than is known of any other 
 country, Egypt itself not excepted, though but yesterday 
 the latter country was believed to be the older. From the 
 very earliest times the valley where now are situated 
 Mosul and Bagdad was teeming with the activities of a 
 race of people who have left us much evidence of their 
 civilization. We have authentic documents of theirs that 
 carry us back to 4500 B. c, while there are noted scholars 
 who bespeak for them a civilization dating to the seventh 
 and eighth pre-Christian millenniums. At the later period, 
 when their historic traditions begin, we find in the valley 
 a Turanian people, a Mongol race, who probably came 
 from Media and the regions about Mt. Ararat and the 
 Caspian Sea. This was at a time that long antedated the 
 migrations of either the Semitic or Aryan races from 
 their Caucasan homes, If this really be the point of their 
 origin. From their own records. Inscribed on terra cotta 
 tablets or engraved on stone, we learn that this Mongol 
 race superseded an earlier " dark-faced people " who lived 
 in the valley before them. Who this earlier race was his- 
 tory fails to Inform us, as they do not seem to have left 
 any record of themselves. They probably were a savage' 
 people, or at least uncivilized. We may remember In this 
 connection the Invasion of the Peloponnesus by the Dori- 
 ans, who conquered a primitive Pelasglan race, who, schol- 
 ars are convinced, were of the early Turanian family. 
 
230 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 One branch of this Mongol race In Mesopotamia inhab- 
 ited the northern part of the valley, called by them Ak- 
 kad, " the mountains," giving the name Akkadian to their 
 language. Another branch inhabited the southern part of 
 the valley, which they called Sumer (or Sumir), "the 
 river valley," and which has given the name Sumerian to 
 their language. The two languages are in reality only dia- 
 lects of one language, decidedly Turanian in its structure. 
 Sumer extended from the site of Babylon to Kaldu, the 
 biblical Chaldea, in the extreme southern end of the delta 
 of the Tigris and Euphrates. The city in Chaldea best 
 known to us through Its mention In the Bible was Ur, the 
 southernmost city on the Euphrates, almost at its conflu- 
 ence with the Tigris. Far to the north of these people 
 lived the Semites, yet to emerge from barbarism and over- 
 run the Mesopotamlan valley; under whom in the many 
 succeeding centuries the cuneiform writing was fully to be 
 developed. A proper conception of the early date about 
 which we are writing may be gained by recalling that 
 Abraham, the father of the Hebrew race, emigrated from 
 this city of Ur — " Ur of the Chaldees " — probably in 
 the reign of Hammurabi, circa 2200 B. c, to establish the 
 Hebrew nation. 
 
 So much for the history of these early peoples. We 
 now can understand that we are dealing with the civiliza- 
 tion of a people, the earliest known who have left us any 
 record of their existence In this region, which for four 
 millenniums formed the background of the historical 
 drama of European civilization and culture. Here if any- 
 where we should find the sources of writing. Nor are we 
 entirely disappointed; for we come as near to the spring 
 as we probably ever shall come. Nor is It any surprise, 
 but a beautiful confirmation of the quite universal rule, to 
 find the writing of the Sumerians and Akkadians, the so- 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 231 
 
 called linear Babylonian script, almost purely pictorial; 
 really not writing at all, but drawing. But we are getting 
 a little ahead of our story to describe this unique text just 
 at this moment. 
 
 Before Rawlinson had deciphered the Assyrian cunei- 
 form writing, bricks of Nebuchadrezzar, the great Baby- 
 lonian king, written in the cuneiform text, were familiar 
 in Europe. No small part of the immense debris forming 
 the outer conformation of the great mound of Nippur as 
 well as that of Birs-Nimrud in Babylon was made up of 
 these large bricks of Nebuchadrezzar's restoration of the 
 
 ■^^mS^^ffrT^^^ 
 
 g^ ^$^ ^ 4> 
 
 T^^^^^^^g^ 
 
 <m^r>ff^ig^ip::^ 
 
 SHtSJT»-^|g-|gff^>^^ 
 
 L 
 
 ■gUi^g^j^E^^Ttg 
 
 Fig. 68. Brick with cuneiform inscription of Nebuchadrezzar. 
 
 temple of Baal (Bel) . Many of the bricks bear the cunei- 
 form inscription shown in Fig. 68, which is a facsimile of 
 one of the originals. 
 
 The inscription refers to Nebuchadrezzar's restoration 
 of this temple, the temple of Baal, the Babel of the Bible, 
 and is to be translated as follows: "Nebuchadrezzar, 
 eldest son of Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, restorer of 
 the tower and of the pyramid, I." The reading in the 
 position of the tablet on the page is from left to right, 
 corresponding to the European custom. Specimens of 
 
232 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 these bricks may be seen in almost any museum or collec- 
 tion of archaeology. This is the script known as " cunei- 
 form," and was employed by the Babylonians and Assyr- 
 ians for many centuries down to about the third century 
 before Christ. It is so called on account of the wedge-like 
 character of the strokes of the writing. By far the greater 
 
 Fig. 69. Tablet with cuneiform inscription from Warika. 
 
 number of all inscriptions thus far found have been writ- 
 ten — incised — on soft clay subsequently baked, with a 
 blunt pointed instrument or stylus, probably the three- 
 sided stem of a rush, which produced these wedge-like 
 marks. Miany inscriptions also have been found carved on 
 slate, marble, alabaster or other stones ; but the wedges 
 which were natural and incident to inscriptions in soft clay 
 were copied in the stone and became the standard forms in 
 the written syllabary however and wherever used. 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 233 
 
 It perhaps will easily be noted in the inscription illus- 
 trated that the wedges are arranged in certain well- 
 defined groupings separated from one another. These 
 groups constitute the different syllables of the words. The 
 script is not alphabetic but syllabic; each character being 
 the representation, the picture we may say, of a syllable, 
 the successive groups making up the words. The reader 
 hardly can fail to see the general pictorial or outline char- 
 acter of these signs. Indeed it was early discovered that 
 the cuneiform characters, apparently so abstract and con- 
 ventional in their form, were but the survivals of an ex- 
 tremely archaic script, linear and pictorial in its character, 
 of which they were the direct lineal descendants. 
 
 In excavating among the ruins of Warlka, the ancient 
 Huruk or Erech, Henry Rawlinson discovered a tablet In 
 the common cuneiform characters (Fig. 69) which he 
 translated as follows: " Beltis, his lady, has caused 
 Urukh, the pious chief. King of Hur, and King of the land 
 of the Akkad, to build a temple to her." The lines are to 
 be read from left to right and downward In each section or 
 column as the marginal numbers Indicate. In the same lo- 
 cality Rawlinson subsequently found another tablet (Fig. 
 70) bearing what appeared most obviously to be the same 
 inscription without a trace of cuneiform marks; but each 
 cluster of lines, apparently so arbitrary in the cuneiform 
 inscription, assuming a pictographic character, with geo- 
 metric outlines. The assumption was made then, and 
 every subsequent discovery amply has corroborated it, 
 that the cuneiform characters of the Babylonians and 
 Assyrians are the conventional rendering, after successive 
 generations of modified usage, of the archaic, hieroglyphic 
 characters of the system of writing employed by their 
 immediate predecessors, the Akkadians and Sumerians. 
 They were the last echoes of their original, pictorial pro- 
 
234 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 totypes, repeated through the centuries by successive gen- 
 erations of scribes, becoming diminishingly a more and 
 more feeble imitation of their historic originals as time 
 went on. In the course of time, through conventionaliza- 
 tion and simplification, the characters became so modified 
 
 Fig. 70. Tablet from Warika in early linear Babylonian characters. 
 
 that they bore little resemblance to their originals; so 
 much so that it is probable that the origin of their written 
 language became completely lost to the later Assyrians 
 and Persians. 
 
 The full story of the origin of the cuneiform writing 
 only lately has been fully demonstrated through the exca- 
 vations conducted by the University of Pennsylvania at 
 Nippur, by De Sarzec at Telloh, and other excavations in 
 ancient Mesopotamia. In the higher strata of the debris 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 235 
 
 of the ruined cities of Mesopotamia, containing the re- 
 mains of the civilization of the middle and later kingdoms 
 of Babylonia and Assyria, are found tablets containing 
 inscriptions in the later cuneiform already referred to ; 
 but as lower and lower strata are reached, carrying us 
 down to the remains of earlier cities, we find the charac- 
 ters gradually changing their forms from age to age, 
 looking more like representations of actual things ; until 
 finally we come upon inscriptions in which the wedges 
 have altogether disappeared, and each sign is drawn in 
 lines, — no longer writing as we know it, but veritable 
 outline drawing. Thus may each puzzling cluster of 
 wedges, which for a score of centuries served a great na- 
 tion for the characters of its written language, a language 
 exceptionally expressive and complete in its inflections, be 
 traced back to its pictorial prototype. This early pictorial 
 ■script, now known as the linear Babylonian, is distinctly 
 representative, as we would naturally expect the archaic 
 writing of a primitive people to be. In this respect it af- 
 fords a confirmation of the theory of the almost universal 
 pictorial origin of written speech. When all the missing 
 links in the chain of development are supplied, it probably 
 may appear that this early pictorial script was the parent 
 from which have descended through the Hittite and Phoe- 
 nician some of the letters of the Greco-Latin alphabet. It 
 is yet too early to speak dogmatically In the matter, as so 
 many transitional factors In the development are missing; 
 but the weight of evidence seems to favor the far East as 
 the source of some of our alphabetic characters. But we 
 are anticipating our story. 
 
 The linear Babylonian script in its very earliest discov- 
 ered form already had progressed as far as the third 
 stage of writing: that of phonetic, syllabic writing. It had 
 passed the pictographic and ideographic stage, leaving no 
 
236 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 record of its use. Being prior to the civilization that de- 
 manded monumental and civil records in permanent ma- 
 terial, the earliest pictographic records on bark, skin or 
 whatever material may have been used in the primitive 
 stage of civilization, altogether have perished. But many 
 original ideograms having no syllabic values were carried 
 over from the earlier pictography and employed in the 
 tablet inscriptions, as well as many characters which were 
 used both as ideograms and as phonograms. Many, per- 
 haps most, of the characters were well advanced toward 
 simplification, being conventionalized and highly geomet- 
 ric. Nevertheless, there are enough of the pictographic 
 characters reminiscent in the early syllabary, significant 
 in pictorial form of the ideas conveyed in their meaning, 
 to point indubitably to a much earlier period, more re- 
 mote than we dare predicate, before syllabic signs were 
 employed in writing, when pictures of the things intended 
 were drawn and which stood for the objects themselves in 
 the record. 
 
 That this is the case is amply attested by even a casual 
 comparison of the characters in tablet inscriptions of the 
 linear Babylonian style of different epochs. It is possible 
 to trace the same character back through earlier and ear- 
 lier stages, noting its increasingly pictorial aspect with its 
 age; or, per contra, its marked simplification and abstract 
 quality as later inscriptions are examined. The earliest 
 known inscriptions are largely ideographic, almost picto- 
 graphic in many characters; the later inscriptions con- 
 taining fewer ideograms and more phonetic characters. 
 Nevertheless, we must admit, that even in the earliest and 
 most archaic inscriptions discovered, it Is not always easy 
 to recognize the original objects. Owing to the limita- 
 tions of primitive culture, the inexperience of the scribes, 
 and the lack of artistic ability, each scribe drew the char- 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 237 
 
 acters in his own crude, faulty way, often incorrectly; so 
 that it is quite impossible always definitely to distinguish 
 the character and identify it with the object intended. But 
 with each succeeding age the characters become more con- 
 ventionalized, standardized and simplified; losing In the 
 process their pictorial character until in the later cunei- 
 form it is almost totally obscured. 
 
 There have been discovered four remarkable pre- 
 Babylonlan inscriptions belonging to the very earliest 
 archaic period of this system of writing that we are now 
 describing. They are among the very oldest inscriptions 
 In the world. It is difficult to classify them as to priority 
 of age, they all are of such extreme archaism. This Is at- 
 tested by the crudeness of the art, the variability of given 
 characters even in the same tablet, but particularly by the 
 evident experimentation in the manner in which the char- 
 acters succeed each other in the line or column of reading. 
 In the earliest stages of primitive writing — pictographic 
 writing — the pictures or hieroglyphs, whether read from 
 right to left, left to right, or downward in the column, 
 must certainly have been drawn upright. The tablet al- 
 ready shown (Fig. 70) Indicates that even at an early 
 date in this pre-Babylonian script a radical change was 
 made in the position of the signs, whereby they appear 
 upright only when viewed from the right hand side of the 
 tablet. It is reasonable to assume that those inscriptions 
 are the oldest in which the characters are drawn upright 
 as they are read, and which most nearly approach our 
 idea of primitive pictography. On this assumption we 
 refer the reader to Fig. 71, possibly the earliest of these 
 pre-Babylonian inscriptions. If not the very oldest Inscrip- 
 tion at present in existence ; one that In the present stage 
 of archseologlcal discovery carries us further back toward 
 the beginnings of human writing than anything yet re- 
 
238 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 vealed to us. It is known as the Father Schlel tablet from 
 its discoverer. The characters are highly archaic, carry- 
 ing us back almost to the primitive pictures before con- 
 ventionalization had at all seriously set in to modify their 
 outlines. They are drawn upright in vertical columns — 
 technically called " registers " when separated by incised 
 lines as later was the custom — and are to be read down- 
 ward and from right to left according to Oriental usage, 
 as indicated by the marginal numbers at the top of the 
 tablet. One can be quite sure of the identity of a number 
 of these signs; that is of their former ideographic signifi- 
 cance, whatever their syllabic meaning may be in the text. 
 We can distinguish a star, a jar, a foot, trees, a chair or 
 throne, and possibly a gate. But as Dr. George A. Barton 
 says : " Of such a brief inscription in characters so ar- 
 chaic, any translation in the present state of our knowl- 
 edge is most uncertain." A more or less satisfactory 
 translation, mainly Dr. Barton's, is the following: 
 I. Gar-du-en-gub 
 
 600 bur of a field in the land of ? 
 
 2. 
 3- 
 
 a libation he pours out. May the God, lord 
 of Eridu bless. 
 
 3^C^ 
 
 Fig. 71. Tablet with archaic hieroglyphs, discovered by Father Schiel. 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 239 
 
 The proper name Garduengub, occupying the first col- 
 umn on the right, is apparently spelled out with phonetic, 
 syllabic characters. There could be no other way of ac- 
 complishing it. Proper names are for the most part arbi- 
 trary and cannot be pictured. To be sure we already have 
 seen how primitive people, ignorant of the art of writing 
 with signs or symbols, drew their totems to indicate per- 
 sonal possessions. We have referred to the private marks 
 in sections of the pipe-stone quarries of the American In- 
 dians, property marks on weapons, utensils and imple- 
 ment's, and more particularly to the totemic signatures of 
 proper names drawn on treaties and deeds. It is signifi- 
 cant of the advanced stage of civilization of these old 
 Sumerians of six millenniums ago that they had passed 
 the pictographic, the ideographic, and had reached the 
 syllabic stage of writing, and were able to spell out a name 
 like Garduengub, if this is the proper transliteration, with 
 phonetic characters. Nevertheless, we shall see further 
 on that while Enshagkushana, a known king and the first 
 known king, wrote his name in the conventional charac- 
 ters of the written language, he used the pictures that de- 
 scribed his kingly qualities as set forth in his name, quite 
 the same as Standing Bear drew his totem on Red 
 Cloud's census (Fig. 22). The characters in Garduen- 
 gub's name really are pictures, or at least ideographs. The 
 first one appears to be an early form of the symbol for 
 " night," and closely resembles the Chinese, Egyptian 
 and Ojibwa symbols for night. The second character 
 probably represents a covered pot; the third a throne; 
 and the fourth obviously a human foot. The remainder 
 of the inscription is written In characters probably largely 
 Ideographic. 
 
 Fig. 72 and Fig. 73 are respectively the obverse and 
 reverse of two of the most interesting of all Babylonian 
 
240 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 tablets. They are known by their French name, the 
 " Monuments Blau," from their discoverer, Dr. A. Blau. 
 They belong like the preceding to the most archaic class 
 of hieroglyphic inscriptions. The writing, which is en- 
 graved on stone, is in characters just emerging from the 
 ideographic stage, and the inscription quaintly combines 
 written characters and pictorial drawings. In Fig. 72 the 
 characters are engraved in six vertical registers In two 
 horizontal rows or lines, technically called " columns," 
 arranged on either side of the figure drawings.^ Between 
 the figures the inscription is carried In three rows or lines 
 of one register each. Fortunately, the upright position of 
 the two figures indicates the reading position of the tablet. 
 The characters are drawn upright in the vertical registers, 
 and are to be read downward and from right to left 
 across the tablet, as indicated by the marginal numbers. 
 The direction of the writing exactly corresponds to the 
 Chinese writing. The second tablet is to be read in the 
 same direction and manner. Among the hieroglyphic 
 characters in these two unique inscriptions — and there is 
 hardly one that does not seem to be the picture of some 
 object — may be recognized the human head and hand, 
 a bird, a fish, a reed, jars, vases and other forms. 
 
 A translation of these extremely archaic inscriptions is 
 most difficult on account of the fact that the age is so 
 remote that the hieroglyphs have not become standard- 
 ized, and it is a matter of great difficulty to identify them 
 with the more constant and highly conventionalized char- 
 acters of the later syllabary. Attempts have been made by 
 scholars to translate them, but the results have been so 
 experimental and divergent, that we will not consider 
 
 1 The application of tliese two terms, registers and columns, more prop- 
 erly applied to monumental inscriptions, is uncertain in these early experi- 
 ments in writing. The terms are more or less interchangeable until we 
 reach the fully developed linear-Babylonian writing. 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 
 
 241 
 
 1,3,3 
 
 ''^j™^JssS="=-^^"--«'""' 
 
242 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 them here.i The inscriptions, doubtless like the previous 
 example, are votive tablets, inventories of gifts to a tem- 
 ple, as the amounts indicated by the circles at the top of 
 the several columns would seem to indicate. 
 
 Another extremely archaic tablet, quite as unique as the 
 foregoing ones and probably belonging to the same early 
 age, is that known as the Hoffman tablet, in the collection 
 of the late E. A. Hoffman in the General Theological 
 Seminary in New York City (Fig. 74). It is engraved 
 on a beautifully prepared piece of black stone, about four 
 inches square. The characters appear ideographic — al- 
 most pictographic — like the preceding inscriptions. One 
 can make out utensils, vases, jars, a deer's or ass's head, 
 trees, a star and other objects. While some signs evi- 
 dently are ideographic, others are syllabic signs based on 
 ideographic prototypes. There also are quite a number 
 of purely geometric or abstract, syllabic signs. Oriental 
 scholars have essayed to translate this inscription, but 
 again it must be admitted that on account of the uncer- 
 tainty of the symbols the translations leave very much to 
 be desired.^ The reading as In the three archaic Inscrip- 
 tions just examined is from right to left In the three hori- 
 zontal lines or columns; the words or sentences, which are 
 read downward, being separated by vertical lines and 
 grouped into registers, three in the first line, two in the 
 second, and four In the third. The tablet, probably like 
 the foregoing. Is a votive tablet or inventory accompany- 
 ing and recording gifts to a temple of Shamash. But the 
 reader must not imagine that the characters are pictures 
 
 1 The reader is referred to the translation of Thureau-Dangin in 
 "Revue Semetique," 1896; also to that of George A. Barton in the Jour- 
 nal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. XXII, 1901. 
 
 - The reader will find an elaborate translation of this remarkable tab- 
 let by Dr. Barton in the Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol 
 XIII, 1902. 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 243 
 
 of the gifts. Possibly none of them is. They probably are 
 largely syllabic. The amounts given in this inventory, 
 probably in this case certain measures of land, are indi- 
 cated by circles which have been neatly and accurately 
 drilled into the stone at the right of or the beginning of 
 the registers, as in the preceding inscription. A tablet of 
 
 fW^ 
 
 Ir, (o) 
 
 
 ® 
 
 m^LT 
 
 Fig. 74. Tablet with early Babylonian hieroglyphic writing. From the 
 Hoffman collection, General Theological Seminary, New York City. 
 
 almost identical workmanship with the Hoffman tablet is 
 in the collection of Babylonian tablets in the Museum of 
 the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (Fig. 75). 
 The size, shape and finish of the two stones are prac- 
 tically the same, to the slightly convex curving edge lines, 
 and the drill holes used for numerical purposes. The 
 characters are somewhat more carefully drawn in the sec- 
 ond tablet; but the reading arrangement is the same in 
 both, and the drawing of the symbols indicates the same 
 early age of pictorial writing. 
 
 The writing in these two archaic Babylonian tablets 
 plainly shows it to belong to the early experimental stage, 
 when the scribes had not yet found themselves. This is 
 evidenced by one character which occurs three times in the 
 two tablets, each time being drawn somewhat differently. 
 
244' 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Fig. 75. Early Babylonian tablet in the museum of the University of 
 Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 It is the character next to the last on the right in the top 
 and bottom horizontal lines in the University of Pennsyl- 
 vania tablet, and the last character on the right in the 
 middle section of the top line in the Hoffman tablet. The 
 same character also occurs in the Schiel tablet (Fig. 71) 
 in the left upper corner. The characters in these tablets 
 seem to be somewhat differently arranged than those in 
 the preceding tablets. It may be an earlier experiment 
 or it may be a later transitional style. It is difii'cult to 
 judge. If the tablets are correctly placed as shown in the 
 cuts, then we have a document corresponding in general 
 arrangement with the Monuments Blau, except that the 
 characters are not placed above each other nor in vertical 
 registers, but are disposed for the most part horizontally, 
 reading from right to left along the horizontal lines 
 rather than downward; thus requiring three horizontal 
 rows of signs instead of two. 
 
 The striving for a fixed, constant method in the ar- 
 rangement of the signs in these early tablet inscriptions is 
 illustrated in the very archaic inscription on a brick from 
 a temple built by Our-Nina, who is known to have ruled 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 
 
 245 
 
 in Shirpoula some time between 4500 and 4000 b. c. 
 The characters in this inscription (Fig. 76) have so far 
 advanced toward the conventional standard of the final 
 syllabary that there is no difficulty in identifying them. 
 The inscription reads downward in the three vertical 
 rows, strictly speaking registers, beginning at the right 
 and running according to the marginal figures as follows: 
 
 Our-Nina 
 King of Shirpoula 
 Son of Nini-hal-shin 
 The abode of Ghirson 
 He has constructed. 
 
 Fig. 76. Babylonian brick of Our-Nina. About 4000 B. c. 
 
 After the experimental stage of this earliest form of 
 the linear Babylonian writing, as practiced by the Akka- 
 dians and Sumerians, a permanent change already referred 
 to was effected in the position of the hieroglyphic signs. 
 
246 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 For some reason or other, possibly on account of ease in 
 handling and inscribing the tablet while held in the hand, 
 the characters subsequently were drawn on their sides in 
 horizontal rows, or registers; being upright in these regis- 
 ters, as they always were in the more archaic inscriptions, 
 only when viewed from the right. This change resulted in 
 the reading being from left to right in horizontal lines 
 according to the method of the Occident. In monumental 
 inscriptions the older method obtained through many cen- 
 turies, even after the cuneiform had displaced the linear 
 method. One of the finest illustrations of the monumental 
 style of writing Is the superb statue of Gudea, Priest-King 
 (Patesi), who ruled in Lagash (Shirpoula) in southern 
 Babylonia, about 2700 b. c. The statue illustrated in Fig. 
 77, which represents Gudea as Architect of the Temple, 
 is one of three very similar statues now in the Louvre, 
 each having elaborate inscriptions carried across the dress 
 or over the backs of the figures. The characters are in the 
 transitional stage, being mainly linear, and retain the old 
 hieroglyphic shapes in a highly conventionalized and geo- 
 metric form with only a slight trace of the already 
 adopted cuneiform. The inscriptions are read from right 
 to left along the horizontal rows and downward in each 
 vertical register. 
 
 Illustrations of the later phase of the early pre-Baby- 
 lonian inscriptions, referred to above, in which the char- 
 acters are drawn " on their sides" are given in Fig. 78 
 and Fig. 79. They show the final conventionalized hiero- 
 glyphic characters known as the linear Babylonian sig- 
 nary, out of which the cuneiform of the Sargonic period 
 (about 3800 B.C.), the first Semitic period, was devel- 
 oped. Fig. 78 is a fragment of baked clay made in the 
 reign of King Enshagkushanna, who reigned in Nippur 
 prior to 4500 B. c. The characters are quite regular and 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 
 
 247 
 
 Fig. 77. Gudea, Priest-King of Lagash, as Architect. About 2700 b. c. 
 
 follow the typical, conventional standard of the developed 
 syllabary. The lines of writing are horizontal, but the 
 characters are on their sides, as already stated, showing 
 it to be a comparatively late inscription. Yet there is no 
 
248 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 trace of the cuneiform. The characters are purely linear, 
 but so far developed that the translation is certain. Listen 
 now to the message of this ancient of kings, the earliest 
 known king in the world, in the language which he spoke : 
 
 1. En-lil 
 
 2. Lugal kur kur ra 
 
 3. En-sag-kush-an-na 
 
 4. En ki-en-gi 
 
 5. Lugal . . . 
 Translated this reads: 
 
 1. To Enlil 
 
 2. King of the lands . . . 
 
 3. Enshagkushanna 
 
 4. Lord of Kengi 
 
 5. King of . . . 
 
 -^Hfi^/,^/^ 
 
 ^<J)<#=^ 
 
 /) 
 
 
 fv^y 
 
 Fig. 78. Linear Babylonian inscription of Enshagkushanna. 4500 B. c. 
 
 We will now enter upon a brief analysis of the graphic 
 characters in this inscription, for it will throw much light 
 upon the stages by which a written language has sprung 
 from and developed out of primitive picture-writing. To 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 249 
 
 the most casual observer the Individual signs must appear 
 to be, what they really are, drawings. Probably with but 
 few exceptions they are but slightly modified pictures of 
 the things defined in the words or syllables for which they 
 stand. They are the conventionalized descendants of pic- 
 tographic or ideographic drawings of things intended, in 
 records made by the illiterate precursors of the Sumerlan 
 inhabitants before syllabic writing was invented. Let us 
 see how they came into use as written characters. The 
 first character, a " star," in common with many of the 
 archaic Babylonian signs, is variously used either as an 
 ideogram or the sign for a syllable. This is the common 
 progressive development. As an ideogram, the sense in 
 which it is used in the first line of this text, as well as in 
 the first line in the inscription of Our-Nina, it symbolizes 
 deity; in which context it is not pronounced, being merely 
 a determinative sign denoting deity or kingship. It is' 
 used precisely in the same way as the determinative signs 
 that we already are familiar with in the Chinese and 
 Egyptian hieroglyphics. As a syllabic sign it loses all of 
 its ideographic value and has no other significance than 
 the representation of the syllable an. It has this syllabic 
 value and no other when it occurs in the third line. This 
 sign illustrates the metaphorical development of many of 
 these archaic characters. Primarily it was the picture of a 
 "star," ana, in the Sumerlan language, and had this single 
 significance ; but as gods and kings, equally in the heroic 
 ages, were endowed with superhuman attributes, the celes- 
 tial bodies were used to typify or represent them also. 
 Consequently in time this character became employed to 
 represent variously a star, a god or a king. Finally when 
 civilization advanced to the stage of syllabic writing, the 
 sign was arbitrarily chosen to stand for the sound an, the 
 initial sound In the word ana, as well as to represent ideo- 
 
250 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 graphically a " star," a " god " or a " king." This is the 
 history of many of these primitive characters ; and it has 
 its parallel probably in the historic development of most 
 of the world's great languages. The second character in 
 the inscription is an ideogram like the first, and is the rep- 
 resentation of a " throne." As an ideogram, probably the 
 sense in which it is used in the first line, it is Belu, Bel; 
 and stands for lord. As a syllable, in which sense it occurs 
 in the third line, it has the value en. It is probable that 
 this syllabic value became attached to it when phonetic 
 writing was employed by reason of its being the first syl- 
 lable of Enlil, the chief god of the Sumerians. In an en- 
 tirely similar way, doubtless in most languages, the primi- 
 tive picture of some important word was chosen as the 
 character to represent the phonetic value of the initial 
 syllable of this word. The reader already is familiar with 
 this process of acrophony in the Egyp.tian hieroglyphics. 
 The Babylonian syllabary abounds in it. In the fourth 
 line where the " throne " sign occurs twice its two mean- 
 ings are well differentiated; the first one having the ideo- 
 graphic meaning " lord " while the second has no ideo- 
 graphic significance whatever, but is simply the symbol for 
 the syllable en in Ki-en-gi, the ancient name of Babylon. 
 The third sign in the first line also is probably an ideo- 
 gram and represents a country intersected by canals. 
 Babylon — Kengi -^ was sometimes represented thus in 
 
 the archaic inscriptions : [ 1 1 1 V -Hf^. This is a conven- 
 
 tional picture of a flat country of canals and reeds, charac- 
 teristic of all Mesopotamia. The right hand character in 
 this compound is the same as the last sign in the fourth 
 line, — gi; originally meaning a " reed," of which it is the 
 picture, but subsequently used only for the phonetic value 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 251 
 
 gi wherever occurring. It does not need any stretch of 
 the imagination in viewing this character from the right 
 of the page, the viewpoint of all the symbols In Inscrip- 
 tions of this order, to discern Its resemblance to the reed. 
 In other Inscriptions of about this same age the likeness Is 
 yet more marked; as In the drawing of the reed In the 
 second register of the second Monument Blau, which will 
 be recognized as a purely naturalistic picture of the reed. 
 Continuing our analysis, we may take up the strange 
 character lugal at the beginning of the second line. This 
 is a compound of lu, the lower, or right hand part, and 
 gal, the upper, or left hand part, and means " king." The 
 character lu Is a crude representation of a man with angu- 
 lar head and body. In earlier inscriptions the drawing is 
 cruder but much more realistic. The gal sign signifies 
 " great," and is the picture of a raised hand, often repre- 
 sented with four fingers and a thumb, as shown In Fig. 80, 
 and as such symbolizes power and authority. The reader 
 will find the character lugal at the top of the second col- 
 umn of Our-NIna's Inscription and at the beginning, the 
 left, of the second and of the last line In the brick of Ne- 
 buchadrezzar. The name in the meantime had changed 
 from the Sumerian lugal to the Semitic sar (shar). It is, 
 however, still to be translated as " king." The next char- 
 acter, the group of three small signs repeated, symbolizes 
 the idea of land. In other inscriptions it is drawn much 
 more naturally, as illustrated In Fig. 80, appearing decid- 
 edly like mountains, and often to be so translated. The 
 second and third characters In the name Enshagkushanna, 
 although here used phonetically, were originally the ideo- 
 grams respectively for " heart " and " protector," or 
 " guardian." How suggestive of the qualities of a king! 
 The heart, except for the accidental prolongation of the 
 i 
 
252 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 lines at the top, really is a very good drawing of the ob- 
 ject. As in all later Sumerian and Babylonian characters 
 there are no curved lines. 
 
 We will give the translation of the seven lines in the 
 left hand column in Fig. 79, from a clay tablet of Ente- 
 mena, governor of Shirpoula (Lagash) , about 4500 B. c. : 
 
 I. 
 
 2. 
 
 3- 
 
 (En) te-me-na, 
 (Pa) te-si 
 of Shirpoula; 
 
 4- 
 
 5- 
 6. 
 
 7- 
 
 to whom power was given 
 
 by En-lil, 
 
 who was nourished by the milk of life 
 
 by Nin-ha-sag. 
 
 Fig. 79. Fragment of a tablet of Entemena, about 4500 B. c. 
 
 The inscription is a mixture of ideographic and syllabic 
 writing. The fourth line is wholly ideographic, as is also 
 the sixth. In the fourth line " power " is represented by 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 251 
 
 an arm and the five fingers of the hand. It is believed that 
 the parallel angular lines represent tattooing. The two 
 onions are the characters commonly used for " giving." 
 In the sixth line the idea of " nourishing by the milk of 
 life " is expressed by the ideograph for " mouth " with 
 the cup of milk beside it, which is the ideogram for 
 " nourish "; also by the other vase-like character which is 
 the ideogram for " milk " and the reed-like sign which is 
 the ideogram for " life." Again we will remind the 
 reader that all characters should be viewed from the right 
 of the inscription to see them in their objective aspect. It 
 is customary to place the inscriptions in the position 
 shown, as the reading then proceeds like our English and 
 European reading from left to right. 
 
 In the four columns of graphic characters in Fig. 80 
 we give over seventy symbols selected from the very ex- 
 tensive syllabary of the ancient linear Babylonian system 
 of writing, which was the progenitor of the cuneiform 
 system and which formed its basis. They have been taken 
 from early tablet inscriptions found chiefly at Telloh, 
 Lagash, Nippur and other places in ancient Babylonia. 
 The characters are in the reading position, and should be 
 viewed from the right of the page to observe their picto- 
 rial significance. In every case the ideograph, which the 
 reader will note is a picture represented as an outline 
 drawing, illustrates or interprets the meaning of the word 
 in the syllabary. Most of the symbols are recognizable, 
 though all are more or less conventionalized. The symbol 
 for " constellation " is so remarkably like the Chinese as 
 almost to suggest an historic association between the two 
 nations at some remote epoch. It is not by any means the 
 only instance of similarity in the written characters of 
 these two nations. The character for " night " is very 
 similar to th# symbols employed by th§ Nprth American 
 
254 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Indians and the Egyptians. It Is almost Identical with the 
 Chinese character for rain, which pictures the rain falling 
 from the sky, as the Babylonian symbol seems to repre- 
 sent the night as descending from the sky. The character 
 for " month " is an example of metaphor. The sun, drawn 
 square instead of round. Is used to represent a day, and 
 the three angular lines within the character indicate 
 thirty. As a whole the symbol means thirty days. This is 
 precisely the way but not exactly the form In which the 
 American Indians represented days. The character for 
 " ox " represents the face and horns of an ox, alpu in 
 Babylonian. It Is believed, but with no certain substantia- 
 tion, that this symbol has been perpetuated as a written 
 character In name and form through all the ages down to 
 the present day in the shape of the Initial letter of our 
 alphabet. In Phoenician It was aleph (Fig. loi), and in 
 early Greek a/p/zfl (Fig. 131). The character for " fish " 
 never became much conventionalized. We find It In the 
 second example of the Monuments Blau represented very 
 naturally. The character for " destiny " obviously Is a 
 variant of the symbol for " birds." Until the characters 
 began to assume a fixed form in this early stage of Baby- 
 lonian writing we find many variations of bird forms. 
 One will be found in the second register of the upper line 
 In the obverse of the first Monument Blau. This charac- 
 ter, however, with the several double angular lines, was 
 particularly used to Indicate the meaning " destiny." At 
 first this seems anomalous until we remember the custom 
 in primitive days of divination by the flight of birds. We 
 already have explained the symbols for " man " and 
 " king." The character for " child " or " son," also 
 shown at the top of line 3 in the brick of Our-NIna, Is an 
 Instance of the selection of a sign by metaphorical sugges- 
 tion. The characters by which " seeing " and " hearing " 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 
 
 255 
 
 are portrayed are almost as direct as the pictography of 
 the Dakota Indians; the sensations being objectified by 
 the out-going lines. " To take oath " is to swear by the 
 stars in heaven. The character " to throw " undoubtedly 
 portrays the boomerang or throwing stick. The authen- 
 ticity of the sign for " door " with its pivoted post Is am- 
 ply confirmed by the many stone door sockets that have 
 been recovered from Babylonia and Assyria. It was cus- 
 
 star 
 
 
 
 constellation ^o-^v c u 
 
 
 
 > '" ^ 
 
 bird, 
 duck 
 
 Ay'^ destiny 
 
 sun, day, 
 light 
 
 earth 
 universe 
 
 night , 
 
 month ^^^^ ill T^'^ '"^" 
 
 mountains q'^Oi i T^ king . 
 
 ^"'" g: child 
 
 <!=] head 
 < r I prince 
 
 <i^IIl mouth 
 \) — to see 
 <l_ 
 
 
 foundation 
 
 hip 
 
 back 
 tongue 
 
 <l W^ nourish 
 ^ ■^ oath 
 ,-1- to divide 
 to throw 
 
 » 
 
 <l 
 
 to hear 
 
 yv to bend 
 
 — 1^^ to split 
 
 X guard 
 
 I I I ! I temple 
 
 H throne 
 
 orchard 
 
 wood 
 (lumber) 
 
 I — I village 
 
 □^ house 
 
 ^1^ door 
 
 I I enclosure 
 
 Fig. 80. Babylonian ideographic symbols. 
 
 hand 
 
 ^^^ arm, _ 
 — ' N authority 
 
 ^\/ heart 
 I — /| to stand 
 
256 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 StTMPR.AN ^^"'-^ „ ■^*" Assyrian 
 
 buMERiAN Babylonian Babylonian 
 
 ^ ^ ^< ^ ' 
 
 ?«> ^<S 
 
 RiSfc. <iiii- *-*-^ 
 
 
 month 
 
 ^ H^^ king 
 
 <fa i^=f t^|;=[ ^=^It^ p""" 
 
 ^ -^4 -^^ 
 
 lord 
 
 ^)-> "^-^ -^ —1^ ^'^ 
 
 A^ v^ -^-^ "^^ "^""^ 
 
 [TIMJ ;^ ^ijl" power 
 
 <%:i OfZj tXlml ►v=Tr4 mouth 
 
 =0 3> ;=IJ^ t^^ ox 
 
 \7 ^ ^ ^ bird 
 
 ^iU^ HkJ-^ "^^^^ <^^^''"y 
 
 V <j V^ IK fish 
 
 \y y^^ ►><. ^7^ gardener 
 
 □^ t»^5^ K^^^I t^ti^r habitation 
 
 ^ t=Si£[ t^ISf Nineveh 
 
 <== '<^^ <!={= night 
 
 Fig. 8i. Successive stages of development of the cuneiform characters from 
 the early Sumerian form of the linear Babylonian to the Assyrian. 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 257 
 
 tomary to engrave these door sockets with Inscriptions, 
 and some of the finest specimens of Babylonian inscrip- 
 tions have come from this source. The beautiful inscrip- 
 tion of Sargon I, to be described later on, is from a door 
 socket of one of the temples of this king in Nippur. In 
 an earlier chapter we explained the evolution of the cross- 
 barred arrow from a proprietary sign to the general char- 
 acter indicating the personal pronoun " his." The harp, 
 though fragmentary, suggests this instrument in a most 
 graphic manner. 
 
 We shall have to admit that there are not a very large 
 number of these linear Babylonian symbols that seem to 
 picture the meaning of the signs. As we have said, our 
 first acquaintance with the script reveals it well advanced 
 in conventionalization toward the purely geometric or ab- 
 stract stage. Under Babylonian influence the evolution 
 was carried a stage further. The characters became more 
 simplified, many lines were eliminated, and the cuneiform 
 line was substituted for the simple line. In Fig. 81 we 
 have selected twenty characters of the early linear Baby- 
 lonian syllabary and have traced them through three suc- 
 cessive stages of historical development, extending over 
 two or three millenniums to the perfected Assyrian just 
 prior to the classic period. One can trace the progressive 
 elimination of superfluous lines and note the ultimate 
 tendency toward horizontal and vertical lines. The primi- 
 tive siign for " gardener " appears to have been a plow or 
 hoe. Nineveh was a fishermen's town on the Euphrates, 
 and was represented by a fish drawn within a house. 
 
 We will now give two examples of Babylonian writing, 
 both in the transitional stage, between the early linear 
 and the late cuneiform style. Fig. 82 is an inscription on 
 a door socket of Sargon I, who reigned in Nippur, Baby- 
 lon, about 3800 B. c. The primitive characters are not in 
 
258 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 the least disguised, but still show the original pictures, 
 though highly conventionalized. The inscription begins 
 at the first line in the left-hand vertical column and reads 
 from left to right and downward in the column to the 
 bottom, then proceeding similarly down the right-hand 
 column. The characters are largely ideographic. The in- 
 scription translated reads as follows : 
 
 " Shargani-shar-ali (Sargon), son of Itti-Bel, the 
 mighty King of Accad and the dominion of Bel, the 
 builder of Ekur, the Temple of Bel in Nippur. Who- 
 
 *^^I>JM 
 
 
 
 :a-Fv=^ 
 
 wm ^ 
 
 -a. !i 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 mv\^^ 
 
 
 t>-> J=^ 
 
 Fig. 82. Inscription of Sargon I, on a door socket from Nippur. 
 Museum of the University of Pennsylvania. 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 259 
 
 ever removes this Inscribed stone, may Bel and Sha- 
 mash tear out his foundation and exterminate his pos- 
 terity." 1 
 
 The date of Sargon's reign is established by Nabu-naid 
 (Nabonidas), the last king of Babylon who reigned 555- 
 539 B. c. He undertook the restoration of the temple of 
 Ebarra in Sippar, rebuilt by Nebuchadrezzar. One of 
 Nabu-naid's tablets describing the temple and how Ne- 
 buchadrezzar had hunted for the foundation stone re- 
 lates: "... 18 cubits of ground I removed and the 
 foundation stone of Na-rim-Sin, son of Sargena, which 
 during 3,200 years no king that went before me had 
 found, Shamash showed me." 
 
 One of the most notable of the early Babylonian in- 
 scriptions of the period following the linear Babylonian 
 and Sargonic types is the famous Code of Hammurabi, 
 King of Babylon about 2250 B. c. It was found in 1901, 
 not in Babylon, but in the acropolis of Susa, whither it 
 had been carried as a trophy of war some time around 
 1 100 B. c. by one Sutruk Nahunte, the Elamite king. It is 
 a tall cylindrical block of diorite eight feet high, almost 
 completely covered with the very finest inscriptions. Five 
 columns have been chiseled off probably by the Elamltes 
 on account of their offensive character. Hammurabi 
 doubtless was the Amraphel of Genesis xiv, i. " He codi- 
 fied the , existing laws that the strong might not oppress 
 the weak, that they should give justice to the orphans and 
 widows, and for the righting of wrong." The laws of 
 Hammurabi are in many cases almost Identical with those 
 of the Old Testament, and their pervading spirit Is Jew- 
 ish throughout. This Is not surprising when we know that 
 Abraham is supposed to have gone out of Ur in Chaldea 
 
 1 " Light on the Old Testament." Albert T, Clay. 
 
26o A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 during the reign of Hammurabi. He doubtless took with 
 him the genius of the prevailing Babylonian common law. 
 
 It is not our intention to give here more than the most 
 ciirsory glance at this remarkable monument, to quote a 
 line or two from its forty columns of fine writing, to 
 attest to Its quaint barbaric justice, and to give in parallel 
 one of the laws. After a grandiloquent prologue In which 
 the king Is praised to the skies, as only these Orientals 
 know how to do, Hammurabi's laws begin: " If a man 
 bring an accusation against a man and charge him with a 
 (capital) crime, but cannot prove it, be, the accuser, shall 
 be put to death." This Is quite In line with some of the 
 passages In the harsh Mosaic code. Another capital of- 
 fense, which If followed by our modern city rulers might 
 lead to more honesty and less danger In building construc- 
 tion, was punished under the terms of the following law : 
 " If a builder build a house for a man and do not make 
 its construction firm, that builder shall be put to death." 
 But the following law Is an evidence that the modern 
 single-tax propaganda Is just about four thousand years 
 old: "If a man rent a field for cultivation and do not 
 produce any grain in the field, they shall call him to ac- 
 count, because he has not performed the work required on 
 the field; and he shall give to the owner of the field grain 
 on the basis of the adjacent fields." 
 
 The laws of Hammurabi made a very fine and proper 
 distinction between voluntary and Involuntary Injury. 
 One of the laws reads: " If a physician open an abscess 
 (In another's eye) with a bronze lancet and destroy his 
 eye, he shall pay silver to the extent of one-half of his 
 price." In the case of voluntary injury, we find among 
 these laws the prototype of the Mosaic " eye-for-an-eye " 
 edict. We give In Fig. 83 a reproduction of this law in the 
 beautiful cuneiform characters of the original. In Baby- 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 
 
 261 
 
 Fig. 83. Part of the extensive inscription of the Laws of Hammurabi. About 
 2250 B. c. " If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy 
 his eye." 
 
 Ionian it reads : (i) Stim-ma a-wi-liim (2) i-in-mdr a-wi- 
 I'lm (3) uh-tab-bi-it (4) i-in-su (5) u-ha-ap-po-du. 
 Translated into English it reads: " If a man destroy the 
 eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye." Being a 
 monumental inscription, the signs are drawn upright in 
 vertical registers, the reading being downward and from 
 right to left, as indicated by the marginal numbers. 
 
 It may be said in passing that not only many of these 
 laws of Hammurabi but many of the epic traditions re- 
 corded in the early tablet inscriptions are signally like the 
 Hebrew traditions. We find among them the story of the 
 creation, of the flood, — the latter almost identical with 
 the Hebrew version — and other traditions so startlingly 
 like those that we read in the Old Testament as to compel 
 
262 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 us to seek a common source for them. As regards the 
 tradition of the flood, the reader is reminded that almost 
 all nations in their annals record a universal flood. Sar- 
 gon, whose door socket inscription we have just read, was 
 the Moses of his day; having been abandoned in an ark of 
 bulrushes smeared over with pitch, and thrown into the 
 Euphrates, to be found and subsequently to become the 
 ruler of the people. 
 
 Finally let us return after our wide wanderings in the 
 historic valley of Mesopotamia to the great rock of Behis- 
 tun in Persia. We have since our first view of the inscrip- 
 tion on this remarkable rock traced the development of 
 the cuneiform system of writing to its primitive sources 
 in ancient Akkad and Sumer, the higher and lower plains 
 of this extensive valley which has nourished for so many 
 centuries the childhood civilization of the races of West- 
 ern Asia. We have studied the pictorial script of these 
 pre-Semitic races who inhabited the valley so many mil- 
 lenniums ago, taking us back so far toward the begin- 
 nings of' writing that we were only one remove from the 
 primitive pictographic stage of their uncivilized fore- 
 bears, from whom they took their ideographic pictures 
 and incorporated them into their later syllabary. Their 
 earliest attempts, as we have seen, were pictorial in ap- 
 pearance, partly ideographic and partly syllabic in signifi- 
 cance. We also have studied the later linear script, the 
 pre-Sargonic syllabary in vogue during the fifth millen- 
 nium before Christ, when the ideographs were developing 
 into settled, conventional syllabic signs. In many instances 
 the pictorial prototypes of the later written characters 
 easily were recognizable in these archaic signs, every one 
 of which, with hardly an exception, was an outline draw- 
 ing. There was no trace yet of the cuneiform. This was 
 first encountered in the reign of the first great Semitic 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 263 
 
 king, Sargon I, about the end of the fourth millennium. 
 His inscriptions, by the way, were in the Semitic language, 
 but with characters chiefly Sumerian. Before his time, the 
 prevailing language was Turanian. In Sargon's time the 
 transformation from the linear to the cuneiform system 
 of writing was only half effected. The pictures were still 
 plainly recognizable and remained so for many hundreds 
 of years to come. But gradually the lines began to show 
 the cuneiform mark, sometimes on one stroke, again on 
 another, like the serifs on the Roman letters. 
 
 By the time of Hammurabi, at about the third pre- 
 Christian millennium, conventionalization had so far ad- 
 vanced that the resemblance of the cuneiform characters, 
 then fully established, to their linear prototypes was ap- 
 parent only to the practiced eye. But the grouping of the 
 cuneiform characters into forms reminiscent of the orig- 
 inal ideographs was still apparent. These groupings of 
 cuneiform marks which remained as the successors of the 
 original -ideographs had lost in the intervening centuries 
 many of the lines of the old pictures; but the process of 
 simplification had been progressive, if slow, and it was 
 possible to trace any particular cuneiform sign of the lat- 
 est period, however conventionalized, through its succes- 
 sive stages of simplification back to its primitive proto- 
 type of four millenniums of antiquity. 
 
 We have now traced the development of the cuneiform 
 characters down to the end of the Babylonian dynasty in 
 the 7th century B. c. There probably was no further 
 change in the system in Babylonia. For Darius the Per- 
 sian destroyed Babylon in 666 B. c. This practically ter- 
 minated the use of the cuneiform in Babylon after being 
 in vogue over three thousand years. Persia now took up 
 the torch of learning and kept it burning. The Medic 
 tribes who borrowed the Assyro-Babylonian system of 
 
264 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 cuneiform writing with its " cumbersome homophones, 
 polyphones, ideographs and determinatives," greatly sim- 
 plified it. They discarded the idea of a syllabary, which 
 with the Assyrians amounted to almost 300 characters, 
 and very largely assigned elemental phonetic values to the 
 few characters that they adopted. With the twenty con- 
 sonants, which they recognized, they added four vowel 
 sounds and certain modifications of them, making in all 
 some thirty-six or thirty-seven alphabetic and syllabic 
 signs. This near-alphabet Is the distinct contribution of 
 the Aryans to the progress of the art of writing. " The 
 ordinary Persian writing was Identical with that of the 
 Medic. A cuneiform alphabet, consisting of some thirty- 
 six or thirty-seven forms, expressive of twenty-three dis- 
 tinct sounds, sufficed for the wants of the people, whose 
 language was simple and devoid of phonetic luxuriance. 
 Writing was from left to right, as with the Aryan nations 
 generally. Words were separated from one another by an 
 oblique wedge ; and were divided at any point at which the 
 writer happened to reach the end of the line." ("The 
 Seven Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World," 
 George Rawllnson, M. A.) 
 
 On the great rock of Behlstun Darius has written his 
 history in the Persian cuneiform of his day. He begins: 
 " I am Darius the great king, the king of kings; the king 
 of Persia, the king of the provinces, the son of Hystaspes. 
 . . . From antiquity we are descended; from antiquity 
 hath our race been kings. Thus salth Darius the king: 
 Eight of my race were kings before me. I am the ninth." 
 He then enumerates the twenty-three provinces over 
 which he rules and goes on to relate how he overthrew 
 the revolting kings of Babylon, Media and other rebel- 
 lious countries. 
 
 Fig. 84 Is a reproduction of Column II of the Behlstun 
 
CUNEIFORM WRITING 265 
 
 inscription, showing the highly conventionalized cunei- 
 form character in use in Persia at that time. Translated it 
 reads: " Thus saith Darius the king: Then did Nidintu- 
 Bel flee with a few horsemen into Babylon. Thereupon I 
 marched to Babylon. By the grace of Aurmazda I took 
 Babylon, and I captured that Nidintu-Bel. Then I slew 
 that Nidintu-Bel in Babylon." The unfortunate general is 
 the third one from the left in the group of has reliefs 
 from the rock, shown in Fig. 67. There are nine rebel 
 princes in all standing before the " King of Kings," 
 chained together, neck to neck, with their names inscribed 
 overhead. Above Gaumates one reads : " This is Gau- 
 mates, the Magian; he lied; he said, I am Smerdls, son of 
 Cyrus." And so over each captive in turn occurs the reit- 
 erated statement: "This is . . . ; he lied; he said he 
 was king of . . ." Farther along in the inscription, in 
 defending his own integrity with inimitable naivete, Da- 
 rius says: "Oh, thou that shalt be king hereafter, see 
 that thou art not guilty of deceit. . . . Thou that readest 
 upon this stone my deeds, think not that thou hast been 
 deceived, neither be thou slow to believe them. . . . Aur- 
 mazda he my witness that I have not spoken these things 
 with lying lips." The great inscription concludes as fol- 
 lows : "Says Darius the King: By the grace of Aur- 
 mazda that which has besides been done by me, which is 
 much, I have not Inscribed on this tablet. On that account 
 I have not inscribed it, lest he who hereafter might peruse 
 this tablet, to him the many deeds that have been done by 
 me elswhere might seem to be falsely recorded." Finally 
 the inscription ends, somewhat like Shakespeare's curse : 
 " Says Darius the King: Thou who mayest hereafter be- 
 hold this Tablet which I have engraved, and these figures, 
 beware lest thou injure them. As long as thou livest, as 
 long preserve them." 
 
266 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 < KT m tTiT "rf ,<- < n" m H t<- ^Te <tr << < 
 «ir ■ "^ in !<- KT "rf K- [< W Te Tn] ^Te < 
 K ETT ir ::TiT ^T "if S[ < <K 
 
 u" Tfi < 1= "TiT =< "if -nr ^ < tft IE -I til £T "u -T If "« < 
 m tT • lu r<- < =T rri ^U n ' -« <Ti "Irl < Tn '^ tf i<- 
 
 -fE < ^ IE tii "TE < iri n ^Irl < i:I tlT ^T "fr -« KfT "Irl 
 
 < in -« -if' i<- ^lE ^TiT .<,riE "« K ^ < 
 Hi <W SI "ITI I'-I "n] m <^< < <u :=]]] m < =1 Tir 
 
 ::i tr -« <n "III < m <ir si ^i nr i<- ^iii < <n j^iti m 
 
 < m ^lE ^IiT < ^< SIT T :=TtT :^T it ST ^TtT < 
 m <ir SI ^T m t<-] *^TtT < ^ Ie Tn ^e < m "IE 
 
 'III < =^< SIT *ir i:IiT ^1 ir SI niT < Tn "n ^iT ■< 
 tl m ti fr SI <Tr "IE < m "IE nr -I< t< "TrT 
 
 < T<I m s^TiT ft Y<- < IT] m SI r<- "IE KfT "<< < «II 
 
 Fig. 84. Part of the cuneiform inscription of King Darius on the Rock 
 of Behistun. 
 
 Sir Henry Rawlinson's extraordinary decipherment of 
 the inscription on the Rock of Behistun, besides being a 
 milestone in the history of archsology and the open gate 
 to Babylonian and Assyrian literature, has proved by the 
 many correspondences of names and events the historical 
 accuracy of many passages in Herodotus and Xenophon, 
 as well as the accuracy of Darius' extensive chronicle of 
 events with its profuse asseverations of personal honesty. 
 The entire inscription may be found in " The History of 
 Herodotus," by George Rawlinson and Sir Henry Raw- 
 linson, a work of surpassing scholarship, abounding in 
 critical notes and essays on the historical writings of 
 Herodotus. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE HIEROGLYPHIC SYSTEM OF WRITING OF THE 
 ANCIENT HITTITES 
 
 Until the early part of the 19th century Europe was 
 unaware of the existence of another system of hierogly- 
 phic writing, one of great antiquity and geographically 
 of wider distribution in the cities where it was used and 
 where inscriptions in this paleographic system have been 
 found than almost any of the ancient systems of writing 
 that preceded or followed it. In the year 18 12, prob- 
 ably thirty centuries after the clever sculptor had cut 
 the mystic characters upon Its face, the traveler-scientist 
 Burkhardt discovered at Hamah, a small town in Syria 
 about twenty miles down the river Orontes from the 
 site of Kadesh, the ancient Hittite capital, a remarkable 
 stone imbedded in the wall of a native house, covered 
 with a carved inscription In quaint and peculiar hierogly- 
 phics in a style hitherto unknown. Since the discovery 
 of this first inscription stone other specimens have been 
 found In Hamah — the ancient Hamath of the scrip- 
 tures, referred to In II Kings, XVII, 24, and In other 
 biblical passages — until five stones in all have been re- 
 covered from this locality containing inscriptions in 
 hieroglyphics, the complete decipherment of which in 
 the Immediate future may possibly prove the system to 
 be one of the missing links in the chain of historic de- 
 velopment of our English alphabet. 
 
 It is significant of the Irreparable damage and wide- 
 spread wanton destruction of the many priceless relics 
 
 267 
 
268 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 of antiquity, to read in William Wright's " The Empire 
 of the Hittites " of the extraordinary vigilance bestowed 
 and the ruses resorted to to restrain the religiously 
 fanatical and jealous Arabs from destroying these pre- 
 cious inscriptions. Wright took no chances with such bar- 
 barian iconoclasts, who, as soon as ever they suspected 
 that such relics had any value to Christian unbelievers, 
 were bent on their Immediate destruction. This fate al- 
 ready had befallen the HIttite inscriptions of Aleppo; 
 the Moablte stone with Its priceless Phoenician Inscrip- 
 tion, fortunately restored in part after it had been will- 
 fully broken Into pieces ; and the many other Inestimable 
 relics of antiquity which have been burned by the ton 
 for lime, broken up into building stones, or in one way 
 or another have become irretrievably lost to archaeology. 
 Being unable to remove the stones, plaster casts were 
 promptly made of the Inscriptions, and after untold vicissi- 
 tudes they were forwarded to London where they now 
 repose in the British Museum, that great repository of 
 the art and archasology of the world. Another frag- 
 ment from Hamah, larger and with a more extensive in- 
 scription than the first one, is reproduced in Fig. 85. 
 The hieroglyphs show that the system had become a fixed, 
 definite one — probably a syllabary — with constant 
 characters that had reached a high degree of pictorial 
 conventionalization. In each of the two inscriptions the 
 reading is leftward In the first and odd rows and right- 
 ward in the even rows, the animate objects facing one as 
 he reads the line. 
 
 Since the Initial discovery at Hamah, Inscriptions in 
 this system of hieroglyphic writing have been found scat- 
 tered over a wider area than the remains, either paleo- 
 graphic or architectural, of any other nation anterior to 
 the classic period. From Southern Palestine to the Black 
 
THE ANCIENT HITTITES 
 
 269 
 
 Sea and from the Levant to Hallah (Babylon) on the 
 Euphrates and Nineveh on the Tigris, these carved in- 
 scriptions have been rescued from the dust of ages. Who 
 were the people who carved these inscriptions so widely 
 distributed, what was the nation that held sway over so 
 
 
 >[vc(4; 
 
 r). 
 
 iTAl 
 
 im' iin, 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 02, 3. 
 
 
 o\pik 
 
 @ 
 
 (IDS®! 
 
 
 
 
 Fig. 85. Hittite inscription from Hamah. 
 
 broad a dominion, and what is the significance of their 
 system of writing in its relation to the other world sys- 
 tems being considered by us ? A brief answer to these in- 
 quiries will enable us the better to understand the his- 
 toric connection between the stages of writing of the 
 peoples involved, as the recurrent tide of years carried 
 this culture westward toward Europe. 
 
 In regard to the first two inquiries we can offer fairly 
 definite information based on credible, historic evidence, 
 satisfactory now to all students of history and archa-ol- 
 ogy. Concerning the inscriptions, while they cast a glow 
 of illuminating light over the entire horizon of hiero- 
 glyphic writing, shining with the promise of early dawn 
 
270 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 over the birth of the alphabetic characters, it is as yet 
 a little too early in the day completely and definitely to 
 trace the specific influence of this system, intermediate as 
 it appears to be between the oldest Babylonian (Sumer- 
 ian) picture-writing and the PhcEnician letter characters, 
 upon the latter. We are, however, on the very border- 
 land where the Phoenician and Hebrew systems of writing 
 originated after the decadence of the old Babylonian 
 picture-writing and the passing of the hieroglyphic system 
 under discussion. We have, then, if we may be allowed 
 the simile, almost literally reached the land of Canaan, 
 the land of promise and expectancy in our culture quest. 
 One more stage and we shall have reached the shores 
 of the Mediterranean whereon lived the versatile Phoeni- 
 cians, who gave to the Greeks and the Hebrews the pro- 
 totjrpe of our alphabet. But we must proceed festina 
 lente. It Is our purpose now briefly to locate and con- 
 nect this extensive and obviously important civilization 
 with the other centers of ancient culture, to establish its 
 proper historic influence, and then at once to pass to a 
 consideration of the hieroglyphs themselves. 
 
 From the localities in which their sculptures have been 
 found we know that these peoples, the Hittites of the 
 Bible, were the immediate northern and eastern neigh- 
 bors of the Phoenicians, the somewhat unimportant 
 Amorites probably intervening on the northern seaboard. 
 We have then this extensive civilization with its advanced 
 art of writing touching the Phoenician, contemporaneous 
 with it and allied with it at times for defensive purposes. 
 It Is not altogether unreasonable to believe that Its sys- 
 tem of writing must have had some influence over that 
 of the latter. 
 
 For centuries the Hittites occupied the broad, partly 
 debatable ground north of the great Syrian Desert, con- 
 
THE ANCIENT HITTITES 271 
 
 tended for alternately by the Assyrian and Egyptian 
 kings, the one in the immediate east the other in the far 
 southwest. It is probable that they were diverse but 
 cognate tribes, descended from a common stock and fed- 
 erated together for defensive purposes. In the begin- 
 ning of this civilization, in the middle of the third pre- 
 Christian millennium, even before Babylon had become 
 a royal city, they first appear on the historical map as a 
 people probably closely allied in racial affinity with the 
 Akkadians, the early settlers of Babylonia — whom we 
 recognize as the authors of the early linear Babylonian 
 script — and other primitive Mongol races, as the Kas- 
 sites and Minni of Media. Successive waves of emigra- 
 tion flooded them over the fertile valleys from their ances- 
 tral home on the southern foothills of the Caucasus. One 
 of these waves early overwhelmed Northern Syria and 
 Northern Mesopotamia. These were the Mitani of the 
 cuneiform inscriptions who occupied the country during 
 the 1 8th and 17th centuries B. c. The rising Assyrian 
 power was able partly to overthrow this Mitani King- 
 dom and to take possession of Mesopotamia. About con- 
 temporaneous with this these same races, designated in 
 the cuneiform inscriptions as the Khatte, invaded Syria 
 about 1500 B. C, from their native country, Cappadocia. 
 Other tribes, as the Lukki, from whom Lykia (Lycia) 
 takes its name, occupied the central regions. Through 
 the weakness of the Egyptian and Assyrian powers in the 
 15th and 14th centuries B. c, this great civihzation ex- 
 tended itself over all Syria to Mt. Hermon in Palestine. 
 They had maintained for centuries a vacillating diplo- 
 matic attitude toward both the Assyrian monarchy on 
 the east and the Egyptian monarchy on the southwest. 
 Whenever the foreign armies were in evidence, tribute 
 was forthcoming; but when they retired or when from 
 
272 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 any internal or other cause the power of the dominating 
 empire was weakened, the tribute was withheld. 
 
 We shall the better be able to judge of the historic 
 position of the Hittites in their relation to the Assyrians 
 and to learn of the international ethics of the age if we 
 consult for just a moment a few quotations from the 
 court records of the times concerning the amenities ex- 
 isting between these two nations. It is a one-sided state- 
 ment, for the records of the latter nation only are avail- 
 able. These can be read. The Hittite cannot. Moreover, 
 the Assyrians possessed in the vast clay deposits of their 
 valleys unlimited and inviting resources for writing ; while 
 the Hittites had only hard and discouraging stone as the 
 material for their records. 
 
 Tiglath-Pileser I, 1130 B.C., first refers to the Hit- 
 tites in commencing a struggle that lasted 400 years be- 
 tween the two monarchies. Assur-Nasir-Pal (883^858 
 B. c.) says in the great inscription at Nimrud: " To Car- 
 chemish in Syria I directed my steps. The tribute due 
 from the son of Bakhiani I received; — swift chariots, 
 horses, silver, etc." ..." The chariots and warlike en- 
 gines from Carchemish I laid up In my magazines. The 
 kings of all those lands who had come out against me re- 
 ceived my yoke." ..." From Carchemish I withdrew. 
 To Gaza, the town of Lubarna of the Hittites, I advanced: 
 gold and vestments of linen I received." ..." In those 
 days I occupied the environs of Lebanon. To the great 
 sea of Phoenicia I went up. Up to the great sea, my arms 
 I carried. I took tribute of Tyre, Sidon, Gebal, Maacah, 
 . . . PhcEnlcIa and Arvad " (" Records of the Past," Hi, 
 73). Shalmaneser, son of the former, says in his Black 
 Obelisk of Nimrud: "In my eleventh year, for the 
 ninth time, the Euphrates I crossed; cities to a countless 
 number I captured. To the cities of the Hittites of the 
 
THE ANCIENT HITTITES 273 
 
 land of the Hamathltes I went down. Eighty-nine cities 
 I took, Rimmon-Idri (Benhadad) of Damascus, and 
 twelve kings of the Hittites." Finally Sargon II (722- 
 705) ended the long and stubborn war by the final over- 
 throw of Carchemish the eastern capital of the Hittites. 
 We will quote from Oppert's translation of Sargon's fa- 
 mous inscription: " In the fifth year of my reign Pisiri of 
 Carchemish sinned against the great gods. ... I lifted 
 up my hands to Assur, my Lord. I made him leave the 
 town. I made them throw him into chains of iron. I 
 took away the gold and silver and the treasures of his 
 palace. The Carchemish rebels who were with him and 
 their properties I transplanted to Assyria. I took among 
 them 50 cars, 200 riders, 3,000 men on foot, and I 
 augmented the part of my kingdom. I made Assyrians 
 to dwell in Carchemish, and I placed them (the Hittites) 
 under the domination of Assur, my Lord." At least, 
 transportation and colonization were more merciful and 
 reasonable than wholesale crucifixion and destruction. 
 
 These stubborn and protracted campaigns, lasting 
 through centuries, only show what a mighty empire was 
 that of the Hittites. On the west, over five hundred 
 years before we hear of the Hittites in the cuneiform in- 
 scriptions, Thothmes I of Egypt, about the middle of 
 the 17th century B. c, determining " to wash his heart," 
 as the hieroglyphics say, by wreaking vengeance against 
 the Asiatics who had dared to encroach on his territories, 
 began expeditions against the " Khatte," which were con- 
 tinued intermittently for nearly 500 years. In the great 
 inscription of Thothmes III at Thebes he recounts his 
 attacks against Carchemish on the Euphrates and Kadesh 
 on the Orontes in his nine separate campaigns against 
 the " Kheta." Rameses II, so-called " The Great," met 
 them In the famous historical battle of Kadesh, and an 
 
274 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 extremely interesting entente followed. We will quote 
 a few lines from the heroic poem of " Pentaur," written 
 in Egyptian hieroglyphs, 1316 B.C.: "The miserable 
 king of the Hittites had assembled together the people 
 of the two rivers, the Dardanians from the shores of 
 the JEgean Sea, the islanders from Axvad, the hardy 
 mountaineers from Moesius, the people of Aleppo and 
 ■Carchemish. . . . From the remote parts of Asia Minor 
 the mighty host converged on Kadesh on the Orontes. 
 They left no people on the road whom they did not bring 
 along with them. They covered mountains and valleys 
 like grasshoppers without number. No such multitude 
 ever before had been seen. They swept all the wealth 
 of the country before them, so that they left neither silver 
 nor gold behind them." After this extravagant account 
 of the magnitude of the enemy's resources, the poem 
 goes on in its inimitable Oriental naivete of expression 
 to say how the king turned the tide of battle after being 
 deserted by all his warriors : " Not one of my princes, 
 not one of my captains, not one of my knights was there. 
 My warriors and my charioteers had abandoned me; not 
 one of them was there to take part in the battle." Un- 
 der these circumstances and knowing the prowess of 
 Rameses II (from his own records!) we are not sur- 
 prised in continuing this fulsome poem to read that " the 
 king returned in victory and strength; with his own hand 
 he had smitten hundreds of thousands to the earth " 
 ("Records of the Past"). In the great Temple of 
 Luxor at Karnak which Rameses has covered with his 
 inscriptions may be seen this warrior-king. Immense In 
 stature, alone as the poem records, with the slaughtered 
 Kheta lying about him. On the walls of the great temple 
 at Ipsambul on the upper Nile may be seen another bas 
 relief of the battle of Kadesh. The sculpture is nine- 
 
THE ANCIENT HITTITES 275 
 
 teen yards long, eight yards high, and contains 11 00 
 figures. 
 
 Nevertheless, in spite of the fulsome and vainglorious 
 account of the bravery of Rameses and of the " famous 
 victory " of the Egyptian king, it is significant to read 
 that at the conclusion of the battle Rameses seemed to 
 have felt that it was for the best interests of the Egyp- 
 tians to effect a treaty of peace with Kheta-Sira, the king 
 of the Hittites. And further to show his good faith — 
 it may have been for other reasons as well — Rameses 
 married the daughter of the "miserable" Kheta-Sira! 
 
 On the walls of the great Temple of Karnak may be 
 read to-day as legibly as when carved thirty-seven cen- 
 turies ago this treaty of peace between Rameses II and 
 Kheta-Sira. The inscription is a copy of the original 
 treaty engraved on a silver tablet and borne into Egypt 
 by the emissaries of the Hittite king, as the hieroglyphs 
 themselves say. This famous treaty of peace, the first 
 offensive and defensive alliance on record, may yet be- 
 come of commanding importance in the decipherment of 
 the Hittite hieroglyphics when a copy of the original 
 tablet is found. Fig. 86 is a reproduction of a sketch 
 of the Inscription made by the late Dr. W. Max Miiller ^ 
 from the original hieroglyphs. We will claim indulgence 
 for giving in this place a partial translation of the treaty, 
 on account of its extraordinary historical importance, 
 and the prospect of its future help in unlocking the mys- 
 teries of the Hittite hieroglyphics. After a lengthy pre- 
 amble in true Oriental style the inscription reads — left- 
 ward from the right-hand end of the third line from the 
 top, where Kheta-Sira himself is pictured: — 
 
 (Line i) "The Grand-duke of Kheta, Kheta-Sira, 
 
 1 " Der Bundnisvertrag Ramses II und des Chetiter Konigs," in " Mit- 
 tellungen der Vorderasiatischer Gesellschaft." Dr. W. Max Miiller. 
 
276 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 bringing to Pharaoh life, welfare, health, implores peace 
 from the Majesty of Osymandyas, of the Son of the Sun. 
 (Line 2) Rameses Meiamun, the giver of life, ever and 
 eternally, like his Father, the God of the Sun, daily. 
 A copy of the silver tablet of (Line 3) the Grand-duke of 
 
 ±mm:i 'uff MMgyraiB) 
 
 & r 
 
 :11fn^&MgSif 
 
 
 iSTiM°mfmw 
 
 miMmMM 
 
 Si 
 
 fvy%-/i 
 
 t« 
 
 T^¥e^'= 
 
 %[^wmmmimi'ii. 
 
 Fig. 86. Inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphics on the walls of the Temple 
 of Karnak, containing a copy of the treaty of peace between Rameses 
 II and Kheta-Sira, the king of the Hittites. 
 
 Kheta, Kheta-Sira, bringing to Pharaoh life, welfare, and 
 health, through his ambassador. . . . (Line 4) Tara- 
 tiisobu and his ambassador Ramose, soliciting peace from 
 the majesty of Osymandyas, the Son of God, (Line "5) 
 Rameses Meiamun, Courtier' of the Bulls, who sets his 
 frontiers as he wills in every land. The agreement which 
 was made with the Grand-duke of Kheta, (Line 6) 
 Kheta Sira, the powerful, the son of Maii-ra-si-ra." 
 After more lengthy and involved asseverations as to the 
 greatness of the contracting parties the treaty of peace 
 proper begins in the frankest possible manner: "Be- 
 hold this it is: Kheta-Sira, the Grand-Duke of Kheta, 
 
THE ANCIENT HITTITES 277 
 
 covenants with Ra-user-ma, approved by the Sun, the 
 great ruler of Egypt, from this day forth, that good 
 peace and good brotherhood shall be between us for- 
 ever. He shall fraternize with me, he shall be at peace 
 with me, I will be at peace with him forever. . . . The 
 Grand-Duke of Kheta shall not invade the land of Egypt 
 forever, to carry away anything from it; nor shall Ra- 
 mesu-Meriamen, the great ruler of Egypt, invade the land 
 of Kheta forever, to carry away anything from it for- 
 ever." (The peace turned out to be only an armistice, 
 for the Hittites revolted under Rameses III.) 
 
 Archaeological research is close on the trail of the orig- 
 inal of this important treaty of peace. In 1907 Dr. 
 Hugo Winkler discovered at Boghaz-Keui a clay tablet 
 containing in Assyrian characters a copy of the original 
 treaty. It will probably not be long before a copy is 
 found in the original Hittite hieroglyphs, which will ex- 
 tend the knowledge already acquired of them; for a be- 
 ginning has been made and scholars are on the high road 
 to success. 
 
 The first scholar to attempt a translation of the hier- 
 oglyphs was no less a personage than the entertaining but 
 often unreliable historian Herodotus, who in traveling 
 in Syria in the 4th century B. c. was shown the great 
 has relief In the Pass of Karabel, on the road from 
 Smyrna to Sardls, twenty-four miles from the latter city. 
 Herodotus promptly classed it, along with some genuine 
 Egyptian sculptures in the neighborhood, as a monument 
 of the great King Sesostris, his name for Rameses II. 
 He says the Inscription Is in the sacred characters of 
 Egypt and reads: "With my shoulders did I win this 
 land" (Book II, Chap. 106). Fig. 87 is a reproduction 
 of this sculpture and shows, very Imperfectly, the hiero- 
 glyphic characters that Herodotus took for Egyptian. 
 
278 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Herodotus easily can be forgiven for his mistalce. 
 While the individual characters are wholly different from 
 the Egyptian, they both are pictorial in nature, though 
 the Hittite contains a larger number of conventional 
 
 
 Fig. 87. Hittite sculpture with inscription in the Pass of Karabel. 
 
 signs. This will be detected at once by a glance at 
 the inscription from Hamah. Only a few of the signs 
 appeal to the eye as recognizable objects. The greater 
 number have lost their primitive ideographic forms and 
 have become conventionalized to a high degree of 
 geometric regularity. However, taking them altogether, 
 there are quite a number of ideographic characters in 
 
THE ANCIENT HITTITES 
 
 279 
 
 the Hlttlte hieroglyphs. We find human and animal 
 heads, hares, birds, arms, hands, feet, vases, utensils, 
 weapons and many objects as yet undetermined. In- 
 variably the inscriptions read boustrophedon, toward the 
 faces and action of the ideographs, the whole series of 
 hieroglyphs being alternately reversed in the succeeding 
 
 Fig. 88. Hittite sculpture found near Malatya in 1894. 
 
 lines. This is corroborated by the ending of the last line 
 which falls short of the others on the left. In the ear- 
 liest inscriptions the forms of the characters are more 
 pictorial, in the latter ones they become quite cursive. 
 In the Hittite bowl found in Babylon (Fig. 92), the 
 
 Fig. 89. Hittite sculpture and inscription. The Lion of Marash. 
 
28o A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 characters are so cursive as to have lost nearly all pic- 
 torial significance. All that we are certain of are a foot 
 and a vase; all the other forms are highly conventional- 
 ized. 
 
 We will show two typical examples of Hittite sculp- 
 ture and writing. One is a has relief, a Hunting Scene, 
 found near Malatya in 1894 (Fig. 88). The other is 
 the well-known Hittite Lion found at Marash (Fig. 89). 
 Both are remarkably like the Assyrian sculptures. In 
 the first example the writing corresponds to the Egyp- 
 tian method of placing all inscriptions upon the back- 
 ground. The second follows the general mode of al- 
 most all Hittite, as well as Assyrian sculptures, of carry- 
 ing the inscription without interruption across the back- 
 ground and the figures; a method much less effective than 
 that of the more methodical and artistic Egyptians. 
 Both examples, if we are correct in our interpretation, 
 appear to contain many ideographs. If this is so, they 
 must belong to the early age of Hittite writing, to which 
 age most authorities also attribute the Hamah inscrip- 
 tions. What this date may be is at present wholly con- 
 jectural. That their system of writing greatly antedates 
 the time of Thothmes I, must be conceded. A nation 
 that could hold its own for 500 years against the cul- 
 tured Egyptians must have been equally advanced in the 
 arts of civilization. Mariette, the noted Egyptologist, 
 advances the daring proposition that one of the dynasties 
 of the foreign domination In Egypt known as the Hyksos 
 dynasty, under which the great pyramids were built, 
 was Hittite {circa 2130— 1700 B.C.). Col. Conder, In 
 " The Hittites and Their Language," dates the Hittite 
 hieroglyphs from the opening centuries of the third pre- 
 Christian m.illennium, contemporary with the first Kasslte 
 dynasty of Babylon. 
 
THE ANCIENT HITTITES 
 
 281 
 
 A very interesting example of Hittite art Is the has 
 relief of a man in the Metropolitan Museum, New York 
 City (Fig. 90). He is represented with a staff, a full 
 beard and the knitted cap so characteristic of Hittite 
 
 Fig. 90. Hittite bas relief in the Metropolitan Museum, New York City. 
 
 work. If the feet had not been broken off, we probably 
 would see the up-turned shoes, also peculiar to the people 
 of this country. The writing covers the background 
 and crosses over the figure, covering all parts except 
 the head. As in most Hittite inscriptions, the char- 
 acters are In horizontal rows separated in this instance 
 by dividing lines quite the same as we are familiar with 
 in the Babylonian inscriptions. The characters seem to 
 be very much more conventional and geometric than any 
 
282 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 of the preceding inscriptions, indicating a later period. 
 However, the relic has aged so considerably that it is 
 difficult to identify the individual symbols. The signs 
 that are conspicuous are strikingly like the linear Baby- 
 lonian signary. 
 
 Fig. 91. Bowl with Hittite inscription. Found in Babylon. 
 
 The Hittite bowl from Babylon, illustrated in Fig. 91, 
 is a rather remarkable relic of this early Oriental civiliza- 
 tion. The original is of black basalt, about thirteen 
 inches in diameter and nine inches high. The sketch was 
 made from a cast in the Semitic Museum, Harvard Uni- 
 versity, Cambridge, Mass. The original is in England. 
 The inscription is deeply incised in the stone and although 
 considerably time-worn is perfectly legible for the greater 
 part. Prof. Sayce has remarked upon the hieratic char- 
 acter of the signs. They do not actually resemble the 
 Egyptian hieratic characters; but doubtless being of a 
 later age of Hittite writing the symbols have undergone 
 a marked modification in conventionalization. They are 
 distinctly cursive. In Fig. 92 we give a diagram of the 
 inscription, which appears to be written for the greater 
 part in three horizontal rows without any separating 
 Hnes. The reading is from right to left; but whether 
 
THE ANCIENT HITTITES 
 
 283 
 
 Fig. 92. Hittite inscription on the Bowl from Babylon. 
 
 the lines are to be read around the bowl in succession, or 
 the signs are to be read downward in the more or less 
 vertical rows is not yet known. We can only guess 
 where the reading begins. The bowl is altogether a 
 unique relic of a bygone day, and doubtless some day will 
 
 Fig. 93. The bos of Tarkondemos. Bi-lingual inscription in Babylonian 
 cuneiform and Hittite hieroglyphics. 
 
284 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 play Its part in enlightening us concerning the civilization 
 of the Hittite nation. 
 
 At least one bi-lingual inscription in Hittite and Assy- 
 rian characters has been discovered. It is the silver bos 
 of Tarkondemos, a plaster cast of which is in the Brit- 
 ish Museum, happily discreetly taken when it was orig- 
 inally offered for sale. It has since become lost. It will 
 be seen in the cut (Fig. 93), that there are several 
 hieroglyphs disposed about the figure of the royal per- 
 sonage, while encircling the whole is an unbroken band 
 of Assyrian cuneiform characters. Of course the latter 
 can be read, although scholars still differ concerning a 
 few of the signs. Prof. Sayce gives the following trans- 
 lation of the circular cuneiform inscription: — 
 
 Tar — rik — Tim-me, Sdr mat Er — me — e 
 " Tarrick-timme, King of the country of Erme." 
 
 Dr. Hilprecht, however, gives the following transla- 
 tion : " Tarkudimmie, King of the country of the Me- 
 tani." The Royal name, Tarku (or Tarrick) timme (or 
 dimme) represented by the goat's head and the character 
 under it, Is given twice, either side of the head, begin- 
 ning the Inscription which is in complete duplicate in 
 front of and to the rear of the royal personage. Thus 
 were established the values of some six Hittite characters. 
 This number has slowly been increased by philological 
 research and comparison with the early Babylonian linear 
 script, which it somewhat resembles, and from which it 
 undoubtedly sprung, until several scores of signs have 
 been assigned more or less fixed values. William Wright 
 (" The Empire of the Hittites ") has assigned phonetic 
 values to some thirty symbols. Col. Conder has been 
 
THE ANCIENT HITTITES 285 
 
 much more ambitious, and has ventured tentative values 
 for almost every symbol in the signary, over 160 signs 
 ("The Hittites and Their Language," Col. C. R. 
 Conder). Despite this array of "guesses," outside of 
 the bi-lingual inscription of Tarkondemos, no Hittite in- 
 scription yet has been satisfactorily translated. The sys- 
 tem appears to be syllabic, not alphabetic. It has not 
 developed to the latter advanced stage. In this respect 
 and in other ways it resembles the linear Babylonian. 
 In execution there was a slight difference between the 
 two. The symbols in the latter were linear and almost 
 always incised, while the Hittite symbols were in heavy 
 bas relief. Both systems of writing were the mode of 
 expression of contemporary Mongol races before the 
 complete emergence of the Semitic races. Prof. Sayce 
 comments on the fact that the Hittite hieroglyphics are 
 a modification of the early Babylonian before the rise 
 of Assyria; and Col. Conder points out that of the 160 
 Hittite signs only about 40 cannot be identified with the 
 linear Babylonian. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE ALPHABETIC WRITING OF THE PHCENICIANS 
 
 In our historical pilgrimage to the land of the alphabet 
 we now have reached the conclusion of the first stage of 
 our journey. We have proceeded from the once fertile 
 valley of Mesopotamia through the highlands of Asia 
 Minor, along the immemorial caravan routes that con- 
 nected the East with the West and on which were con- 
 veyed the wealth, the arts and the civilization of the an- 
 cient world, to the very shores of the Mediterranean Sea. 
 In the tableland of Akkad and the valley of Sumer we 
 discovered in our archaeological investigations the oldest 
 writing in existence; written — literally drawn — on 
 stone 'or on clay tablets by a primitive Asian race, in out- 
 line ideographs, just as much drawing as any diagram that 
 ever was drafted. The world hardly can hope ever to 
 come nearer to the original sources of writing than the 
 primitive picture-writing of the proto-Babylonians. 
 Crossing the wide valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates 
 we found here and there in chronological sequence tablets 
 and inscriptions in the Semitic language, written in the 
 Babylonian and Assyrian conventional cuneiform charac- 
 ters in use for three millenniums until classic times. We 
 next crossed the vast empire of the Hittites, contempora- 
 neous with that of Assyria, stretching from the Euphrates 
 quite to the Mediterranean Sea. Scattered here and there 
 in far-flung cities and provinces we observed and exam- 
 ined inscriptions in the peculiar Hittite hieroglyphics. In 
 many cases the hieroglyphs closely resembled the older 
 
 286 
 
THE PHCENICIAN ALPHABET 287 
 
 Sumerian and linear Babylonian ideographs ; being picto- 
 rial in general character, and bearing not the least re- 
 semblance to the cuneiform writing with which they prob- 
 ably were contemporaneous. 
 
 Here on the shore of the Mediterranean, where the 
 ancient world came in contact with the confines of the 
 western civilizations, we become acquainted for the first 
 time with the true alphabetic writing of the smallest na- 
 tion of antiquity that has left any footprints along the 
 great highways of world culture, or made any lasting im- 
 pression upon the material agencies of civilization. Here 
 we encounter a nation of very limited geographical extent 
 but powerful in the influence it exerted over other nations 
 with which it came in contact. The Phoenicians were not a 
 numerous people, but they possessed that high degree of 
 intelligence, energy, skill and craftsmanship that made 
 the products of their civilization desired by many other 
 nations. For over one thousand years, from about 1500 
 B. c. to 500 B. c, the Phoenicians maintained more or less 
 undisturbed a small, compact, but powerful monarchy; 
 whose temporal boundaries were barely more than two 
 hundred miles in length along the eastern shore of the 
 Mediterranean Sea and but thirty-five miles in greatest 
 width to the lofty mountains of Lebanon on the east. The 
 present city of Beirut is on the ancient soil of Phoenicia. 
 
 Beyond the ranges of Lebanon lived the Israelites, 
 closely allied by racial affinity with the Phoenicians, and in 
 the time of David and Solomon bound to them by national 
 ties and the sympathies of an almost equally advanced 
 civilization. Both nations originally had emigrated from 
 lower Mesopotamia early in the third millennium B. c. 
 Abraham, according to biblical account (Genesis xi, 31), 
 led the Hebrew race out of " Ur of the Chaldees " to the 
 land of Canaan; and we have it on the authority of He- 
 
288 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 rodotus that the Phoenicians themselves record that their 
 ancestors originally came from the Erythraean or South- 
 ern Sea, that is the Persian Gulf. This is believed to have 
 been about 2200 B. c. North of Phcenicla extended the 
 mighty empire of the Hittites from Lydia and Dardania 
 on the west to the Euphrates on the east, where it touched 
 the equally puissant civilization of the great Assyrian 
 monarchy in Mesopotamia. Far to the south of Phoenicia 
 and Palestine lay the sunny land of Egypt from which 
 the Israelites had journeyed to the land of Canaan some 
 time in the 14th century B. C. 
 
 In comparison with the powerful monarchies of the 
 east and south, whose influence affected them in many 
 ways, the civilization of the Phoenicians at their principal 
 cities of Tyre and Sidon, situated only twenty miles apart 
 on the Mediterranean sea coast, may seem from a politi- 
 cal standpoint insignificant indeed. Yet these two Semitic 
 nations, the Phoenicians and the Israelites, have influenced 
 more profoundly the western civilization and the culture 
 and refinement of Europe than all the civihzations that 
 had preceded them. The one, through the incomparable 
 literature of the Hebrew Scriptures, has established the 
 underlying basis of all the religions of Europe, while the 
 other has given the basic forms for the written languages 
 of all the nations of Europe and central Asia. 
 
 The Phoenicians undoubtedly were the cleverest people 
 of their age, and their fame, like their markets, was world- 
 wide. Long before the time of Homer they bore the repu- 
 tation of being the world's artificers; excelling in the 
 weaving and dyeing of fine textiles, as skillful carpenters 
 and masons, and adepts in the fabrication of articles of 
 iron, copper and precious metals. Theirs was the first 
 merchant marine of history. Their ships rode every sea 
 find visited every coast and mart from the Euxine to the 
 
THE PHOENICIAN ALPHABET 289 
 
 Atlantic. The shores of Cornwall, where they mined min- 
 erals, were almost as familiar to them as the Isles of 
 Greece and Italy, the Delta of the Nile, or other Mediter- 
 ranean ports where they distributed their wares. In I 
 Kings V, we read that Solomon contracted with Hiram, 
 king of Tyre, to assist him in the building of the Temple, 
 as " there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber 
 like unto the Sidonians." Also in II Chronicles ii, 14, we 
 read: "The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, 
 and his father was a man of Tyre, skillful to work in 
 gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in tim- 
 ber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; 
 also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every 
 device which shall be put to him, with thy cunning men, 
 and with the cunning men of my lord David, thy father." 
 Considering the confidence placed in the superiority of the 
 handiwork of the Phoenicians by the people of Israel and 
 their dependence upon them in many ways, it is not sur- 
 prising that the Hebrews eventually should have adopted 
 from the Phoenicians their alphabet, which early Hebrew 
 coins show to be but slightly modified from the original, 
 though they did so far depart from It in their later script. 
 It is a commentary on the forceful Influence of these Ori- 
 entals that the Greeks, with whom the Phoenicians traded, 
 and who probably were Illiterate when these clever trad- 
 ers first visited them, also should have adopted their 
 alphabet, as we shall learn in a succeeding chapter. 
 
 There are two important and rather well-defined types 
 of the Phoenician alphabet. The Moabite or Tyrlan, the 
 older, dates from about the 9th century B.. c. It devel- 
 oped at Tyre and was used during the ascendancy of that 
 city. It later was employed chiefly by the Inland Semitic 
 tribes in Moab and Syria, and was used by the Jews down 
 to the time of the Captivity. The Greek alphabet, as we 
 
2QO A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 shall show later on, came from this type, early traders 
 having introduced it into Greece shortly after the time of 
 the Trojan war. The other type, known as the Sidonian, 
 dates from the 6th century B. c, and was in use at Sidon 
 and the principal cities in Phoenicia and at Carthage in 
 Africa immediately subsequent to the conquest of Phoe- 
 nicia by Nebuchadrezzar. The two varieties of alpha- 
 bets were used side by side in different sections of Phoe- 
 nicia, Judea and Syria for centuries. It would appear 
 that the earlier Phoenician traders used the Moabite form. 
 The Israelites and Jews both continued to use this variety 
 of the Phoenician alphabet, but the Phoenicians them- 
 selves, after the destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadrezzar, 
 used the Sidonian script. 
 
 The oldest Phoenician inscription to which a definite 
 date can be assigned is the remarkable inscription of 
 Mesha, king of Moab, on the monument known as the 
 Moabite Stone, now in the Louvre at Paris. It was dis- 
 covered in 1868 in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, on the 
 site of Dibon, the ancient capital of Moab, by Mr. Klein, 
 a missionary. Unfortunately as soon as the neighboring 
 Arabs surmised that it had any value to Christians they 
 fell into a quarrel over its possession, and the precious 
 monument which had withstood the ravages of time and 
 the violation of man for over 2700 years was broken by 
 them into forty odd pieces, by being heated and having 
 water poured over it. However, it has been partially re- 
 stored to its original condition, and the lost lines, of which 
 squeezes fortunately had been taken before its destruc- 
 tion, have been supplied by plaster facsimiles. In the re- 
 production of a photograph of the monument shown in 
 Fig. 94, the more legible lines are those' which have been 
 restored. 
 
 In II Kings iii, we read of the rebellion of Mesha 
 
THE PHCENICIAN ALPHABET 
 
 291 
 
 Fig. 94. The Moabite Stone. 
 
 against Jehoram, king of Israel, when the Israelites " rose 
 up and smote the Moabites, so that they fled before them; 
 but they went forward smiting the Moabites, even in 
 their own country. And they beat down the cities, and on 
 every good piece of land cast every man his stone and 
 
292 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 filled it; and they stopped all the wells of water, and 
 felled all the good trees; only in Kir-haraseth left they 
 the stones thereof; howbeit the slingers went about it and 
 smote it." The rebellion was not altogether to be unex- 
 Kpected, as we read earlier in Chapter iii : "And Mesha, 
 king of Moab, was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the 
 king of Israel an 100,000 lambs, and an 100,000 rams, 
 with the wool." The Moabites chafed under this yoke 
 and its heavy tribute, as well they might, and rebelled 
 against Israel, as the Bible and Mesha himself both in- 
 form us. The rebellion, it seems, was not entirely with- 
 out success, for Mesha shut himself securely in the fort- 
 ress of Harosheth, near Arnon, sacrificing his eldest son, 
 while the Israelites consoled themselves as " the slingers 
 went about the fortress and smote it " and returned to 
 their own land. Mesha, however, escaped and lived to 
 erect this remarkable monument of victory ! 
 
 In the inscription Mesha gives us his version of the 
 rebellion which clears up the omissions in the biblical ac- 
 count. He tells us that he slew seven thousand men and 
 women and damsels, and that " he took the ... of Yah- 
 weh and dragged them before Kemosh " ; and that "he 
 took Yahas and added it to Daibon." He finishes his in- 
 scription by informing us that he rebuilt the citadel and 
 royal palaces and the destroyed cities of Moab. It is 
 known that Jehoram reigned from 896 to 884 B. c. We 
 have, therefore, a very exact date for this unique monu- 
 ment. 
 
 There are thirty-four lines in this Phoenician inscrip- 
 tion, the words being separated by dots, and the sentences 
 by short vertical lines. The original, now in its third mil- 
 lennium, necessarily is very illegible. The reader hardly 
 may be able to make out any of the characters, they are so 
 
THE PHCENICIAN ALPHABET 
 
 293 
 
 'fY>i.-^!j''<"^'^.$-fyi^o:^i^y,t.^Afiipt- 
 f77;«r>wjy^^w<(i^.Y\?.j?\7F4x (^f ^^^^ wi-\h.^=u 
 
 Xj!^0Y.y4o=L^x7f!^;/^f.?.xjy>'^-f:|^;3=L<A57f<^ 
 
 'if-P:3.^(^<ifO(>«]/^^n-Xir./;'+Y/qx^^^:^^,^f.iy^ 
 ifYif<w>t 
 
 *: 
 
 Fig. 95. Inscription on the Moabite Stone. Restored by Mark Lidzbarski. 
 
 obliterated with the recurring erosion and incrustation of 
 the ages. He will find, however, in Fig. 95 a most care- 
 ful and scholarly reconstruction of the original inscrip- 
 
294 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 tlon reproduced from the " Handbuch der Nordseml- 
 tisch " by Mark LIdzbarski. It represents the Phoenician 
 characters quite as they must have appeared when first 
 chiseled. The reading is from right to left in the time- 
 honored Oriental manner, from which the East hardly 
 has deviated to this day. We give below an enlarged copy 
 of the first and second lines of the inscription, with a part 
 of the third line to the short vertical line that ends the 
 sentence. Following this Is given the phonetic equivalents 
 of the letters, with the vowels — that are almost wholly 
 omitted In Phoenician inscriptions — in brackets. An Eng- 
 lish translation also Is given. It may be quite possible for 
 the reader with the help of the phonetic transliteration to 
 follow the original Inscription, as most of the characters 
 resemble not a little the corresponding letters in our own 
 alphabet. Indeed, if he will consult the alphabet as shown 
 in the first column of characters In Fig. loi he will be able 
 to detect in them a strong family likeness to the corre- 
 sponding letters of our own alphabet; as one might trace 
 family features In the lineaments of portraits of his an- 
 cestors. 
 
 1. 'AN(0)K(l). M(E)Sh'(A). B(E)N. K<A)M (O)ShM (A) LD. M(E)- 
 
 L(E)K. M(0)'AB. HED — 
 
 2. IB(0)NI I 'ABI. M(A)L(A)K. 'AL. IVI(0)'AB. ShL(l)Sh(l)N. 
 
 Sh(A)T. V'AN(0)K(l). IVI(A)L(A)K — 
 
 3. Tl. 'ACh(A)R. 'ABI | 
 
 1. I am Mesha, son of Kamoshmald, king of Moab, the 
 
 D- 
 
 2. Ibonite | My father reigned over Moab thirty years, 
 
 and I relgn- 
 
 3. ed after my father | 
 
THE PHOENICIAN ALPHABET 
 
 295 
 
 The reader will note that the writing in this inscription 
 is true alphabetic writing in the final stage; a development 
 In the art of writing hitherto unknown in the East, where 
 we have found only ideographic and syllabic writing, with 
 the undeveloped alphabetic writing of the Persians. Here 
 on the shores of the Mediterranean in the 9th century 
 B. c, we suddenly find, with no evident progenitor, a per- 
 fected alphabet, in form, order and letter names nearly 
 identical with our alphabet of to-day.^ 
 
 Another inscription in the early Tyrian style of 
 Phoenician writing, the oldest Phoenician inscription as 
 yet discovered, is one engraved on some small fragments 
 of a bronze bowl found on the Island of Cyprus (Fig. 
 96). The bowl was given by a "citizen of Carthage" 
 (Newtown), In Phoenicia — not the later Tyrian colony 
 in Africa — and doubtless was deposited In the Temple 
 
 ,i,^)^±'j'l^-^:C'. 
 
 Fig. 96. Phcenician inscription on a bronze bowl from the Temple of 
 Baal Lebanon 
 
 1 It may not at once be easy for the reader to detect the rather close 
 similarity between the Phoenician alphabet and our own capital letters. 
 This is partly because the reading is from right-to-left, while ours is 
 from left-to-right. Besides, in transmission through the Greek the Phoeni- 
 cian letters were reversed as the reading was changed. Below will be 
 found the Phoenician all>habet, in parallel with the letters of our own 
 alphaoet, but reversed in reading and in form, to indicate more clearly 
 the historical metamorphosis: 
 
 ABCDEFZHThlKLMNSO PTsQRShT 
 
296 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 of Baal Lebanon, from which it probably was pillaged 
 and carried to Cyprus. 
 
 The longest inscription, as translated by Isaac Taylor, 
 reads : 
 
 . . V S(0)K(E)N Q(A)RT(A)Ch(A)D(A)Sh(A)T 'AB(E)D 
 Ch(l)R(A)M M(E)L(E)K Ts(l) D(0) N (I) M 'AZ YT(E)N L(E) 
 B(A)'AL L(E)B(A)N(0)N 'AD(0)N(A)l BR'ASh(E)T N(E)Ch(U)- 
 Sh(A)T Ch. . . 
 
 ". . . V, a citizen of Newtown, servant of Hiram, king 
 of the Sidonians, gave this to Baal Lebanon his Lord, 
 of good brass." 
 
 The left hand fragment reads: 
 
 . . . T(0)B S(0)K(E)N Q(A)RT(A)Ch(A)D(A)Sh(A)T. . . 
 
 ". . . tob, a citizen of Newtown." 
 The right hand fragment reads : 
 
 . . . 'AL L(E)B(A)N(0)N 'AD(0)N(A)l. . . . 
 
 "(To Ba)al Lebanon his lord." 
 
 If the Hiram mentioned in this inscription is the 
 Lliram of King Solomon's time, the inscription may date 
 from the beginning of the loth century B. C. The Tyrian 
 alphabet probably was in use from the loth century to 
 the 7th century B. c. 
 
 Two remarkable inscribed monuments in the second 
 or Sidonian style of Phoenician writing have been dis- 
 covered in Saida, Syria, in the neighborhood of ancient 
 Sidon; both of them sarcophagi, and both massive and 
 extraordinary in their proportions. One of them Is the 
 great sarcophagus of King Tabnith, who ruled in Sidon 
 during the short renaissance of her last national period. 
 
THE PHCENICIAN ALPHABET 297 
 
 after the city had been sacked by the Persian hordes 
 under Artaxerxes Ochus (352 B.C.), when 40,000 
 Sidonians burned themselves alive in their houses rather 
 than to face nameless horrors to themselves and their 
 families at the hands of the victorious enemy. The sar- 
 cophagus which now is in the Museum of Constantinople 
 probably was stolen from Egypt, as it has every evidence 
 of Egyptian workmanship, and bears the epitaph of an 
 Egyptian general, one Perptah. The Phoenician inscrip- 
 tion consists of eight lines of writing in beautifully 
 formed letters, uniform and even throughout, bearing 
 every evidence of the technical skill of the Sidonian en- 
 graver (Fig. 97). Tabnith's curse against desecrators 
 is so vehement, and his expressions are so quaint, that we 
 add an English translation of the inscription.^ 
 
 
 'V 3 
 
 S 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 Fig. 97. Inscription on the sarcophagus of King Tabnith. 
 
 (i) I, Tabnith, priest of Ashtart, king of the Sido- 
 nians, son 
 
 (2) of Eshmun-azar, priest of Ashtart, king of the 
 
 Sidonians, lie in this coffin. 
 
 (3) My curse be with whatever man thou art that 
 
 bringest forth this coffin! Do not, do not 
 
 1 From " A Text Book of North Semitic Inscriptions." Rev. G. A. 
 Cooke. 
 
298 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 (4) open me, nor disquiet me, for I have not indeed 
 
 silver, I have not indeed 
 
 (5) gold, nor any jewels of . . . only I am lying in 
 
 this coffin. Do not, do not open 
 
 (6) me nor disquiet me, for that thing is an abomina- 
 
 tion to Ashtart. And if thou do at all 
 
 (7) open me, and at all disquiet me, mayest thou have 
 
 no seed among the living under the sun 
 
 (8) nor resting place among the shades! 
 
 The inscription on the second one of these Sidonian 
 sarcophagi is one of the very finest examples of Phoenician 
 paleography. It is from the immense monolithic sarcoph- 
 agus of Eshmunazar II, king of Sidon, found in 1855 in a 
 rock-cut tomb in the necropolis of ancient Sidon and now 
 in the Louvre. This king, Eshmunazar, was the son of 
 the Tabnith whose sarcophagus we have just examined. 
 There are twenty-two long lines in the inscription, full 
 of repetitious threats and curses against the violators of 
 his last resting place. The first five lines are reproduced 
 in Fig. 98, extending across pages 298 and 299. 
 
 / / W 
 
 
 ^^'f"''^/"'V/^7^''^ 
 
 Fig. 98(B). First five lines of the inscription on the sarcophagus of King 
 
 Eshmunazar. 
 
THE PHCENICIAN ALPHABET 299 
 
 The reading begins on the right on page 299, and 
 reads leftward across page 298. A translation of these 
 few lines will suffice to indicate the general character and 
 literary content of the inscription. The style as com- 
 pared with his father's inscription is very ordinary, prolix 
 and lacking in originality. The translation follows : — 
 
 ( 1 ) In the month of Bui, in the fourteenth year of 
 
 the reign of king Eshmunazar, king of the Sido- 
 nians, 
 
 (2) son of king Tabnith, king of the Sidonians, say- 
 
 ing: I have been seized 
 
 (3) before my time, the son of a short number of 
 
 days, . . . an orphan, the son of a widow; and 
 1 lie in this coffin and in this grave, 
 
 (4) in the place which I built. I adjure every prince 
 
 and every man that they open not this resting 
 place, 
 
 (5) nor seek with me jewels, for there are no jewels 
 
 with me here, nor take away the coffin of my 
 resting place. 
 
 A^ - - " -- _ - - . - y 
 
 Fig. 98(A). First five lines of the inscription on the sarcophagus of King 
 
 Eshmunazar. 
 
300 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Here is the king's name as it occurs at the end — the 
 left — of the first line of the inscription: — 
 
 'AShM(U)N'AZ(A)R M(E)L(E)K Ts(l)D(0) N (I) M 
 
 Eshmunazar, King of the Sidonians. 
 
 The fifth line, which is a complete phrase, we will give 
 in its phonetic equivalents, with the vowel sounds omitted, 
 just as Eshmunazar prepared the inscription for the 
 carver. It will enable the reader who is desirous of 
 tracing the individual letters of our alphabet back to 
 their original sources to observe the very marked similar- 
 ity of most of our letters to the Phoenician characters, 
 more particularly, however, to the Moabite than the 
 Sidonian in which this inscription is written: 
 
 'L YBQSh BNMNM K'Y ShM BNMNM W'L 
 Y'Sh' 'YT HLT MShKBY W'L Y'M 
 
 The complete Sidonian alphabet taken from these two 
 inscriptions is shown in the fifth column of characters in 
 Fig. loi. The principal divergences from the primitive 
 Phoenician alphabet (the Moabite) are most marked in 
 the following letters : gimel, zayin, yod, lamed, mem, shin 
 and tau. 
 
 There is another inscription in Phoenician characters 
 to which we desire to refer, both on account of its 
 paleographical value and for its wonderful historical in- 
 terest in connection with passages in the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures. In 1880 there was discovered in a very ancient 
 tunnel that conducted water from the Virgin's Pool to 
 the Pool of Siloam an inscription that must have been 
 carved shortly after the completion of the tunnel. The 
 
THE PHCENICIAN ALPHABET 
 
 301 
 
 inscription although in the pure Hebrew language was 
 inscribed in PhcEnician characters, somewhat cursive in 
 form as the reader will see by referring to Fig. 99. 
 The date of the inscription must be centuries prior to 
 
 u-y.' 
 
 ll-J^. 
 
 
 ^■s/.?t^,x 
 
 
 , - * 
 
 >S^*' 
 
 
 Fig. 99. Inscription of Siloam. 
 
 the development of the square Hebrew; and its close 
 similarity to the Moabite inscription would place it be- 
 fore the Captivity, probably about the 7th century B. c, 
 at the close of the Jewish monarchy. 
 
 Prof. A. H. Sayce has translated the inscription as 
 follows : 
 
 1. (Behold the) excavation! Now this is the history 
 
 of the tunnel. While the excavators (were lift- 
 ing up) 
 
 2. the pick each to his neighbor, and while there was 
 
 yet three cubits (to be broken through) — the 
 voice of one call- 
 
 3. ed to his neighbor, for there was (an excess?) 
 
 in the rock on the right. They rose up — they 
 struck on the west of the 
 
 4. excavation, the excavators struck each to meet his 
 
 neighbor pick to pick, and there flowed 
 
302 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 5. the waters from the outlet to the Pool for the dis- 
 
 tance of 1000 cubits, and (three-fourths?) 
 
 6. of a cubit was the height of the rock at the head of 
 
 the excavation here. 
 
 Now what does this quaint statement mean? Simply 
 that these primitive workmen endeavored to do what 
 engineering skill enables us of this age to do with con- 
 summate accuracy: to begin the excavation at both ends. 
 The Hebrews failed to meet on line. They overlapped, 
 as the physical condition of the tunnel shows to-day, and 
 had to cut through on the west wall " each to meet his 
 neighbor pick to pick." The Siloam alphabet is shown 
 in the third column of characters in Fig. loi. 
 
 We give in Fig. 100 a final example of Phoenician 
 
 Fig. 100. Trilingual inscription in Latin, Greek and Phoenician. 
 
 writing. It occurs in a trilingual inscription, now in the 
 Royal Academy of Science, Turin. The inscription is in- 
 cised on the base of a bronze altar, and records its dedica- 
 tion to 'Eshmun Merreh (^Esculapius) , by one Cleon, 
 a slave, who was superintendent of certain salt works in 
 Sardinia, where the inscription was found. It dates from 
 the middle of the 2d century B. c. It is among the very 
 few bi-lingual and tri-lingual inscriptions that have helped 
 to reconstruct the ancient Phoenician language. 
 
 It thus appears that the ancient alphabet of Israel was 
 almost identical with that of Phoenicia, having been bor- 
 rowed by the Jews probably at a very early period in 
 
THE PHCENICIAN ALPHABET 303 
 
 their national development. This fact has been amply 
 confirmed fcy the discovery of other inscriptions and by 
 the many Hebrew coins in pure Phoenician characters 
 that have come to light. 
 
 During the Captivity, modifications of the Phoenician 
 alphabet known as Aramean were used alike by the Jews 
 and their civilian captors in Assyria and Babylonia as 
 well as throughout the countries north of Israel and 
 Phoenicia. They were used in Nineveh and Babylon side 
 by side with the cuneiform. The old cuneiform syllabary 
 with its many cumbersome signs, indigenous in Mesopo- 
 tamia and in use for almost forty centuries, gradually 
 had been giving way to the more flexible alphabet of the 
 west, disseminated by the enterprising Phoenician trad- 
 ers, but modified by the people of Aram and Syria. The 
 Aramean alphabet began to appear some time in the 7th 
 century B. c. in the highlands of Aram, on the caravan 
 routes from Egypt aad Phoenicia through Cilicia and 
 Syria to Mesopotamia. Its rise was contemporaneous 
 with the decline of Phoenicia following the sacking and 
 destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadrezzar, and the- conse- 
 quent rise in importance of the highland races of Aram 
 and Syria. 
 
 The Jews upon their return to Judea after the Captiv- 
 ity probably brought with them this Aramean corrup- 
 tion of the Pihoenician letters then used throughout West- 
 ern Asia as the alphabet of commerce. There were a 
 number of local varieties of this alphabet, all of them 
 being corruptions of the Phoenician letters, their common 
 archetype. The one used in Nineveh in the 7th cen- 
 tury B. c. Is shown in the fourth column In Fig. loi. 
 As the centuries advanced the degradation of the Phoeni- 
 cian characters in these Aramean alphabets became more 
 and more marked, and the divergence from the original 
 
304 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 forms became so great as almost wholly to disguise any 
 family relationship. It is only by tracing back period by 
 period the successive changes in each letter that we can 
 detect the common ancestor. The Jews in Palestine prob- 
 ably employed the Aramean alphabet down to the 2d 
 century B. c. From this time on there was a rapid dif- 
 ferentiation in the Aramean scripts. The southern 
 Aramean in Palestine, about the ist century B. C, began 
 to be transformed into the square Hebrew. The modern 
 square Hebrew of to-day is a comparatively late alpha- 
 bet. It was not until the loth century A. D. that it was 
 fully developed into its present form, so entirely unlike 
 its Phoenician prototype and so lacking in that diversity 
 of form that ensures legibility and precludes ambiguity. 
 It is illustrated in the eighth column in Fig. loi. 
 
 One of the purest types of the Aramean alphabets used 
 by the Jews was the Samaritan, conserved to this day and 
 employed in the sacred scrolls still in use in the little 
 Samaritan community at Nabulus. This alphabet is 
 shown in the sixth column in Fig. 10 1. Although dating 
 from the 6th century A. D., the letters on the whole 
 seem more closely to resemble their Phoenician proto- 
 type than the Aramean alphabet used in Nineveh in the 
 7th century B. c. Can it be possible that the Jewish 
 rabbis at Nabulus had preserved for so many centuries 
 manuscripts in the older script? In comparing this al- 
 phabet letter for letter with the Phoenician, there are 
 only one or two letters that do not bear a noticeable 
 resemblance to the parent alphabet; while it resembles 
 in hardly any particular the square Hebrew, which at 
 that time had been developing several centuries. The 
 alphabet used in Jerusalem about the ist century b. C-, 
 shown in the seventh column of the chart, is decidedly 
 
THE PHCENICIAN ALPHABET 
 
 305 
 
 5 
 
 u 
 
 > 
 U 
 
 w 
 W 
 
 o 
 
 0, 
 
 u 
 
 g 
 
 s 
 
 (J 
 
 4j - 
 
 PS 
 
 1? 
 
 z> 
 
 4 
 
 gJ 
 
 1 
 
 1^. 
 
 »— 11— < 
 
 1 
 
 C 
 
 1 
 
 u 
 
 1 
 < 
 
 s 
 
 Aleph 
 
 'a 
 
 < 
 
 x- 
 
 1r 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 A 
 
 '^ 
 
 » 
 
 t 
 
 Beth 
 
 b 
 
 5 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 5 
 
 D 
 
 S_J 
 
 Gimel 
 
 g 
 
 -A 
 
 7 
 
 1 
 
 X 
 
 A 
 
 1 
 
 X 
 
 D 
 
 ^ 
 
 Daleth 
 
 d 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 '^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 1 
 
 o 
 
 He 
 
 h 
 
 •^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 A1 
 
 <^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ri 
 
 n 
 
 s 
 
 Vau 
 
 V 
 
 Y 
 
 ^ 
 
 1 
 
 "l 
 
 1 
 
 "^ 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 J 
 
 Zayin 
 
 z 
 
 is: 
 
 :^ 
 
 rr: 
 
 : 
 
 "y^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 J 
 
 t 
 
 o 
 
 Cheth 
 
 ch 
 
 H 
 
 /^ 
 
 \a 
 
 WH 
 
 "^ 
 
 •^ 
 
 HTl 
 
 n 
 
 C 
 
 Teth 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 © 
 
 
 
 (ii 
 
 '^ 
 
 O 
 
 to 
 
 ^ 
 
 Yod 
 
 y 
 
 2: 
 
 i 
 
 Z^ 
 
 i-K 
 
 m 
 
 m* 
 
 Ai 
 
 •^ 
 
 s5 
 
 Kaph 
 
 k 
 
 :K 
 
 n 
 
 f 
 
 H 
 
 1 
 
 :i5 
 
 i3 
 
 D 
 
 ^ 
 
 Lamed 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 / 
 
 ^ 
 
 i 
 
 Z 
 
 < 
 
 ^ 
 
 J 
 
 Mem 
 
 m 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 > 
 
 '^ 
 
 *? 
 
 ^ 
 
 12 
 
 r) 
 
 r 
 
 Nun 
 
 n 
 
 ") 
 
 ) 
 
 > 
 
 '7 
 
 ^ 
 
 ::i 
 
 S 
 
 :3 
 
 c) 
 
 Samekh 
 
 s 
 
 
 -\ 
 
 
 \ 
 
 V 
 
 1-^ 
 
 1 ^ 
 
 D 
 
 w^ 
 
 'Ayin 
 
 'a 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 <7 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 i "^ 
 
 y 
 
 y^ 
 
 t 
 
 Pe 
 
 P 
 
 ^ 
 
 1 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 ; 2 
 
 10 
 
 S) 
 
 Sy' 
 
 Tsade 
 
 ts 
 
 [0. 
 
 ^ 
 
 *"i«-r 
 
 ^ 
 
 r 
 
 HIT 
 
 ^ 
 
 V 
 
 <J^ 
 
 Q'oph 
 
 q 
 
 ? 
 
 CD 
 
 t 
 
 v? 
 
 ^ 
 
 V 
 
 ? 
 
 p 
 
 (J 
 
 Resh 
 
 r 
 
 ^ 
 
 A 
 
 
 4 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 77 
 
 
 J 
 
 Shin 
 
 sh 
 
 NW 
 
 NA/ 
 
 Vv 
 
 wt^^ 
 
 »^ 
 
 XUL 
 
 >o 
 
 t£) 
 
 kJ^ 
 
 Tau 
 
 t 
 
 X 
 
 + X 
 
 X 
 
 ^/ 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 t] 
 
 ri 
 
 ^■" 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 11 
 
 III 
 
 IV 
 
 V 
 
 VI 
 
 VII 
 
 VIII 
 
 Tx 
 
 Fig. loi. The Phoenician alphabet, showing the transformation of the Mo- 
 abite and Sidonian letters into the Modern Hebrew and Arabic. 
 
3o6 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 more like the modern square Hebrew than this Samari- 
 tan alphabet. 
 
 In the north the Aramean alphabet after passing 
 through certain local modifications — as the alphabet 
 used in Palmyra in the last three centuries before Christ 
 and the Syriac alphabet which developed in the early 
 Christian centuries — eventually developed through the 
 dark ages into the modern Arabic. The gradual degen- 
 eration from the none-too-well differentiated forms of 
 the Aramean alphabet into the curious " short-hand " 
 of the Arabic, with its many ambiguous abbreviations of 
 the historic letters, is one of the most remarkable trans- 
 formations known In the history of calligraphy. The Ara- 
 bic alphabet is shown in the last column in Fig. loi. 
 As will be seen, a considerable proportion of the char- 
 acters have deteriorated into mere punctuation marks; 
 while many duplicate characters are distinguished from 
 each other only by diacritical marks above or below the 
 open line or curve. There is an almost total absence of 
 looped or closed curves which give variety to the Phoeni- 
 cian letters. Almost every stroke is open and cursive. 
 
 It is a strange conclusion after two millenniums of 
 transformations that we now should have remaining as 
 the descendants of the primitive PhcEnlcIan alphabet: the 
 square Hebrew, used by the Jews who follow the prophets 
 of the Old Testament; the Arabic alphabet, used by the 
 non-Christian people of Islam; and the Roman alphabet, 
 employed by the Christian nations of Europe. The two 
 former alphabets, during the early Christian centuries, 
 lost almost every vestige of the primitive forms; while 
 the European alphabets, after their transformation into 
 the Gothic black letters of the Middle Ages, so dissimilar 
 to the Roman alphabet, in the Renaissance restored the 
 old Roman letters for initials and titles, while the minus- 
 
THE PHCENICIAN ALPHABET 307 
 
 cule was used for the body of the text. Thus was reestab- 
 lished in permanent use letters which have descended di- 
 rectly from the old Phoenician letters, and which closely 
 resemble them in nearly every case. They are, like the 
 parent alphabet, distinctive, varied, unambiguous and well 
 differentiated. 
 
 It may be of Interest to note that the names of the 
 letters in all these alphabets, — the Aramean, Syriac, 
 Arabic, or in nearly every alphabet in Europe and Asia, — 
 the Slavonic, Armenian or Indian, are almost identical 
 with those of the original Phoenician letters as preserved 
 in the Hebrew language. All the local modifications in the 
 names of the letters are similar to the following. The 
 Syriac letters proceed: olaf, beth, gomal, dolath, etc.; 
 the Arabic : alif, be, jim, dal, etc. ; the Slavonic : az, buki, 
 glagol, dobro, etc. ; the Indian, alf, bet, gemel, dent, etc. 
 It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the Greek 
 alphabet, borrowed from the Phoenician, runs : alpha, 
 beta, gamma, delta, and so on. What an honor it confers 
 upon this little nationality of Phoenicia, nestling along the 
 shore of the Mediterranean Sea twenty-five centuries 
 ago, that her written and spoken alphabet, modified to 
 the extent that we have indicated, is used to-day 
 practic ally the world[ over, up to the walj^of China and 
 
 We may remark in closing this chapter that it is a 
 strange fatality that the one Oriental system of writ- 
 ing that has had the most direct influence in the forma- 
 tion of the letters of our own alphabet, as they have come 
 down to us from the Greek, unfortunately should be, 
 with the exception of the Hittite writing, the one whose 
 origin we know the least about. Both of these systems 
 of writing though they developed many centuries after the 
 linear Babylonian, Assyrian and Egyptian systems of 
 
3o8 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 writing, still have their antecedents shrouded in mys- 
 tery. The Hittite writing cannot even be read, while the 
 origin of the Phoenician is to-day a matter of doubt and 
 dispute. It seems that in the comparison of the earlier 
 forms of writing with the Phoenician — the parent sys- 
 tem of all the present European and mid-Asian alphabets 
 — the knowledge of the historic development were in- 
 versely as the age of the system. The sources of the writ- 
 ten characters of the Egyptians and Babylonians alike 
 have been fully revealed to us in the primitive, graphic 
 ideograms that represented and expressed the ideas of 
 their early scribes, and which were continued through 
 successive modifications, not at all extensive in the case 
 of the Egyptians, into their ultimate, simplified signary. 
 But whence the Phoenicians obtained their letters, 
 through what channels of historic association or literary 
 influence their letters received their distinctive forms, still 
 is a mooted and unsettled question. Possibly this is not an 
 altogether unmixed evil. If we were able at this time defi- 
 nitely to clear up all the mystery brooding over the origin 
 and development of our alphabetic characters, the book 
 would be finished in our generation. There would be 
 nothing left for posterity, and coming generations of 
 scholars would be denied wide fields of scholarship and 
 research. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 PRE-PHCENICIAN SYLLABARIES AND MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 SCRIPT 
 
 In the last chapter we stated that the origin of the 
 Phoenician alphabet is a mooted question. Leading au- 
 thorities on archeology and paleography are not in ac- 
 cord in their theories concerning the probable source of 
 these unique letters. That they were descended from an 
 ancient hneage, and had passed through many centuries 
 of transformation before the Phoenicians adopted them 
 for their phonetic writing, seems almost certain. They do 
 not appear to be an indigenous system that had developed 
 in situ from the internal evolution of national ideals, like 
 the Egyptian and Babylonian writing. They have the ear- 
 marks of an adopted art, composite in character, and 
 possibly derived from more than one source. It seems 
 highly improbable that this small nation with no certain 
 history prior to the middle of the second millennium, B. c, 
 perched upon the Mediterranean sea coast between 
 powerful monarchies that for centuries had been de- 
 veloping their systems of writing around them, should 
 have evolved an entirely independent system of writing. 
 No one advocates such a theory. The Phoenicians were 
 the traders of antiquity. They were veritable nomads of 
 the sea. They came in touch with every nation around 
 the Mediterranean basin, and very early must have be- 
 come familiar with their culture and their arts. If the 
 Phoenician alphabet were not an indigenous system, it 
 must have developed under the influence of the Assyro- 
 
 309 
 
310 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Babylonian, the HIttite or the Egyptian system of writ- 
 ing, or have received its elements from the West. That 
 it never could have been an outgrowth of or been in- 
 fluenced by the cuneiform writing is too apparent to 
 need any argument. There are no visible points of simi- 
 larity between one of the many hundreds of cuneiform, 
 syllabic symbols and the twenty-two letters of the 
 Phoenician alphabet. More than one eminent authority 
 believes that the majority of the Phoenician letter names 
 came from the East, but even a casual glance at the 
 cuneiform characters must convince any one that the 
 Phoenician alphabet never could have originated from 
 this source. That it could have developed out of the 
 Sumerian ideographs and syllabary, or the later linear 
 Babylonian characters which formed the basis of the 
 cuneiform text, is not at all improbable. There is, how- 
 ever, no tangible evidence that there was any direct con- 
 nection between the two cultures, unless it existed before 
 the western branch of the Semites emigrated from the 
 Euphrates valley. 
 
 The linear Babylonian script, at least In Mesopotamia, 
 had fallen into complete disuse before the time of Ham- 
 murabi (ckca 220O B. c.) and had been supplanted by 
 the cuneiform syllabary. The linear forms from this 
 time on were completely abandoned and probably for- 
 gotten, except by native lexicographers whose glossaries 
 of linear and cuneiform signs on clay tablets occasion- 
 ally have been discovered. It is possible, however, as 
 we already have suggested, that the early Hittites in de- 
 veloping their primitive hieroglyphs may have borrowed 
 more or less from their early eastern neighbors, the 
 Akkadians and Sumerians. It appears as though this were 
 an established fact; but as we yet do not know the 
 syllabic value of but a very few of the HIttite signs, it 
 
PRE-PHCENICIAN. SYLLABARIES 3 1 1 
 
 is impossible to trace specific parallels between the two 
 syllabaries. 
 
 The inquiry therefore becomes narrowed down to the 
 writing of the Hittites, the Egyptians or that of the 
 West, as yet unexplored by us. With both of the former 
 countries the Phoenicians traded. The Hittites were their 
 close neighbors on the north, and were on more or less 
 friendly terms with them as both were with the neighbor- 
 ing Israelites. We read in Genesis XXIII that Abraham 
 purchased the cave of Machpelah from Ephron, the 
 HIttlte, In which to bury his wife Sarah. We know that 
 the great HIttlte empire about the time of the Trojan 
 war and long prior thereto extended through Asia Minor 
 from Mesopotamia almost to the Mediterranean Sea. 
 HIttlte inscriptions have been found In ancient Lydia, 
 Caria, Phrygia and CIHcIa, countries north of Phoenicia. 
 So, beyond question the Phoenicians from the earliest 
 times were familiar with the system of hieroglyphic writ- 
 ing employed by their HIttlte neighbors. They likewise 
 were fully acquainted with the Egyptian system of 
 hieroglyphic and alphabetic writing. It Is known that 
 foreigners were permitted to settle In Egypt. As early 
 as the time of Usertesen (2681-2660 B. c.) there were 
 foreign settlements around the delta of the Nile. Dr. 
 W. M. Flinders Petrie has identified vases found at 
 Abydos among the remains of the first Egyptian dynasty, 
 at a depth corresponding to the strata of the Bronze Age, 
 with those found in the Palace of Knossos, Crete. 
 Phoenician wares have been found in many places in the 
 Delta In the debris and accumulations of very early Egyp- 
 tian dynasties. It is known that the Phoenicians traded 
 with Pelusium, Bubastis, Zoan and other places In lower 
 Egypt, and that they settled In Memphis, having a tem- 
 ple of Astarte there in which they worshiped. He- 
 
312 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 rodotus (II, 112) describing this temple says: "Phoeni- 
 cians from the city of Tyre dwell all around this precinct, 
 and the whole place is known by the name of the camp 
 of the Tyrians. Within the enclosure stands a temple 
 which is called that of Venus the Stranger." Aahmes, first 
 king of the i8th dynasty, who expelled the Hyksos, speaks 
 of the " foreign people of the Fenekh." Certainly a very 
 significant name. It is therefore conclusively evident that 
 the Phoenicians, centuries before the date of the first 
 known inscriptions in their alphabet, had come in contact 
 with the Egyptian hieroglyphic and hieratic writing. 
 
 Attempts have been made, notably by a learned French 
 scholar, M. Emmanuel deRouge, to trace the origin of 
 the Phoenician characters to the hieratic characters of 
 the Egyptians. M. deRouge has made an exhaustive 
 study of the two systems of writing and has elaborated a 
 theory whereby he traces each one of the Phoenician char- 
 acters back to an original hieratic sign.^ It Is true that 
 In a few cases the hieratic sign for a given alphabetic 
 sound, If somewhat modified, will rather closely resemble 
 the Phoenician character for this same sound, if it also 
 is somewhat modified. But on the whole, there are so 
 few real correspondences, and most of them seem so far 
 fetched, that we believe the present state of knowledge 
 of the subject does not warrant an acceptance of de- 
 Rouge's theory. It must be admitted that the temptation 
 is very strong to accept a theory so consonant with the 
 historic development of written characters from primi- 
 tive pictures as this theory of the descent of the Phoeni- 
 cian alphabet from the hieratic modifications of the Egyp- 
 
 1 " Memoire sur I'origine figyptienne de I'alphabet Phenicien." Paris, 
 1874. Edited by Jacques de Rouge. Also "The Alphabet. An Account 
 of the Origin and Development of Letters." Dr. Isaac Taylor. London, 
 !88j. 
 
PRE-PHCENICIAN SYLLABARIES 313 
 
 tian hieroglyphs. But we are not yet in command of 
 sufficient historic facts to say that some of the Phoenician 
 characters may not have come from Egyptian sources. 
 Some reliable authorities believe this to be true. But the 
 general consensus of scholarly judgment to-day, in the 
 light of recent excavations and discoveries, is opposed 
 to deRouge's elaborate theory, or any theory looking 
 to the Egyptian writing as the source of the Phoenician 
 alphabet or any considerable number of its letters. 
 
 The first authentic Phoenician inscription to which a 
 definite date can be assigned, as we have shown, dates 
 from the latter part of the 9th century B. c. ; but it is 
 highly probable that this was preceded by several hundred 
 years of transformation in which the alphabet developed 
 out of preexisting forms derived from foreign sources. 
 Flinders Petrie in his " Tombs of Abydos " publishes a 
 very elaborate signary of several hundred characters in 
 use in countries around the Mediterranean Sea from a 
 period, according to his estimate, as early as 6000 B. c. 
 He has collected his data from potsherds, vases, engraved 
 stones and other objects found chiefly in Egyptian tombs 
 and the debris of ruined cities. His dates are estimated by 
 the known dates in Egyptian history, and by the vast ac- 
 cumulations of deposits. Prehistoric shards have been un- 
 earthed in neolithic strata with lines of continuous signs, 
 evidently writing, painted long — who can say how long 
 — before the hieroglyphs were invented. The great ma- 
 jority of the signs in this ancient syllabary are quite simi- 
 lar in general appearance to our present alphabetic char- 
 acters, and familiar Phoenician and proto-Phoenician let- 
 ters run through the entire series. This seems to open up 
 to us a new field of inquiry. Can the West after all have 
 had any influence in the molding of the Phoenician letter 
 forms, and are we to give credence to the thought that 
 
314 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 the spread of the Phoenician alphabet throughout Asia 
 is a return tide of Occidental culture following the reced- 
 ence of the successive waves of culture from the Orient? 
 These signs, fully three hundred in number, with scores 
 of variants, were in use from Spain to .Asia Minor from 
 the very earliest Egyptian dynasties to the i8th dynasty 
 of the Rameses. The characters used in far-away Spain 
 and in Asia Minor were identical. Sixty^eight of these 
 characters are found in the very ancient syllabary of 
 Caria, a country on the Mediterranean sea coast of Asia 
 Minor between Lydia and Lycia. 
 
 It is quite a notable fact that in the entire Odyssey 
 there is no mention of the art of writing; but in the Iliad, 
 the older epic, occurs this one reference : When the wife 
 of Proetus wished to have Bellerophon put to death, " she 
 sent him to Lycia as bearer of closed writing to her 
 father-in-law, the king, that he should make him perish." 
 What was this writing that the Lycians used at this 
 period, the mythological age of Greek history, and 
 whence did it come? Let us enter upon the general quest. 
 Among the hundreds of objects found by Dr. Schlieman 
 in ancient Mycense in his excavations in 1876 not one 
 bore an inscription. One fragment of a vase handle found 
 at Mycenae in 1892 had a few strange characters which 
 are not believed to be writing. The classical authors 
 themselves did not agree upon the origin of the letters 
 which they used. While the majority believed that they 
 were invented by the Phoenicians, others entertained a 
 different opinion. Diodorus SIculus, the Greek historian, 
 wrote: " Some pretend that the Syrians were the Inven- 
 tors of letters, and that the Phoenicians learnt from the 
 Syrians and brought the art of writing to Greece, whence 
 the name of Phoenician alphabet. But the Cretans say 
 that the first discovery came not from Phoenicia but from 
 
PRE-PHGENICIAN SYLLABARIES 315 
 
 Crete, and that the Phoenicians only changed the type of 
 the letters, and made the knowledge of them more gen- 
 eral among the peoples." 
 
 In the island of Crete there appears to have been from 
 an exceedingly early age, long antedating advanced civi- 
 hzation in Greece proper, a highly civilized state in which 
 the art of writing, apparently indigenous in its primi- 
 tive stages, seems to have been practiced many centuries 
 before its appearance on the mainland. Crete, it will be 
 remembered before the Dorian invasion in the 12th 
 century B. c. scattered its population over the .(Egean 
 islands, was the center of a very early Mycenaean civiliza- 
 tion. Minos, king of Crete, was the first law giver of 
 Greece. He is noted as the builder of the famous Laby- 
 rinth, one of the seven wonders of the world. Arthur J. 
 Evans lately has discovered in the ruins of the Palace of 
 Knossos, Crete, a large number of remarkable inscrip- 
 tions belonging to this early Minoan period of civiliza- 
 tion. This civilization extended over a period of 1200 
 years or more, beginning about 2500 B. c. and ending 
 with the complete destruction of the Minoan civilization 
 about 1300 B. c. It was thus contemporaneous with the 
 most powerful dynasties in Egypt. Egyptian sculptures of 
 the I2th and 13th dynasties {circa 2778 to 2098 B.C.) 
 have been found in the lowest strata of deposits at Knos- 
 sos. As we would expect, the oldest of these inscriptions 
 are pictographic; while the later are in a linear script 
 which has every appearance of being a phonetic syllabary. 
 The pictographic inscriptions belong to an extremely 
 archaic period, estimated by Mr. Evans to be in the third 
 millennium, B. c. They contain quite a number of ele- 
 ments which are so surprisingly like the Hittite hier- 
 oglyphs as to point to a common use if not a common 
 origin of quite a few conventional types of symbols. 
 
3i6 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Among the many symbols employed In these remarkable 
 inscriptions are the following:^ 
 
 Human body and its parts 1 1 
 
 Arms, implements and instruments 24 
 
 Culture objects and symbols 5 
 
 Houses and enclosures 6 
 
 Utensils, stores and treasures 10 
 
 Ships and marine objects 4 
 
 Animals and their parts 24 
 
 Insects 2 
 
 Plants and trees 20 
 
 Sky and earth 8 
 
 Uncertain objects and simple geometric signs. . 21 
 
 Total number of signs 135 
 
 Many of these pictographic inscriptions are found on 
 engraved gems and on three- and four-sided prismatic 
 seals in carnelian, jasper, steatite and other stones, quan- 
 tities of which have been found in ancient ossuaries, 
 cemeteries and elsewhere throughout Crete. The be- 
 lief that the symbols engraved on these seal stones are 
 ideographic, perhaps syllabic, characters, and constitute a 
 written record, becomes a conviction from which there 
 
 Fig. I03. Face of four-sided seal found in Crete, engraved with 
 pictographs. 
 
 1 " Scripta Minoa. The Written Documents of Minoan Crete with spe- 
 cial Reference to the Archives of Knossos." Arthur J. Evans, 1909. 
 
PRE-PHCENICIAN SYLLABARIES 
 
 317 
 
 can be no escape when they once are seriously exam- 
 ined. 
 
 Fig. 102 is a characteristic example of these engraved 
 seals. It illustrates one face of a four-sided seal. We 
 see a wolf's head, an arm with a weapon, probably a 
 star and what appears to be two leaves. Many of the 
 signs representing the human body or its parts are in 
 such striking positions, postures and attitudes as to lead 
 to the conviction that they are gesture signs that have 
 been carried over from the primitive sign language into 
 the ideographic and syllabic stage of writing. 
 
 Fig. 103 is a four-sided seal in red carnelian, each 
 
 Fig. 103. Four-sided seal in red carnelian from Crete, engraved with 
 pictographs and hieroglyphs. 
 
3i8 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 face bearing an Inscription, as shown In the Illustration. 
 One sees depicted plants, a boat, human beings, animals' 
 heads, utensils and geometric forms. Some of the latter 
 symbols are almost perfect counterparts of the linear 
 Babylonian signs. 
 
 We give In Fig. 104 one more of these Cretan seals. 
 It Is one face of a three-sided seal In carnellan. The en- 
 
 Fig. 104. Three-sided carnelian seal engraved with various Cretan 
 pictographs and symbols. 
 
 graved pictographs and symbols are decidedly reminiscent 
 of the HIttite symbols. The double-headed battle ax on 
 the left Is an oft-recurring symbol in these Cretan picto- 
 graphs. The reader who is desirous of learning more 
 about this earliest phase of Cretan writing may consult 
 " Cretan Pictographs and Pre-Phoeniclan Script," in 
 which Mr. Evans has analyzed over a hundred of these 
 pictographic symbols and shown the connection of many 
 of them with the ancient JEgezn signary and with the 
 Phoenician alphabet. 
 
 There was discovered in 1908 by Dr. Luigini Pernier 
 at Phaestos, at the other end of the Island from Knossos, 
 one of the most remarkable tablets yet found In the pre- 
 historic debris of Crete. It is a circular disk of clay 
 covered on both sides with hieroglyphics, chiefly picto- 
 graphs (Fig. -105). The hieroglyphs were most cleverly 
 Impressed on the clay with stamps, the same stamp being 
 used for each similar hieroglyph, The characters follow 
 
PRE-PHCENICIAN SYLLABARIES 319 
 
 Fig. 105. Disc of clay with hieroglyphs Impressed from stamps. Found 
 at Phaestos, Crete. Face A. 
 
 each other In a spiral band divided Into sections or regis- 
 ters. If what appears to be the general rule In the reading 
 of hieroglyphs holds good In this case, the reading should 
 be from the periphery, where the four little circles are 
 drawn on the register line, leftward Into the facing heads 
 and figures and winding around spirally until the center 
 Is reached. The tablet Is believed to be purely exotic; as 
 It seems to have no connection with the Cretan pic- 
 tographs. But It Is a significant phase of this epoch of 
 evolution In writing, and throws an Interesting side light 
 upon the Cretan hieroglyphs. The figures and symbols 
 
320 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 are non-Cretan, although some of the signs remotely re- 
 semble those used by the Minoans In Crete. The char- 
 acters throughout decidedly resemble Hittlte art. In 
 many ways the various figures and signs show a close re- 
 lationship with the work of the ancient Inhabitants of 
 Asia Minor. It Is believed that the tablet may have come 
 from Lycia. The Inscription like the HIttite and Cretan 
 hieroglyphics has not yet been translated. 
 
 The tablets in linear script, of which many hundreds 
 
 
 
 
 Fig. io6. Examples of Cretan linear script of A. J. Evans' Class A, found 
 in the villa Hagia Triada, near Phaestos, Crete. Probable date, 1800 
 
 B.C. 
 
 have been found, are of two kinds; the older, which Mr. 
 Evans calls Class A, consisting of highly conventionalized 
 forms, and Class B, a later geometric script. Two exam- 
 ples of the old script selected from 150 Inscribed clay 
 tablets found in the villa of Hagia Triada, near Phaestos, 
 are illustrated in Fig. 106. The probable date of these 
 older tablet Inscriptions Is given by Dr. Evans as covering 
 the period 1 800-1 600 B. c. ; a period from 700 to 900 
 years earlier than the oldest known Phoenician writing. 
 The later form of tablet inscriptions, which date from 
 
PRE-PHCENICIAN SYLLABARIES 
 
 321 
 
 about 1600 to 1300 B. c, while containing many ele- 
 ments of the earlier style is decidedly alphabetic in char- 
 acter and has, as Dr. Evans says, " a European aspect." 
 Many of the forms in the older script which were pic- 
 tographic in character have been abandoned, leaving the 
 later signary almost devoid of any complex signs reminis- 
 
 M/^l 
 
 ^m 
 mD 
 
 ^iMUIl 
 
 I 
 
 [^ 
 
 ki 
 
 zEfmMI 
 
 TfM! 
 
 
 Fig. 107. Geometric linear script from Knossos, illustration of A. J. Evans' 
 Class B inscriptions from Crete. Probable date, 1600 to 1300 B. c. 
 
 cent of the earlier pictographic or hieroglyphic stage. 
 Fig. 107 is a typical example of this perfected type of 
 the Cretan linear script. We detect in this tablet in- 
 scription from Knossos not a few forms quite similar 
 to our own alphabetic characters: Nl H F S W and a sus- 
 picion of • others. Many engraved whorls, belonging to 
 this early Minoan period of civilization, used in weaving 
 or possibly for adornment, also have been found in 
 Knossos and elsewhere in Crete. One of them is illus- 
 trated in Fig. 108. It is most obvious that the markings 
 
322 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 are not mere decoration. They are too irregular. There 
 is no rhythm nor decorative sequence. When these Greek 
 Minoans attempted the art of decoration, they were 
 eminently successful. The engraving on this whorl evi- 
 dently is writing. Of the six characters, five correspond 
 with our own Roman letters. Yet this 
 whorl was found among the debris of a 
 primitive Greek civilization some seven 
 centuries earlier than the earliest known 
 historic, Phoenician inscription. It has 
 been found that out of twenty-one signs Fig. io8. Inscribed 
 appearing on different objects discovered -f^' ^^"'"pS-' 
 at Knossos, ten are almost identical with dan alpliabetic 
 the shapes of the later Greek letters. characters. 
 This can hardly be accidental and undoubtedly shows a 
 common source of influence. 
 
 These tablet inscriptions from the Palace of Knossos 
 reveal to us the fact that looo years before any written 
 record appeared in Greece, the Cretans had developed a 
 syllabary which had progressed through every stage of 
 evolution from the early pictographs to a highly conven- 
 tionalized script. There may be much significance in the 
 fact that this writing is from left to right in the European 
 method, as distinguished from the reverse method of the 
 Phoenicians. This can be verified by noting in Fig. 107 
 that every line of writing ends on the right with a vertical 
 separating line, which throughout seems to be used to 
 separate the words. However, where there are two or 
 more lines of consecutive writing, the reading is boustro- 
 phedon as in the earhest Greek Inscriptions. In the mat- 
 ter of the separation of words it will be remembered that 
 in the Moabite inscription (Fig. 95) the words are sepa- 
 rated by dots and the sentences by vertical lines. 
 
 When we come to compare the twenty-two letters of 
 
PRE-PHCENICIAN SYLLABARIES 323 
 
 the Phoenician alphabet, as found on the Moablte Stone, 
 with the more numerous characters of the later form of 
 Cretan linear script, there is a close resemblance in three- 
 fourths of the letters of the former alphabet. This Is 
 a fact of the highest importance, sufficient to show a 
 very close historic relationship the one with the other. 
 Whether the respective characters between which these 
 many resemblances may be noted In these two systems of 
 writing had corresponding phonetic values, it is Impos- 
 sible to say. No Cretan inscription has yet been trans- 
 lated. We now seem to be face to face with an Impor- 
 tant problem. Were these Independent systems of writing, 
 or was one developed out of or influenced by the other, 
 and if so which? The questions cannot be answered at 
 once, and possibly the complete unraveling of the mys- 
 tery may ever elude us, and the problem remain unsolved. 
 At least much more knowledge must be forthcoming of 
 the Cretan syllabary and language and that of the kin- 
 dred syllabaries of the Mediterranean and of Asia-Minor 
 before a definite answer can be expected. But encour- 
 aging progress In archaeological research constantly is 
 being made, and the excavation of ancient sites, of late 
 prosecuted with such scholarly enterprise, daily Is bring- 
 ing to us more light on the subject, and heartens us in 
 the hope of ultimate success In our quest. 
 
 Crete is not the only Island In the ^Egean where evi- 
 dences of this early form of Mycenaean culture have been 
 discovered. In the island of Cyprus a local variant of the 
 ancient Mediterranean syllabary was In use and lingered 
 late Into the Greek period. It became very much trans- 
 formed, losing much of the archaic form of the Cretan 
 script and taking on a local phase somewhat different 
 from the alphabets on the mainland of Asia Minor. 
 Louis P. Di Cesnola, who spent a number of years in the 
 
324 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 island of Cyprus exploring and excavating the sites of 
 ancient cities, brought to light an extraordinary amount 
 of art objects. Among them are many inscriptions in the 
 Cypriote signary, a syllabic script based on this very an- 
 cient iEgean signary, elsewhere abandoned but here re- 
 tained until the middle of the 6th century B. c. It is 
 significant that the reading of all these inscriptions, for 
 they have been translated chiefly through the scholarship 
 of George Smith, is from right to left, according to the 
 Oriental method. Perhaps we should expect this from 
 the geographical location of Cyprus ; yet the language is 
 a dialect of the Greek, very closely resembling the parent 
 tongue. 
 
 The following is the reproduction of an inscription 
 on a stone implement in the immense Cesnola collection 
 of objects from Cyprus in the Metropolitan Art Museum 
 in New York City : 
 
 Reading from right to left the syllables run: e-ro-se-te- 
 ke-to-a-po-lo-ni. In Greek this would read: 
 
 "Hpojs ''tOrjKE 'A7ro(A.)Aft)vt 
 
 " Heros offered it to Apollo." 
 Fig. 109 is an inscription somewhat rudely carved on 
 
 Fig. 109. Cypriote inscription from Golgoi. From the Cesnola collection, 
 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. 
 
PRE-PHCENICIAN SYLLABARIES 
 
 325 
 
 calcareous stone with figures in relief, found at Golgoi. 
 Reading these lines from right to left the syllabic 
 values of the signs are as follows : — 
 
 Ti-ia-i-te-mi-to-i-te-o 
 
 To-a-po-lo-no-o-ne-te-ke 
 
 u-tu-ka 
 
 The translation of this into the Greek that these 
 Cyprians probably spoke shows the evident inadequacy 
 of this syllabary for their language : 
 
 Aiiat^e/tt[s] tHi 6eia 
 TO 'Am [A.] A<on 6vedr]K€ 
 V '■[v]i[v] Tvxa 
 
 " Diyaithemis offered me to the god Apollo 
 in good fortune." 
 
 Fig. no is an inscription found by Cesnola at Paphos 
 
 
 Fig. no. Cypriote inscription found at Paphos, Cyprus. From the Cesnola 
 collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. 
 
 in Cyprus. It reads from right to left, like the former 
 inscriptions', as indicated by the ending of the final line. 
 Prof. Sayce interprets this inscription as follows: — 
 
 Mi-e-u-ya-ti-ka-si-a 
 
 ne-ke-pi-e-n e-s a-ti-te-ka 
 ne-vo-u 
 
326 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 In Greek this would be : 
 
 'Aa-LKaOiyav riixL KareOujav cpl Kevtvfov. 
 
 " I am Asikathiyas. They set (me) up 
 over (this) Cenotaph." 
 
 We give in the following example one of the bilingual 
 inscriptions that have helped in the translation of the 
 Cypriote syllabary. It is from Golgoi. 
 
 
 In English this reads: " Karux am I." 
 
 The four inscriptions which we have shown are char- 
 acteristic examples of Cypriote writing, and give us a 
 very good idea of the general character of the signs em- 
 ployed. There are some fifty-two or more characters in 
 this syllabary,^ all linear like those shown, most of which 
 stand for phonetic syllables ; — as ta-te-ti-to-tu — all 
 shown in our inscriptions — fa, pe, pi, po, pu, and so on. 
 It will thus be seen that the system had not evolved to 
 the final stage of an alphabet. The majority of the signs 
 represented compound syllabic sounds, which had not ad- 
 vanced to the full development of alphabetic analysis. 
 This achievement remained for other nations to work 
 out. There is not a vestige of pictography in any of these 
 Cypriote characters. The individual signs are reduced to 
 
 1 Dr. Hermann Collitz in " Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-In- 
 schriften " gives a chart of several hundred variants of this syllabary- 
 taken from inscribed fragments found at Golgoi, Salamis, Idalion, Arsince 
 and other localities. Prof. Dr. Wilhelra Larfield in " Handbuch der 
 griechischen Epigraphifc " also illustrates this signary, giving scores of 
 variants of the fifty-tvro phonetic syllables constituting the syllabary. 
 
PRE-PHCENICIAN SYLLABARIES 327 
 
 a few geometric lines, generally upright and symmetrical 
 in arrangement, and, with very few exceptions, without 
 outline or closed lines. 
 
 The question forces itself upon us: Whence comes 
 this Cypriote syllabary? Authorities disagree in their 
 theories regarding its origin. Practically all archasologists 
 believe that the characters are the survivors of the very 
 ancient and much more extensive syllabary disseminated 
 by the spread of Mycenaean culture around the Mediter- 
 ranean basin. It appears that throughout Asia Minor 
 in the closing years of the second millennium B. c, an 
 iEgean syllabary very similar to the Cypriote was in 
 extensive use over a very wide territory. Inscriptions in 
 this signary, very fragmentary in their nature, have 
 been found in Troy and Hissarlick, the latter city being 
 known to have been under Mycenasan culture. A very 
 similar syllabary also was in use in Cilicia, Caria, 
 Pamphylia, Lycia, and probably in Lydia. This area con- 
 stitutes the fringe of countries on the Mediterranean 
 Httoral in Asia Minor settled by the Greeks and kindred 
 peoples contemporaneous with the closing period of the 
 Hittite civilization, which flourished in the immediate 
 hinterland eastward from Cappadocia and Phrygia. In- 
 scriptions in this syllabary also have been found as far 
 east as Cappadocia. The coast lands mentioned were 
 under iEgean influence for untold centuries before the 
 Trojan war, the culture undoubtedly extending as far 
 south as southern Canaan. Of late considerable credence 
 has been given to the belief that the Philistines, living 
 along the shore of the Mediterranean immediately south 
 of Phoenicia about the close of the 13th century B. C, 
 were Cretans, who after the destruction of the Mycenaean 
 civilization incident to the Dorian invasion of the 
 
328 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Peloponnesus, were driven across the JEgea,n and took 
 refuge in the coast lands of Palestine. 
 
 Some authorities trace the source of the signs In the 
 Cypriote syllabary to the later, more cursive and simpler, 
 variety of the Hittite hieroglyphs, as found in the bowl 
 from Babylon. There are undoubted resemblances; but 
 they are very few in number, and most archaeologists seem 
 inclined to treat as negligible any Hittite influence upon 
 the Mediterranean syllabary. If there were transitional 
 syllabaries through which the Hittite symbols were trans- 
 formed and transmitted to the Phoenicians and other 
 Mediterranean and iEgean peoples, traces of them have 
 not yet come to hght. While we must admit the wide 
 influence of the great Hittite nation upon its neighbors, 
 we must remember that the ^Egean civilization had prac- 
 tical supremacy around the Mediterranean shores of Asia 
 Minor for many centuries. Only in the neighborhood 
 of Smyrna do the Hittltes appear to have penetrated to 
 the coast lands. 
 
 Now, on the other hand, we find in the Island of Crete 
 an indigenous system of writing developing through ages 
 of national growth from a purely pictographic method 
 of writing to a highly developed geometric script, which 
 doubtless will prove to be a phonetic syllabary when some 
 day the Inevitable bilingual inscription will be discov- 
 ered, which ancient scholars always have considerately 
 prepared for us. In Cyprus, only fifty or sixty miles op- 
 posite the coast of Phoenicia, was employed for many 
 centuries — as we have learned — a linear script of fifty- 
 two characters, thirty-three of which closely resemble 
 the characters in the much more ancient Minoan linear 
 script of Crete. Now It Is known that the Minoan 
 Cretans had colonies In Syria and Asia Minor, — at 
 
PRE-PHCENICIAN SYLLABARIES 329 
 
 Miletus, Erythrae and in Lycia. Cyprus is but a step- 
 ping stone from the West to tiie East, and could have had 
 its share in the early spread of JEgean culture to the 
 neighboring mainland. It also could have assisted in any 
 return tide of Phoenician culture bringing in later years 
 an improved script to the mainland of Greece. 
 
 Flinders Petrie makes short work of the " Phoenician 
 Theory." But it is unnecessary. The Phoenicians were 
 a link in the chain, and an important one. Petrie has 
 opened up to us by his wonderful discoveries in pre- 
 historic Egypt a new chapter in European epigraphy; as 
 Evans has done in a similar way in Crete. There is this 
 difference, however : the Cretan linear script appears to 
 be the outgrowth of an early, indigenous hieroglyphic 
 system of writing; while the signary discovered by Petrie 
 in Egypt, which he connects with that used In Spain, 
 Caria and other places around the Mediterranean basin, 
 preceded ideography or hieroglyphics. It arose in the use 
 of property marks, numerical signs and manufacturers' 
 memoranda on pottery and other wares exported in trade. 
 In his book published In 19 12, " The Formation of the 
 Alphabet," Petrie gives several charts in which he shows 
 in parallel the many hundreds of different signs In the 
 " Mediterranean Signary " — which he classifies as one 
 — from Egypt, Crete, Cyprus, Caria, Lydia, LycIa, 
 Spain and other countries, and compares them with the 
 alphabetic signs in use in Phoenicia, Thera, Melos, 
 Athens, Etruria and Rome. Summing up the situation 
 he concludes that " a wide body of signs had been grad- 
 ually brought into use in primitive times for various pur- 
 poses. These were Interchanged by trade, and spread 
 from land to land . . . until a couple of dozen signs 
 triumphed and became common property to a group of 
 trading communities, while the local survivals of other 
 
330 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 forms were gradually extinguished in isolated seclusion." 
 He believes that the Phoenicians, trading with the Car- 
 ians, not very distant neighbors, selected from the com- 
 mon syllabary used by the Carians and the Lycians, still 
 nearer neighbors on the north, the twenty-two characters 
 which they used for their alphabetic writing. In a letter 
 to Edward Clodd, reproduced in this author's admirable 
 book " The Story of the Alphabet," Prof. Petrie writes: 
 " A great signary (not hieroglyphic, but geometric, in 
 appearance, if not in origin) was in use all over the 
 Mediterranean 5000 B. c. It is actually found in Egypt 
 at that period, and was split in two. Western and East- 
 ern, by the cross flux of hieroglyphic systems in Egypt 
 and among the Hittites. This linear signary was devel- 
 oped variously, but retained much in common in different 
 countries. It was first systematized by the numerical 
 values assigned to dt by Phoenician traders, who carried 
 it into Greece, whereby the Greek signary was delimited 
 Into an alphabet. But the fuller form of the signary 
 survived in Karia with thirty-six signs, and seven more 
 in Iberia, thus giving values to forty-three. This connec- 
 tion of the Iberian with the Karian is striking; so is that 
 of the Egyptian with the West rather than with the East. 
 Signs found in Egypt have thirteen in common with 
 the early Arabian, fifteen in common with Phoenician, 
 and thirty-three In common with Karian and Kelt- 
 Iberian. This stamps the Egyptian signary of the twelfth 
 and eighteenth dynasties as closely linked with the other 
 Mediterranean systems." Again Prof. Petrie says: — 
 " We stand therefore now in an entirely new position as 
 to the sources of the alphabet, and we see them to be 
 about thrice as old as had been supposed. That the 
 signs were used for written communications of spelled- 
 out words in the early stages, or as an alphabet. Is far 
 
PRE-PHCENICIAN SYLLABARIES 331 
 
 from probable. It was a body of signs, with more or 
 less generally understood meanings; and the change of 
 attributing a single letter value to each, and only using 
 signs for sounds to build into words, is apparently a 
 relatively late outcome of the systematizing due to 
 Phoenician commerce." {Journal, Anthropological Insti- 
 tute, Aug.-Nov., 1899, p. 205.) 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that in Greece proper hardly 
 a trace of the Cretan or of the ^gean syllabary has been 
 found. In three or four localities have been discovered 
 very short inscriptions of a few characters each somewhat 
 resembling the old Minoan script; but they are very 
 fragmentary and Inconclusive. Would not this fact alone 
 seem to prove that the Greeks did not themselves de- 
 velop their alphabet out of the Minoan or any other syl- 
 labary? In point of fact it is believed that the Minoan 
 civihzatlon was destroyed some time before the Greeks 
 began to evolve their alphabet. Is there then any his- 
 torical or archaeological fact that seriously challenges 
 the old Greek legend in regard to the dissemination 
 In Greece of the Phoenician alphabet? We believe there 
 is not. Prof. William N. Bates, of the University of 
 Pennsylvania, in a lecture on the " Origin of the Greek 
 Alphabet," reproduced in Old Penn, March, 1916,' con- 
 cludes his scholarly treatment of the subject by say- 
 ing: " So much, I think, we may regard as sure, that the 
 Greek alphabet originated in Crete. Furthermore, in the 
 light of our present evidence, it seems likely, though It 
 Is not yet proved, that the Phoenicians simplified the 
 characters which they got from Crete, and made the al- 
 phabet better known." 
 
 While there are only the scantiest remains of the old 
 iEgean and Mediterranean syllabary in Greece, there 
 are survivals in the local alphabets of certain Greek 
 
332 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 states of some of the old signs. Nearly every one of the 
 five supplemental Greek letters, Y * X * n, can be found 
 in the ancient syllabary, as well as several strange signs 
 in the alphabets of Corinth, Delos, Argos, Melos and 
 other Greek cities. 
 
 In Asia Minor, prior to the development o'f the Greek 
 Ionian alphabet, the writing in the coast lands by every 
 
 T'T h T I \k t E %^'. 
 OF? TJTTPEN^ 
 E t ^ I ^ '"/'•'i/ii" 
 t P t^£ M ElP-tP'^ 
 
 ^A\^ PP f FhM/^ 
 
 0+ M- E:T E:P 
 
 \X/v\lA EMJi-AE 
 
 Fig. III. Lycian inscription on a sarcophagus found at Xanthus. 
 
 historical evidence was with the characters of this ancient 
 syllabary; but later as the Phoenician letters extended 
 their boundaries of use they were in part adopted into 
 the alphabets of these countries. Gradually the newer 
 characters won supremacy and the ancient forms became 
 obsolescent or were retained — a few of them — as the 
 supplementary Greek letters, not borrowed from the 
 Phoenicians but developed by the Greeks themselves, be- 
 ing enchoric in their early writing. Let us examine an in- 
 scription in the Lycian characters and see what the 
 
PRE-PHCENICIAN SYLLABARIES 333 
 
 " closed writing " resembled that Bellerophon bore to 
 lobates, king of Lycia, that was fraught with so much 
 fatefulness to the unhappy bearer. The inscription shown 
 in Fig. Ill, taken from "An Account of Discover- 
 ies in Lycia," by Charles Fellows, was found carved 
 on a beautiful sarcophagus at Xanthus. It is a mixture 
 of Greek and non-Greek characters, the latter being the 
 last survivors of the old Mediterranean or Mgtan syl- 
 
 in/^^m^Ai 
 
 Tisoa 
 
 in"i 
 
 
 Fig. 112. Lydian inscription from a fragment of marble found at Sardis. 
 
 labary, which, as we have said, were retained so much 
 longer and more completely in the somewhat nearby 
 island of Cyprus. Fourteen of the characters are similar 
 to the Greek letters while eight are non-Grecian, being 
 of the old syllabary. 
 
 In the neighboring country of Lydia in very early 
 historic times an alphabet somewhat similar to that used 
 by the Lycians was in vogue. There was the same gen- 
 eral mixture of Greek letters and the characters of the 
 ancient syllabary surviving in the written language, but 
 eventually destined to become obsolete. Fig. 112 is a 
 fragment of an inscription in Lydian writing which was 
 found at Sardis carved on a slab of marble. The non- 
 Grecian character of the letters seems slightly more 
 
334 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 marked than in the former, Lycian, example. The height 
 of the letters and the strange stem to the W-like char- 
 acter are unusual features, but are characteristic of both 
 Lycian and Lydian writing. On the whole the latter al- 
 phabet seems to belong to a somewhat later date than 
 the former. Fig. 113 is an extensive inscription carved 
 on the entrance door to a tomb in a ravine opposite the 
 recently excavated Acropolis of Sardis. It is from 
 
 Al9i^J:^rB TI+ TT~i>iP(Tniifl:i:iT:inA^ >a^ii(\):|; 
 
 1\) Am "'in i^^TJ 
 
 lAAA\c\ftn >»A 
 
 aiY:;nt 
 
 
 _-l7liT±TTa)lA8 
 
 Fig. 113. Lydian inscription carved on the door to a tomb near the 
 Acropolis in Sardis. 
 
 " Lydian Inscriptions from Sardis," by Albert Thumb 
 (Am. Journal of Archaology, Vol. XV, 191 1). The in- 
 scription was copied by Wm. H. Buckler and sent to Prof. 
 Thumb, who has transliterated it. The inscription is cut 
 on a block of limestone shaped like a paneled door, 
 which seals the entrance to the tomb. The Greek letters 
 in this alphabet so much resemble the corresponding 
 letters of the Etruscan alphabet, shown in Fig. 140, that 
 the belief is strong that the Etruscans either came from 
 Lydia or that the two alphabets had a common origin. 
 It may have been brought with them at the time of their 
 migration into Italy late in the second millennium before 
 Christ, 
 
PRE-PHCENICIAN SYLLABARIES 
 
 335 
 
 
 2 
 
 Z HI 
 
 o 
 
 [Z 
 
 Q- 
 
 H 
 
 h- 
 
 e 
 
 h- 
 
 
 aniEA 
 
 a 
 
 C3 X 
 
 o 
 
 o, 
 
 ^1 
 
 GQ 
 
 ■»-» 
 
 MH 
 
 u 
 
 uncer- 
 tain 
 
 :: 
 
 II 
 Lydian 
 Alpha- 
 bet 
 
 r 
 r 
 
 X- 4- 
 
 ^:7 
 O 
 
 c— 
 
 
 />^ 
 
 H 
 
 CO 
 
 CO 
 
 Z^ ^ 
 
 c^ 
 
 ;u3[BAinba 
 
 < 
 
 ? ? 
 
 OQ 
 
 l_ 
 
 UJ 
 
 I 
 
 ii_ 
 
 N 
 
 - V 
 
 < 
 
 aniBA 
 
 rt 
 
 iC8 ■■" 
 
 J3 
 
 bC 
 
 0) 
 
 IV 
 
 a 
 
 N 
 
 Jd 
 
 -- 
 
 Lydian 
 Alpha- 
 bet 
 
 < 
 
 ->- <- 
 
 V7 
 
 v 
 r- 
 
 ■77 
 
 ^ 
 
 or 
 
 M 
 ++ 
 
 — TV 
 
 < 
 
 ju^iEAinba 
 
 < 
 
 N N^ 
 
 < 
 
 2 
 
 z 
 
 C 
 
 CL 
 
 lAl 
 
 
 X 
 
 aniBA 
 onauoqj 
 
 t3 
 
 N J<! 
 
 - 
 
 B 
 
 G 
 
 o. 
 
 t-i 
 
 
 ■*-> MH 
 
 
 II 
 Lycian 
 Alpha- 
 bet 
 
 < 
 
 H ^ 
 
 < 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 ^ 
 < 
 
 
 Q. 
 
 ^ 
 
 h Li. 
 
 X 
 
 )U3[EATnb9 
 
 < 
 
 < X 
 
 LLI 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 0^ 
 
 
 O ^ L 
 
 sn[CA 
 oiisuoqa 
 
 irt 
 
 3« lU 
 
 >»> 
 
 >> 
 
 o 
 
 3« 
 
 
 5 
 
 = 
 
 >o •= 
 
 )P tj). 
 
 I 
 Lycian 
 Alpha- 
 bet 
 
 CL 
 
 x.<- 
 
 LU 
 
 — 
 
 w 
 
 _Q 
 
 m 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 >- > 
 
336 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 In Fig. 114 will be found the Lycian and Lydian al- 
 phabets, with their Greek equivalents. The former has 
 been completely reestablished for some time past, but the 
 latter alphabet only lately has been restored, chiefly 
 through the labors of Prof. Thumb. The reader easily 
 will recognize the less simplified and more elaborate char- 
 acters of the ancient syllabary, and note the large num- 
 ber of variants for the same phonetic value which were 
 in use even in one country. Space did not permit us to 
 show more of these variants, their number is so large. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE GREEK ALPHABET 
 
 Eastern civilization and culture, about the closing cen- 
 turies of the second pre-Christian millennium, began to 
 spread into Europe by the maritime trade routes from 
 the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the 
 iEgean islands, and later to the mainland of Greece. 
 The hardy Phoenician navigators not only traded at 
 ports along the entire shores of the Mediterranean, but 
 had established colonies in Melos, Rhodes and other 
 iEgean islands as early as the 13th century before Christ. 
 They carried with them their wonderful alphabet as a 
 necessary part of their civilization, using it in conjunc- 
 tion with their trading enterprises and imparting it to 
 the Hellenic people among whom they sojourned. No 
 tradition seems ever more thoroughly substantiated, both 
 by internal evidence and external fact, than that re- 
 corded by the Greek authors that the alphabet used in 
 Hellas came from the Phoenicians. The classic authors 
 differed in their opinions as to the origin of the Phoeni- 
 cian letters. Herodotus, the Greek, and Pliny, the Roman, 
 believed that the Phoenicians invented the letters; while 
 Brosius attributed them to the Babylonians and Tacitus 
 to the Egyptians. But practically all the world now be- 
 lieves that it was the Phoenicians who introduced the let- 
 ters Into Greece proper. The Greeks themselves in their 
 language called their letters: <t>oiviKia ypaiximra, " Phoenician 
 letters." 
 
 If then the facts stated by Herodotus in his history 
 be true, that " the Phoenicians introduced writing into 
 
 337 
 
338 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Greece, and that at first the Greeks shaped their letters 
 exactly like the Phoenician letters," we naturally would 
 expect to find in those localities where it is known that 
 Phcenician colonists first settled evidences of the oldest 
 form of the Greek alphabet and of types more closely re- 
 sembling the Phoenician than elsewhere. The facts fully 
 corroborate this assumption and abundantly confirm the 
 opinion prevailing among classic writers in regard to the 
 introduction of the alphabet dnto Greece. Herodotus, 
 who speaks of " Cadmus, the Trojan, and the followers 
 whom he brought from Phoenicia into the country which 
 is now called Boeotia," says: " for Cadmus when he was 
 sailing in search of Europe made a landing in this island 
 (Thera) ; and . . . left there a number of Phoenicians " 
 (Herodotus III, 147) . So we have it on the authority of 
 this most famous Greek historian that the Phoenicians 
 first settled in Thera and Boeotia. There also were set- 
 tlements of these enterprising colonists at Corinth, 
 Thasos, Melos, Samothrace and other places along the 
 Grecian littoral. Greek tradition refers to this coloniza- 
 tion as having taken place some time in the 12th century 
 B. c, or about two hundred years before the Trojan war. 
 We will not consume time in discussing the authenticity 
 of the Cadmean legend. It undoubtedly was a semi- 
 mythological treatment of a race movement; the im- 
 memorial quest of the West on the part of the people of 
 the East. That Cadmus means " Man of the East," and 
 that the romance of the conquest of Europa — for 
 romance it partly is though founded on historical fact — 
 symbolizes the spirit of western emigration, does no 
 violence to but rather confirms the early tradition in re- 
 gard to the westward spread of eastern culture and par- 
 ticularly the introduction of the Phoenician letters into 
 Greece. 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 339 
 
 In the ancient cemeteries of Thera — Santorin as it 
 is now called — have been ddscovered a number of in- 
 scriptions in the most archaic form of Greek epigraphy. 
 The alphabet employed in these early inscriptions is al- 
 most pure Phcenlcian, the letters differing but little from 
 their eastern prototypes. The oldest inscriptions were 
 written in the ordinary Semitic manner from right to left. 
 Later they were written boustrophedon, back and forth 
 like the Hittlte writing, and finally, concurrent with the 
 progressive Hellenlzing of the letters, they assumed the 
 left-to-rlght reading universally maintained thereafter 
 in European writing. Four of these extremely archaic 
 inscriptions from the burled cemeteries of Thera are 
 shown in Fig. 115. 
 
 /V\W^5Ao^ I. AOPIEYS (A^^iEv's). 
 
 /I NR'] oir\ ^d ^- KPITOnHYAO (KpiToivXov). 
 
 /\/\OT/\7A/'^3. EnAFATOS EnOIE ('ETrciy- 
 
 1^0 n Si 
 
 aros 'erroiei). 
 
 /^-, r-i Kj,^'^. ^^ A 4. AnPONOSHEMI C'Awpwvoi 
 Fig. 115. Earliest Greek writing from Thera. 
 
 The Phoenician parentage of these letters Is stamped 
 In every lineage. They are distinctly more Phoenician 
 than Greek; yet they are the characters employed by a 
 purely Greek people that ultimately developed Into the 
 Greek alphabet of the classic age. The proper translitera- 
 tion into classic (Attic) Greek Is given on the right that 
 the reader readily may compare the two alphabets. The 
 
340 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 use of nn instead of the character ® indicates the ex- 
 tremely early age of these inscriptions, which is believed 
 to be for the oldest Greek inscriptions, reading from right 
 to left like those reproduced, some time about the 9th or 
 8th century B. c. The strange character employed for P 
 in the fourth example will be noted. It was distinctly 
 local and did not appear again in any Greek alphabet. 
 The closed H before E also is to be" noted as indicating 
 that eta had not yet been evolved. 
 
 Strange as it may seem to us to-day many queer experi- 
 ments were tried by the early Greek scribes before they 
 finally adopted the consecutive left-to-right writing of 
 each succeeding line. A strong predilection was manifest 
 for continuous and uninterrupted writing. This was car- 
 ried out in a variety of ways before the writing became 
 standardized. Sometimes the' reading was boustrophedon 
 with the letters reversed in the alternate lines, some- 
 times the boustrophedon lines were written in inverted 
 characters, and sometimes the writing proceeded 
 spirally from the middle, at times rightward, again left- 
 ward. 
 
 Fig. 116 is an extremely archaic inscription from 
 Thera, reading from left to right throughout, but ar- 
 ranged spirally; the reading beginning on the left at the 
 middle and proceeding outward, the letters constantly 
 being kept upright to the bottom line as one reads, 
 through a revolution and a half. The letters, therefore, 
 always are in the same relative position to the reader if 
 he faces inward as he reads. Again the unmistakable 
 Phoenician characteristics of the letters are manifest, 
 though some are beginning to change their form. We 
 will simply comment in passing on the two very similar 
 Wl-like characters. One — the third and ninth in the in- 
 scription — closely resembles the Phoenician and has the 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 341 
 
 value of M, the other — the fifth and eighth in the in- 
 scription — has the value of S. Later on we will again 
 refer to these two letters and trace their descent. 
 
 Fig. 116. Early Greek boustrophedon writing from Thera. 
 
 The first inscription shown in Fig. 117 also is from 
 Thera and belongs to the middle transitional period, pos- 
 sibly the 8th or 7th century B. c. The fragment is writ- 
 ten boustrophedon in the first and second lines; but the 
 growing tendency toward left-to-right writing has caused 
 the scribe to repeat the third line in this mode, returning 
 to boustrophedon in the fourth line ; but ending the line 
 by turning the letters about to agree with those in the 
 even lines. This position of the letters was finally adopted 
 when left-to-right writing became the custom. The letters 
 still quite closely resemble the Phoenician, more especially 
 in the lines reading from right to left, in which the letters 
 are reversed, as was customary. The Greek translitera- 
 tion given on the right will assist the reader, if he will 
 consult Fig. 131 in making comparisons. 
 
 Below the boustrophedon example are shown two other 
 inscriptions from Thera in left-to-right reading, though 
 
342 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 „4Pl:BArwn 
 
 nEKMANfiP 
 
 APKHArETAS 
 
 nPOKAES 
 
 KAEArOPAS HEPAIEYS 
 
 pq^o/^rroM] 
 
 (Q)n(F)YNOS 
 
 of>©oicAerA 
 
 OP0OKAH2 
 
 Fig. 117. Inscriptions f roni Thera. i. Early boustrophedon writing. 
 2 and 3. Later examples. 
 
 they may be the even Hnes of some boustrophedon writ- 
 ing. In the first we find koppa (Q) and vau (F) which 
 were adopted by the Greeks from the Phoenician, but 
 which early disappeared from the Greek alphabets. The 
 similarity of the digamma, as the character F subse- 
 quently was called, to our Italic f (/) is remarkable. 
 Doubtless the same carelessness in writing that produced 
 the present form of the minuscule out of the Roman F 
 existed in the ancient days. An entirely new character, Y, 
 occurs in this inscription, appearing also in the second 
 character in Fig. 116 in a rudimentary form. This vocal- 
 ization developed out of vau; the consonant constituent 
 being represented by F, while the vowel sound was ex- 
 pressed by the true vowel U or Y. This was the one con- 
 crete contribution that these early Greeks made to the 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 343 
 
 primitive alphabet. The new character took its place as 
 the twentieth letter in the alphabet. 
 
 The early Greeks also may be credited with other sub- 
 stantial contributions to the alphabet. At the time when 
 the 'earliest known Thera inscriptions were written there 
 already had been evolved out of the Phoenician characters 
 five true vowels: alpha, eps'ilon, iota, omicron and upsi- 
 lon — as just explained, — respectively from aleph, he, 
 yod, ayin and vau. The first four were not additions to 
 the borrowed alphabet, but a development of obscure 
 breaths into definite vowel sounds represented by a slight 
 modification of the primitive characters. During the en- 
 tire period of the Thera inscriptions other changes and 
 additions were effected. In the earlier inscriptions the 
 closed H was simply an aspirate as In the Phoenician 
 {cheth). Later it developed into the long e {eta) . Some- 
 what subsequent to this the character lost the upper and 
 lower bars and thenceforth became the H of the Greek 
 and Roman alphabets. Theta was developed out of teth. 
 Beta appears in one Instance in Thera inscriptions differ- 
 ing from the parent beth In this earliest example in hav- 
 ing two lobes instead of one, thus establishing Its Euro- 
 pean form. 
 
 Up to the end of the 5th century B. c, almost every 
 Hellenic state had its own alphabet. There were at least 
 ten different local alphabets varying somewhat in the 
 characters used or In the shape or proportion of the char- 
 acters. Among these alphabets were those of the ^gean 
 Islands, Argos, Attica, Corinth, Corcyra, Ionia, Boeotia, 
 Chalcis, Euboea and Ells. There are to be distinguished 
 among these alphabets two rather distinct types: the 
 Eastern and the Western. The first, the older type, al- 
 ready has been referred to as having been introduced by 
 the Phoenicians — probably Tyrlan merchants — Into the 
 
344 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 islands of the ^gean Sea, Ionia, and later into the main- 
 land of Greece itself. The second type of alphabet, prob- 
 ably of a somewhat later period, is thought to have en- 
 tered Greece by overland routes possibly from Lydian or 
 Aramean sources. To the first class belong the alphabets 
 of the JEgean Islands, Attica, Argos, iEgina, Corinth 
 and her colonies, Syracuse and the Ionic alphabets includ- 
 ing those of Miletus and Halicarnassus. To the second 
 class belong the alphabets of Northern Greece and the 
 Peloponnesus, — Euboea, Chalcis and its colonies, Boeotia, 
 Elis, Locris and other states. 
 
 There is on the whole a marked correspondence of 
 form in the majority of cases in the respective letters in 
 all these early Greek alphabets. The earlier types, as we 
 have pointed out, more closely resemble the Phoenician; 
 the later types show modifications tending in the Eastern 
 alphabets toward the later classic Greek and in the West- 
 ern alphabets toward the Roman letters. Gamma and 
 lambda are used somewhat interchangeably throughout 
 these early Greek alphabets, and it is not always easy to 
 distinguish between them, as will be noted by referring to 
 the inscriptions thus far examined. However, in the East- 
 ern alphabets the shorter bar of gamma tended to favor 
 a horizontal line at the top of the vertical bar, while the 
 two bars of lambda progressively became more nearly 
 equal. The Eastern alphabets, with the single exception 
 of those of Attica, employed the Ionic form of lambda, 
 A, or slight variations of It; while the Western alphabets 
 as a general rule employed the form V , or variations of 
 it. This became the precursor of our Roman L. 
 
 Many examples of the earliest age of Greek writing 
 have been found in Attica. What is considered to be the 
 oldest Attic inscription extant is shown in Fig. ii8, taken 
 from a Dipylon vase. The writing is so early and ar- 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 345 
 
 chaic that the A's, with a single exception, are lying on 
 their sides, as in the Phoenician. Omega is quite small, as 
 in the parent alphabet, and most of the letters strongly 
 resemble their ancient prototypes. Another proof of the 
 antiquity of this inscription Is the fact that the direction 
 of the writing Is from right to left, as in the Phoenician 
 writing. The translation which we append would seem to 
 indicate that the vase on which this Inscription was etched 
 was a trophy presented to a prize dancer. 
 
 I, eg 
 
 N 
 
 'OS NYN OPXE2TON HANTON ATAAOTATA 
 IIAISEI TOTO AEKAN MIN. 
 " Who now of all dancers most dehcately performs. 
 May he accept this." 
 
 Fig. 11 8. Inscription from a Dipylon vase. Believed to be the oldest known 
 Greek inscription. Boustrophedon reading. 8th century B.C. 
 
 The example given below Is from a Panathenalc vase 
 found among the countless fragments of potsherds that 
 excavations are continually turning up in that region, so 
 rich in archaeological remains. It dates from a very early 
 
346 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 age, as is evidenced by its right-to-left reading; but it 
 probably is not so remote as the Thera inscriptions. It 
 has unmistakable Greek characteristics. There is evidence 
 of the progressive improvement in the shape and uniform 
 size of the letters and a suggestion of the conformity and 
 standardization of form to which the Greek artistic taste 
 ultimately attained. Omicron, which always was made 
 very small in the Phoenician and early Greek alphabets, 
 here is made almost uniform in size with its companions. 
 M and N both have the high-stilted form of the Phoeni- 
 cian, but the first bar is shorter and the angle comes down 
 somewhat nearer the bottom alignment of the letters than 
 in their prototypes. One of the bars of the M has been 
 eliminated. The vertical bar of the E is less prolonged 
 downward, but the three short bars are practically hori- 
 zontal as in subsequent alphabets. The L, as we already 
 have remarked concerning the early alphabet of Attica, 
 turns up at the bottom as in the Western alphabets. 1 has 
 completed its full transition. 
 
 " Of the Athenians a gift am I." 
 
 The following inscription, an epitaph from a marble 
 stele, also is from Athens. It Is in modified boustrophe- 
 
 
 V", 
 
 -^^ ox t> I V ^ 
 
 don, and may be somewhat later than the former inscrip- 
 tion, though E resembles the Phoenician more closely, and 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 
 
 347 
 
 other letters as gamma, rho and pi depart but little from 
 their archetypes. D has lost its Phoenician tail, but has not 
 yet settled down into the horizontal position of the later 
 delta. The possible date of these two inscriptions may be 
 some time about the end of the 6th century B. c. 
 
 In Fig. 119 will be found the reproduction of an ex- 
 ceedingly archaic example of boustrophedon writing from 
 Attica, in letters of marked Phoenician lineaments. It is 
 written in the more regular form of boustrophedon writ- 
 ing such as that maintained so uniformly throughout the 
 Cretan inscription, to be described. The remoteness of 
 the age of this inscription is attested by the use of the 
 closed H before the vowels. The character was still only 
 a breath like its Oriental prototype, eta not yet having 
 been evolved. Other Phoenician characteristics are notice- 
 able in E K Wl and l\l. 
 
 
 Fig. 119. Early Greek boustrophedon writing from Attica. 
 
 One of the most interesting and remarkable of all the 
 early Greek inscriptions is the very extensive inscription 
 first brought to light by the excavations of Dr. Halbherr 
 at Hagios Deka, Crete, in 1881. Gortyna, as the place 
 was called in ancient times, was one of the three impor- 
 tant cities in Crete and was referred to by Homer as " the 
 well-walled." The famous Labyrinth of King Minos was 
 in the immediate vicinity. It was a tradition of classic 
 times, referred to by Homer and mentioned in Plato and 
 
348 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Strabo, that the best laws emanated from Krete, and that 
 Lykurgus, Solon and other Greek savants obtained their 
 laws from this Island. Here at Gortyna was discovered a 
 large curving corridor, part of the ruins of a theatre, on 
 the wall of which was carved a series of laws relating to 
 the status of slaves, the rights of widows, heirs at law, 
 children born after divorce, the adoption of children, 
 property rights and many other laws relating to domestic 
 and family relations. The Inscription consists of twelve 
 vertical columns, some eight feet in height, eleven of 
 them containing from 50 to ^^ lines of writing. The 
 twelfth column contains 30 lines. The reading Is boustro- 
 phedon, starting on the right at the top and reading left- 
 ward In the odd lines, and rightward In the even lines. 
 The letters are carefully reversed in the alternate lines, 
 the same as In the HIttite hieroglyphics. Comparisons 
 with the Phoenician letters, therefore, should be made 
 with the letters in the odd lines. According to Augustus 
 C. Meriam {American Journal of Archaology, Vol. I, 
 1885), the alphabet is the oldest Greek alphabet known, 
 and contains no characters that were not transmitted by 
 the PhcEnlcIans, except upsilon, Y. The remoteness of the 
 age of this inscription may therefore be judged when It Is 
 known that It had none of the supplemental letters, * X 
 * O. Mr. Meriam believes this remarkable Inscription to 
 be contemporaneous with Solon, who was born in the 
 year 638 B. c. 
 
 Fig. 1 20 Is a copy of the first, the right-hand, column of 
 the inscription down to the Injured lines near the bottom 
 of the wall, sketched from a cast of the entire inscription 
 in the Metropolitan Art Museum, New York City. 
 There are 55 lines In this first column. Forty-seven of 
 these are here shown, the others being more or less muti- 
 lated. Following we give Mr. Merlam's transliteration 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 349 
 
 NAAZ3'\'\3W\2010A3ZOq3®V313>lMO 1 
 CS/WOhE/VC POASKAM/WEAAE//ASA 
 q 3 ® V S •. • O T O TA/V\XA>I2 A ATAX Z 3 AAX3 
 OAE fC A A\TA T EPAAVVVTO AO Pr: CENT 
 2A/V\AAAAOTAM>A>ieA2A>IZ3AA< T03 5 
 £A/TASA\TPSMSAAVE- PAS/v\A' • icA 
 V\aVAOTOT3AAA>lZAA"!A>123MA .-dW 
 EI"EV®EPOA^TATEPATOAO^C KA/ 
 AaA>IV\2S)/v\ATAVii>l3^AV^S3WA/ VSA 
 A-AA\ESTOAEKPO/VOTOA/AS A\T 10 
 OT202V\V\AA2A NAavs^qJIATVWA 5V\A 
 /WEAAEA' TOAASKAAATA/VOAV/v' /A'T 
 MVT2AWS202V\0)0)A3W2A\A3V ■|>1A 
 ASAEKA/WO^ESOAVEAErEV® OA- 
 V\3W\3A^NAAV\OTqA>lV\0'\O AO 15 
 
 •••SKErEV ©E P0AAC0COA'50/V 
 2TV\ i02 '\0W\20'\0A25VSA>I3A2AZT 
 ,.. COASO/v TE/vvFOAFEK-ATEPOME/W 
 >l 1 3 V\0 D O )AA\VT-2AW\A> V\3WVIAV\3 
 ATA TOA'AVASTVPAASKAAAEA/AS 20 
 
 2 T V\ 1V\0 ) O) A/v\Z O q 3 T O ) V\ Aa >l 3 A 
 E /W E A ATEPOS TOA'AS K A/v\ TAA-O 
 O 2 3 ® A>IZV\A>I 3A9 V\3V\2q > ATV\VV\V\A 
 EKOa: 0/W/WE//ErEV®E POA/hAA 
 OA3AV\OTV\Aq3W\AT • • 3 )V\AT2AASA 25 
 r EMKEPAAANAC O AOAVE/VA SAE 
 
 >IA>IEA20A03A3 W\32 3MAAA1 3 \MA>I 
 A^ATOA'5KEATO/WE/VE^EV® EPO 
 M2A>IMV\Aq STATMATVAOX 3T\A3) 
 TAT E PATA ANAAV E P A AV F E K AMT 30 
 Ono A3AOT2 3A^AAA'^A>IV\2 q 5/v\A 
 AE KAMTATEP AA'M K AS AAP K AA/V 
 A>IV\2q)MATM A>l 3 1 MAq 3 W\ A/AAT 
 COAOSEyVSKE PA/VMEAEKAK ATAAS 
 ;2 0TVA2V\3MATMA>I2A023M>IA>I 35 
 PAAAE®®ASTATPSTPAE/WES0A' 
 
 2 AV\0T0V\0 q>l3AOT3VA3 ANA02 A) 
 K A MTAAO /W A VATAKPS A E AASAE 
 
 3 ® A>I2 V^ A>1 /AO'\ O A02 3 V 3 AV\A>1 
 2 K A ^ S 0/VAAT5AVASTV POAAVOAA 
 TA/V\>I2 3 AO)AV\Oq3®V3A3V\03VV\oq 
 OECSTOi"AAOS OCEKA/VAEVESEA 
 3A2AOTVOTO q) MCVA JMOTV 
 
 KAAVEKAAESE/WEAES AN SKA JAN 
 A3AVA>IAZ A / • ■ T 
 
 AYTOAACOA'"' SE/VTOSE/VJ-AYTO 
 TAX 2)3 MV \ / TAW.n ^ ^v ; AA\V\AT 
 
 Fig. I20. Greek inscription from Gortyna, Crete. 
 
 of the inscription, which will enable the reader to identify 
 the characters : 
 
 40 
 
 45 
 
350 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 1. "Os K iXevOep(o rj SwAo) ix,eX\rj av 
 (jjifioX^v, rrpo St/ca? fi.7j ajytv • alh- 
 £ K ayri, KaTaSiKa^dru) tw IXevdep 
 0) Se/ca (TTaTrjpavs, t<3 8wA<o ttevt- 
 5. £ OTL ayti, Koi SiKa^aToi kaydaai, 
 Iv Tais Tpiai afx.epai's, at (8e) Ka 
 jXTj {Xay)a(jrj, KaroStKaSSero ™ /xev 
 eXev6epoi crTaTrjpa, to> SwXm (Sa) p^v 
 av T(a?) djxipa'; peKaara^, irpiv Ka Xa 
 
 10. ydcTy • T(3 8e xpovoi tov 8t(Ka) ctt- 
 av 6(;u.)vuvra Kpivev. al h'dwioiTO 
 p.1 ayev, tov SiKacrrav OfivvvT- 
 a Kp{t.)vev, at fir) aTrocfxavioi /iatrus. 
 at Se Ka p-oXij 6 /lev iXev9{ep)ov 
 
 15. o 8(e 8)ioXov, KapTovav; rj/JLCV 
 
 (oTe/Do)t K IXevBcpov aTro(j>o>vi(av- 
 Tt. at Si k' av(j>i SwAw p,oXio>VTi 
 cjioiviovTei pov peKarepos rjix- 
 ev, al fiev Ka /Jtalrv^ aTro(j>(DVrj, K 
 
 20. arct TOV fJMiTvpa SiKaSSev, at 
 
 8e K fj av<j>OT£poi.'; atro<j>(avi<iivTi. 
 rj p.rjh' a Tepm, tov SiKao'Tav 6- 
 fivivTa f^pivev. rj SI Ka viKaSy 6 
 eX'^^j i'^)^f' f-^^ cXeoOepov Xay- 
 
 25. aaat Tciv 7re(v)T' afxepdv rbv Se 8(o 
 X{ov) « ;)(6'pavs d7ro8d/tev • at 8^ 
 Ka firj XayaoTTj tj fjifj aTroSo) 8tKaK 
 o-ctTft) VLKrjv Tw /JLCV IXevOipo) 
 TrevTrjKOVTa (TraTrjpavs Kal cr 
 
 30. TaTTJpa Tas djj.ipa's peKaaT- 
 
 a? vrptv Ka Xaydfrrj, tw 8e SiiXo) 
 SeKa (TTaTYipavs /cat Sap^vdv 
 ras dfiepa^ pcKauTa^ wpiv k a 
 TToSw £s ^€pavs. 'ij Si Ka KaraSt 
 
 35. Ka^T] 6 St^acrra';, eviawToi ir 
 pdSSidOai TO. TpiTpd rj fx.uov, 
 ttXIov 8e jLwy • TO) oc ^joovco rov 8t 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 351 
 
 Kacrrav o/xwvTa )(piv£V. al 8e 
 
 Ka vaevy 6 SuiAos d> Ka viKadij 
 40, t, KaXi(ov avTL jxanvpiov hvSiv 8- 
 
 pofieoiv tXevdepoiv aTToSu^ar 
 
 0] Itti tw vao) OTTTj Ka vatvTj rj a- 
 
 VTOi rj aAo9 TTpo toutu) • at §£ 
 
 Ka p/q KaXrj rj prj 8ei^r), Karur 
 45. (raT)<D TO, i{ypap)iva at Se Ka /aeS 
 
 aiiTOv airoSio ev tw evLavrw 
 
 Tctvs aTrXoovi T{i)p,avs hriKar 
 
 The transliteration of course is written throughout in 
 classic Greek, in left-to-right reading, and offers some 
 slight difficulty of comparison In the odd lines. As will be 
 observed, the inscription, which was cut in marble, is of 
 most excellent workmanship, the letters being well shaped 
 and regular; the spacing, alignment and every other 
 phase of the lapidary's art being carried out with taste 
 and mechanical accuracy. Archaic as this inscription cer- 
 tainly Is In the forms of certain of the letters, hardly at 
 any time in the entire history of Greek sculpture have let- 
 ters been carved more artistically than by this clever 
 Cretan workman. It is little wonder that the Greeks of 
 Hellas turned to Crete for inspiration not only In civic 
 organization but in art as well. 
 
 Let us briefly analyze this early Greek alphabet and see 
 how far In the comparatively short time that the Greeks 
 had been using the Phoenician characters they had de- 
 parted from the original types. Alpha is fully developed 
 and is constant In shape. It Is the old Phoenician aleph 
 righted and made trim looking. Beta does not appear. It 
 Is absent in many Greek alphabets. Gamma In almost 
 every instance has Its two bars equal, resembling the 
 Eastern form of lambda; while lambda in almost every 
 case follows the Phoenician form of gimel. Where it de- 
 
352 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 parts from It, it takes the shape of the classic Greek 
 form of gamma. Delta lacks the elongation of the right 
 hand line of its prototype and has a horizontal instead of 
 a slanting base. Epsilon drops the elongation of the side 
 line which becomes vertical, while the three short slanting 
 lines become horizontal. Fau seems to have begun in 
 Crete as a modified form of the Phoenician vau, but ap- 
 parently soon developed into the constant form F, which, 
 however, was dropped from the Greek alphabets early in 
 the yth century B. c. Neither zeta nor eta appears in the 
 inscription. As to the latter omission it is very unusual, 
 almost all Greek alphabets having this letter. It is only a 
 further evidence of the extremely early age of this in- 
 scription; being before eta (H) was evolved. Other in- 
 scriptions found in Crete have both the closed and the 
 open form of eta; the latter being almost identical with 
 the Phoenician cheth, from which the character was taken. 
 Theta is true to its prototype. Iota is represented by a 
 letter almost precisely like oUr modern S. It is a modifi- 
 cation of the very earliest Z-shaped form of iota such as 
 we find in the Thera inscriptions, which clearly are simpli- 
 fications of the Phoenician yod. Kappa is simply a neater 
 version of its prototype, resembling it in many cases by 
 the long vertical bar and shorter slanting lines. Lambda 
 bears little resemblance to the Phoenician. Mu and nu 
 ■obviously are simplified variations of their originals. If 
 the reader will make a careful inspection of these two 
 letters wherever they occur in this Inscription, he will note 
 a tendency In both occasionally to revert to the ancient 
 types with the long bar for the first stroke of the letter 
 and the four angular lines well up at the top of the bar. 
 Xi is missing, kappa taking Its place. Omicron has in- 
 creased in size, becoming equal to the other letters. Pi Is 
 strangely corrupted, taking the shape of our letter C. In 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 353 
 
 almost all other Greek alphabets it is but a slight modi- 
 fication of the Phoenician pe. Koppa is absent as it is in 
 many Greek alphabets. Wherever it appears, however, 
 it closely follows the Semitic original. Rho is rounded 
 as its prototype frequently is in many Phoenician inscrip- 
 tions. Sigma has the shape of a sprawling Wl, so constant 
 in most early Greek alphabets; though it generally Is 
 placed on Its side, when It easily is convertible into our S. 
 Of course It descends directly from shin. Tau, present In 
 this and In every other Greek alphabet, has never changed 
 Its primitive shape. It bears little resemblance, however, 
 to the Phoenician tau. 
 
 Fig. 121 is an example of the ordinary form of bou- 
 strophedon writing In the characters of the Corinthian 
 alphabet. The writing begins on the right as In most 
 boustrophedon writing and is read alternately leftward 
 and rightward in the odd and even lines respectively, the 
 letters being reversed in the alternate lines. The di- 
 gamma, F, still lingers in this alphabet, and attests to the 
 early age of the Inscription. Iota is again represented by 
 the zigzag line, which descends directly from the Phoeni- 
 cian yod. Attica very early changed the shape of I, and 
 somewhat later the older form disappeared from the Co- 
 rinthian alphabet. Both sigma and pi in the middle line 
 of our inscription are Inverted, as though the scribe were 
 accustomed to this method. We have found that this cus- 
 tom somewhat prevailed in very early times in Greece, In 
 letters In the even lines. 
 
 The three inscriptions given In Fig. 122 also are In the 
 Corinthian style of writing. The first one is from a bronze 
 votive tablet found in Corfu. Its possible date may be 
 about the end of the 6th century B. c. Being written from 
 right to left, the letters are reversed like their Phoenician 
 prototypes. It has the rudiments of the Easte-rn lambda; 
 
354 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 the Z-shaped iota; while for epsilon appears an anomaly 
 in the Corinthian alphabets not met with in any other 
 Greek alphabet, the use of an angular form of B, em- 
 ployed for beta in several alphabets of the Western type. 
 The rounded form of beta employed for E will be noted 
 in the previous inscription. The purely Greek $ again 
 
 
 Fig. 121. Boustrophedon writing from Corinth. 
 
 appears. No discrimination is made in the Corinthian 
 alphabet between mu (M) and sigma (S), except that in 
 the first two inscriptions here shown the former letter 
 still follows, in a modified degree, the high-stepped form 
 of the Phoenician. Nu also has the same characteristic in 
 both inscriptions. This apparent indiscriminate use of the 
 characters for M and 2, almost uniform in the early alpha- 
 bets of the Eastern type and disappearing only in those of 
 the Western type, is easily accounted for in the somewhat 
 similar forms of mem and shin in the Phoenician alphabet; 
 the latter character differing from the former only in the 
 elimination of the long bar. The iEgean Greeks bor- 
 rowed both characters. Those in Melos and Crete made 
 little change in the form of M, while those of Thera 
 dropped one of the five lines. The character shin seems 
 to have been inverted from its earliest use in Greece. 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 355 
 
 This caused the two characters to look alike. In most 
 cases where these two characters were used, the first bar 
 of M was made long as in the Phoenician to distinguish it 
 from sigma. Identification must have been difficult then 
 as it is for us to-day; but the difficulty eventually was 
 solved by turning the latter character over on its side, as 
 was done uniformly in the succeeding alphabets of the 
 Eastern group after the lEgtzn period. 
 
 The second inscription is also from Corinth and ap- 
 pears to be of an age contemporary with the first. In both 
 alphabets A still seems experimental, K has the long Phoe- 
 nician bar and the general irregularity and seeming ar- 
 chaism of the writing suggests a date much earlier than 
 actual. When we compare much of the specimens of 
 Greek writing before the 5th century with that of the 
 masterpiece of Gortyna we become convinced that real 
 artistic talent knows no age nor place. The tyro and the 
 genius ever have been contemporary. 
 
 AC A/^^rror ^ 
 
 1. AO$IOS M'ANEOEKE 
 
 " Lophius set me up." 
 
 2. 9 YAOIAA2 M'ANE0EKE 
 
 " Cylodias set me up." 
 
 3. AFAMEMNON 
 
 " Agamemnon!" 
 
 Fig. 132. Inscriptions in Corinthian Greek letters. 
 
356 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 The third inscription shown in Fig. 122 also is from 
 Corinth. It belongs to the latest pre-Ionic period and may 
 be assigned to the 5th century B. c. It is written from left 
 to right, but in characteristic Corinthian letters in a style 
 so elegant as to stamp the artist as a master. We give 
 beneath these inscriptions their value in classic Greek. 
 
 In Fig. 123 will be found a beautiful example of early 
 Greek writing just prior to the classic period when the 
 alphabet had received under the skilled craftmanship of 
 the Ionian Greeks its highest form of graphic develop- 
 ment. It is an inscription on a bronze helmet of Hiero I, 
 son of Deinomenes, king of Syracuse, dedicated to the 
 Olympian Zeus, after his victory over the Etruscans at 
 Cumae, 474 B. c. The inscription is written in a modified 
 form of the old Corinthian alphabet. The earlier form of 
 epsilon, illustrated in Fig. 122, so foreign to all the Greek 
 alphabets — doubtless a survival of the old Mgean sig- 
 nary — has been abandoned and the prevailing form, de- 
 cidedly Phoenician in this example, has been adopted. The 
 closed form of eta, peculiar to the earliest Greek alpha- 
 bets, still is retained, though soon to be replaced by the 
 open H used in the Attic and Ionian alphabets. Iota ap- 
 pears in its final transformation. Kappa retains its Phoe- 
 nician characteristics in the long vertical bar and short 
 slanting lines. On the other hand, tendencies toward the 
 Western form of alphabets, which eventually developed 
 into the Roman letters, appear in the V-shaped upsilon 
 and the tailed rho, which seems first to have made its 
 appearance in Greece proper about the middle of the 5th 
 century B. c. The fifth letter in the inscription is not 
 koppa, but oniicron; accented to indicate omega, before 
 the Eastern form of omega had been adopted. 
 
 We now have to speak of the most Important branch of 
 the Eastern division of the Greek alphabet: the Ionian 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 357 
 
 alphabet. This alphabet was developed by the Ionian 
 Greeks who had settled in western Asia Minor along the 
 Mediterranean littoral of Lydia, between the rivers Her- 
 mus and Mjeander, about a century before the Trojan 
 war. Their principal cities were Ephesus and Miletus. 
 Closely associated with this Ionic civilization was the 
 
 Fig. 123. Inscription on a bronze helmet of Hiero, King of Syracuse, 
 about 474 B. c. Late Corinthian Greek writing. 
 
 Greek city of Halicarnassus somewhat to the south in 
 Caria, founded by Dorian colonists from the parent coun- 
 try. It is interesting to know that the greatest Greek his- 
 torian, Herodotus, was born in the latter city. Here 
 along the coast of Asia Minor, about where Smyrna now 
 is situated, these highly advanced Greeks developed their 
 language and literature to a point of commanding supe- 
 riority, recognized by their kinsman in Greece divided as 
 they were into so many petty states, each with its own 
 local alphabet, to be sure not so widely different from 
 that of their eastern cousins. 
 
 In the year 403 B. c, after the close of the Pelopon- 
 nesian war, the Ionic alphabet was adopted at Athens and 
 later throughout all Greece ; displacing from that time on 
 all the prevailing local alphabets. This alphabet had been 
 fully perfected before the 80th Olympiad (460 B.C.). 
 An early inscription in this style exists under rather un- 
 usual and romantic circumstances. At Abu-Simbel (Ip- 
 sambul) in Upper Egypt, on the edge of the Nubian 
 desert, is the magnificent rock-cut temple of Rameses II, 
 with its four gigantic statues of this proud king support- 
 
358 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 ing the roof. It was constructed while the " Children of 
 Israel " were still under Egyptian bondage. A few years 
 ago while excavations were being made there were dis- 
 covered on the leg of one of these colossal statues six 
 Phoenician and nineteen Greek inscriptions, nine of them 
 of an early epoch, and three Carian inscriptions. One of 
 the Greek inscriptions, the earliest Greek inscription to 
 which a definite date positively can be assigned, was writ- 
 ten by a Greek mercenary in the service of Psammetichus, 
 a king of the 26th Egyptian dynasty. There were two 
 kings by the name of Psammetichus, Psammetichus I, who 
 reigned about 654-617 B. c, and Psammetichus II, whose 
 date is placed at 594-589 B. c. In either case it places 
 the inscription toward the beginning of the 7th century or 
 the close of the 6th century B. c, 800 years after these 
 stupendous monuments had been carved and yet before 
 Athens had risen to power and before the alphabet had 
 been fully perfected in Greece. Incidentally it is a praise- 
 worthy commentary on the state of civilization of the day 
 that mercenaries in a foreign country were able to write 
 at all and so well. The writing of all these Greek inscrip- 
 tions is so good and uniform as to convince any one that it 
 was no experiment but must have been a wide-spread 
 accomplishment, resulting in a fixed habit through gen- 
 erations of usage. The characters are practically identical 
 in all, showing wide currency of culture, as the signers in- 
 form us that they came from widely separated places. 
 They all are written from left to right. 
 
 A reproduction of this inscription, taken from the great 
 work of Lepsius : " Denkmaler aus Aegypten," will be 
 found in Fig. 124. The letters in the original were cut 
 two inches high; so there can be little doubt about their 
 shape. Even a casual inspection of the inscription cannot 
 fail to show how closely the letters resemble the Greek 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 359 
 
 letters of the classic period; so far had the writing of the 
 Ionian Greeks progressed in the comparatively short time 
 since they received their letters from the PhcEnlcIan trad- 
 ers. In this alphabet the Phoenician vowels or breaths : 
 aleph, he, vau, cheth, yod and ayin (see Fig. loi), have 
 been amplified into the Greek vowels : A E Y H I O. Be- 
 sides this development, three new letters were added: 
 $ X *. Omega, the last of the supplementary letters, is 
 not present in any of these Greek inscriptions at Abu- 
 Simbel. 
 
 Let us for a moment indulge in a bit of human history 
 and give the translation of our soldier's Inscription. He 
 
 *» N I ffi^LoV NoSo$;oflf e noT/^ 5 1 MTo Airi/nr/ o $ ^£>^^'^> 
 
 Fig. 124. Inscription at Abu-Sirabel. Ionic Greek writing of the late 6th 
 
 century B. c. 
 
 says: "When King Psamatlchos came to Elephantlna, 
 those who were with Psamatlchos the son of Theokles, 
 wrote this. They sailed and came above Kerkis as far as 
 the river permitted. Potaslmto led the foreigners and 
 Amasis the Egyptians. The writer was Archon the son 
 of Amolblchos and Pelegnos son of Eudamos." There 
 were two then Involved in the writing of this Inscription. 
 If we needed the confirmation of these distinctly Greek 
 and Egyptian proper names, or the conclusive reference to 
 the obstruction in the river made by the second or Great 
 Cataract of the Nile, how Invaluable would be the subject 
 matter of this inscription. But most valuable Is It from an 
 archaeological point of view as an authentic example of 
 early Greek writing of the 7th century; about Interme- 
 
36o A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 diate between the earliest beginnings of writing in the 
 JEgean Islands and the perfected Ionic of the 5th cen- 
 tury B. C. 
 
 We give in the fragment shown below another exam- 
 ple of writing in the Ionic style of epigraphy. The in- 
 scription was discovered incised on the chair of a seated 
 statue of Chares, a petty ruler of a fortress near Miletus. 
 It undoubtedly was written prior to the Ionic revolt of 
 500 B. c, when Miletus was destroyed by the Persians. 
 Its possible date may be between the 58th and the 69th 
 Olympiad (550 to 500 B. c). Although probably a cen- 
 tury later than the Abu-Simbel inscription, it is written 
 boustrophedon. The letters are well shaped, for the most 
 part upright and generally quite uniform in height, 
 though omicron still shows a tendency to remain small. 
 A, E and N still retain their slanting lines, being much 
 more pronounced than in the earlier inscription. Gamma 
 and lambda are quite indistinguishable, as in so many of 
 the early Greek alphabets of the Eastern variety. Eta 
 has made its full development from the closed Phoenician 
 form to the open form of H. We meet for the first time 
 with the new letter omega. 
 
 i^rM" m©^^©f fQ/vo | 
 
 ''aya(A|u)a rov 'AiroWwvo^. 
 
 " Chares I am, the Clesian; of Teichousa the ruler. 
 A statue of Apollo." 
 
 Now let us examine some inscriptions of the Western 
 division of the Greek alphabets. Fig. 125 is a very rare 
 and early example which comes from ancient Euboea. It 
 is a quaint form of boustrophedon writing somewhat sim- 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 361 
 
 ilar to the boustrophedon Inscription from Thera, except 
 that the reading proceeds spirally outward, beginning at 
 the right Instead of the left end of the middle line, the 
 letters being reversed in the retrograde lines and changed 
 about as soon as the reading becomes left to right. The 
 reading continues rightward along the bottom line, around 
 the opening line, with letters both reversed and Inverted, 
 unless one turns as he reads, when the letters become nor- 
 mal. The letters have pronounced Phoenician character- 
 istics, especially E K N. On the other hand, the period 
 when the inscription was cut was sufficiently advanced to 
 
 ySuySfuv TrjTeprj x^'P' VTrip Ktc^aAas vir(pePaX.e to ovdopa. 
 Fig. 125. Greek inscription from Euboea, in boustrophedon writing. 
 
 Include In the alphabet the purely Greek supplemental 
 letters: Y # X. The latter has an unusually lengthened 
 vertical bar below the angle made by the side lines, which 
 gives it a strange appearance; but it was by no means a 
 peculiarity of Euboean writing, being found in several 
 other Greek alphabets, but rarely so exaggerated in form. 
 Below the cut is given the classic Greek transliteration of 
 the Inscription, both being taken from " An Introduction 
 to Greek Epigraphy," by E. S. Roberts. It is difficult to 
 assign a date for this archaic looking writing. Its some- 
 what poor craftsmanship might lead us to place it earlier 
 even than the elegant Cretan inscription from Gortyna, 
 which also Is boustrophedon, or the scholarly and skillful 
 
362 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Ionian writing from Abu-Simbel in the settled European 
 mode of writing, respectively of the middle and begin- 
 ning of the 7th century B. c. The probable date, how- 
 ever, of this Euboean inscription is not earlier than the 
 middle of the 6th century B. c. 
 
 We will give three examples of writing from Boeotia, 
 that part of the mainland of Greece which the Cadmean 
 legend relates was first settled by the Phoenicians. The 
 examples that we give, however, are rather late specimens 
 of the art. The following line of writing comes from old 
 
 Tanagra. E and K still follow very closely the old Phoe- 
 nician forms. In other respects the letters are quite 
 " modern " and are respectably even and regular. 
 
 Fig. 126 is an inscription in the now settled European 
 
 ^Al I I A 
 
 Al r 1 n© 11 © 
 
 PAI^ ©l^©T/ 
 
 Fig. 126. Greek inscription from Boeotia. An example of tlie Western 
 division of Greek writing. 
 
 mode of writing, each line reading from left to right. 
 Again kappa retains its Phoenician characteristics while 
 the bars of epsilon are only slightly slanted. Delta has 
 the upright position assumed by this letter in nearly all 
 of the Western alphabets. Rho is tailed, as it was in the 
 majority of these alphabets, while lambda and upsilon 
 have the Roman form, as in most of the Western alpha- 
 bets. Although slightly irregular in alignment, the in- 
 scription possesses considerable artistic merit, and is an 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 363 
 
 example of the sculptor's art not to be passed over with- 
 out a measure of praise. 
 
 The following inscription, also from BcEotia, is a nota- 
 ble example of advanced writing, and is perhaps one of 
 the very earliest examples of ending the strokes of the 
 letters with serifs, a style of finish so highly perfected in 
 the classic period of sculptured writing. Although the 
 alignment Is surprisingly irregular, the shape of the let- 
 ters Is not lacking in elegance and refinement. 
 
 KRiroHicw®E|o^DoTo/roi 
 DlTono|?El 
 
 One of the most perfectly preserved as It Is one of the 
 most beautiful inscriptions in the early form of Greek 
 writing is the so-called Treaty of E'le'ens, a bronze tablet 
 commemorating a treaty between the people of Ells and 
 Heraean, of Arcadia; written about the time of the 50th 
 Olympiad (580 B.C.). It Is a defensive and offensive 
 alliance between the people of these two cities, and goes 
 on to say: " If there is need of help. In words or acts, 
 they must be allies the one with the other, for peace as 
 well as for war. If they break the alliance they are to pay 
 a talent of silver to serve Jupiter Olympus whom they 
 have violated," etc. The alphabet in which this Inscrip- 
 tion (Fig. 127) is written is a variant of the Boeotian style 
 of Greek writing. It retains the oblique forms of A E F 
 and N; the E having the vertical bar projecting below as 
 in the Phoenician. Omicron (o) is considerably smaller 
 than the other letters, as In the latter alphabet. Again 
 we find the upright delta, as in most of the Western al- 
 phabets, and we should particularly note that gamma has 
 the angular C-form peculiar to many of these alphabets ; 
 
364 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 both letters being in the transitional stage to our D and 
 our C and G respectively. On the other hand, lambda 
 retains the old Eastern form in common with the former 
 Euboean inscription, in contrast to the L-shaped form that 
 distinguishes the Western alphabets in general, though 
 more particularly of the Greek colonies in Italy. 
 
 Two remarkable bronze tablets have been found in 
 
 l^\TC' 
 
 m 
 
 
 T»^' 
 
 
 Fig. 137. The Treaty of E'le'ens. Circa 580 B. c. 
 
 Locris, Greece, each inscribed on both sides and each 
 written in letters very similar in form, being one of the 
 variants of the Western division of Greek alphabets. One 
 of the tablets comes from CEantheia-, In Ozolian Locris, 
 the other comes from Opuntia in Locris. The alphabets 
 differ only as to gamma and lambda. The former tablet 
 follows the Eastern variety of these letters, while the 
 latter follow? the Western type that eventually influenced 
 the Roman alphabet in its formative stages. The follow- 
 ing alphabet has been assembled from the letters of the 
 tablet of the Ozolian Locrians. Although distinctly Phoe- 
 nician in many of the letters, on the whole it more closely 
 resembles the Roman alphabet than it does the Ionian 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 365 
 
 Greek alphabet so soon to replace the many local varia- 
 tions in use throughout Greece : 
 
 ^^c^l^/^IH©lK^^A^r+o^v^(TV(D^^>lc 
 
 The first six letters follow our Roman alphabet true to 
 order, and, barring angularity of outline, to form also; 
 and throughout the alphabet the general resemblance to 
 our letters is astonishingly close for a Greek alphabet. 
 The letters still are somewhat irregular as to height and 
 uprightness, so many generations has it taken to confine 
 the straggling Phoenician letters into regular unit forms of 
 recognized standard size. The Cretan craftsmen, genera- 
 tions earlier, impelled by the inspiration of genius, easily 
 
 AF>ct)VUE:^TOAEDO O/VHEAIOI 
 
 HinOl>POAA ^STOAEAODOA/rEA/Ol 
 
 Fig. 128. Inscriptions in the Chalcidian variant of the Greek alphabet. 
 Middle of the 5th century b. c. 
 
 broke away from the shackles of ancient traditions and 
 employed a system organized and orderly, corresponding 
 In all essential particulars to our own methods of to-day. 
 The date of these two tablets is some time immediately 
 prior to 455 B. C. 
 
 We will now give a closing example of writing In let- 
 ters of the Western alphabets. Fig. 128 shows two in- 
 scriptions in the Chalcidian alphabet. They are not from 
 Chalcis itself, but from one of Its extensive colonies. Like 
 the Locrian alphabet it has both Eastern and Western 
 characteristics. Both the Eastern and the Western D are 
 employed In the same line and word. L has the Western 
 form of this letter while R is without the tail as in the 
 Eastern alphabets. This is a recession In development. 
 
366 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 On the other hand S has but three lines, like the majority 
 of the Western alphabets. Taking the Chalcidian alpha- 
 bets as a whole, more particularly those of the colonies In 
 Italy and elsewhere, they possess so large a proportion of 
 letters of the Roman type that they have come to be con- 
 sidered the progenitors of the Latin alphabet. This cor- 
 respondence of type may be noted by consulting the chart, 
 Fig. 131. 
 
 In the year 403 B. c, as we already have remarked, the 
 alphabet of the Ionian Greeks was adopted at Athens as 
 the state mode of writing. This was soon succeeded by the 
 
 uT 
 AOHNAIHirOAIAAI 
 
 Fig. 129. Inscription from the Temple of Minerva, Prienne, in Ionia. An 
 example of Ionic Greek writing. 3d century B. c. 
 
 formal adoption of this alphabet by the several states 
 throughout Greece. This Is the alphabet now known as 
 classic Greek and Is the style In which were carved some 
 of the finest monumental inscriptions of classic times. We 
 give two examples of this style, both from Prienne in 
 Ionia. The first one (Fig. 129) Is from the Temple of 
 Minerva. It Is a most dignified inscription In beautifully 
 carved letters with serifs, the shape and proportion of the 
 letters being most elegant and refined. The second exam- 
 ple (Fig. 130) Is from the Temple of Athene Polias at 
 Prienne. The inscription concerns a long-standing dis- 
 pute between the people of Prienne and those of Samos 
 as to the ownership of Karion; the people of Samos con- 
 tending that the occupation of Karion by the people of 
 Prienne was an encroachment. The inscription dates from 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 367 
 
 ZAMOrrApEi I uNAE.l<AIKAooNi 
 
 EPIITOA AtVn OAfHlARXOYE N All YP EPMENI Aior 
 
 ti Al TAJPEPI Tol<A PIONXnPAS OtOE/XAM tEZBATE I 
 
 TONpOAI^NErKAAOYNTArOTlXnpArTErAH 
 JcApiONYrEPOYNYNAlAlcplNESOAIOIAErAMlO 
 
 IcAOAfi AIE n TASiKflilOl TA^ Yr EP TOYB AT IN H TOY>\ r 
 TOfiAPJONleAlAPEpi TOYTOXapAAY TOIZ 
 
 XnPANAAXEINAYTO]fiApiONKAlAPYOYrtANKATATA 
 AHIIOYIZTOpiAjrj<ATAl<EXriP/XMENAAlOTlAAX 
 TANrEN0MENANAyTOlZrOTirpjANElIEPIAFYl|<AINI|<ASl<Pir 
 AYTr^NrENESOAlopiEAEOAirAprOtAYTOyrniY 
 POYNTAtft> TIMENTOI<APIONEAAXONMETAT 
 
 r^lAINr YArnNATEl<:A10AYAiriX0Nk 
 
 Fig. 130. Inscription from the Temple of Athene Polias, at Prienne. Late 
 Greek writing. 3rd century D. c. 
 
 the 3d century B. c. The writing in these two inscriptions 
 is in the classic style of Greek writing, when every letter 
 had been perfected in shape and size to conform to the 
 Greek, sense of artistic elegance and general uniformity 
 of size and alignment, calculated to satisfy the eye and a 
 cultivated taste. Whatever departures from the classic 
 Greek type are noticeable in the second inscription are 
 due to the faults of the local scribe who carved the in- 
 scription. We shall later on refer to the excessive height 
 of the letters K P Y as influencing the formation of the 
 minuscule at a much later date. 
 
 In Fig. 131 is illustrated in tabular form the develop- 
 ment of the Greek alphabet from the parent Phoenician to 
 the Attic Greek of the 5th century B. c. The different 
 local alphabets are arranged in approximately historical 
 order under the two principal divisions. Eastern and 
 Western. No dates are certain prior to the Abu-Simbel 
 inscription (circa 654-589 B.C.). The Thera inscrip- 
 
368 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 
 > 
 1 
 
 a. 
 
 EASTERN 
 
 WESTERN 
 
 
 S 
 
 o 
 
 < 
 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 < 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 .5 
 
 UJ 
 
 1 
 
 Ji 
 
 < 
 
 a 
 
 AAA 
 
 AAA 
 
 >AA 
 
 AAA 
 
 AAAA 
 
 AAA 
 
 AA/<I 
 
 AAAA 
 
 A/OA 
 
 AAA 
 
 ftf^A 
 
 A 
 
 5 
 
 h 
 
 
 aB 
 
 SB 
 
 ruuH 
 
 B^ 
 
 a 
 
 ^B 
 
 B 
 
 &B 
 
 f 
 
 i 
 
 B 
 
 \ 
 
 e.c 
 
 -irr 
 
 ITA 
 
 AA 
 
 <>C 
 
 FA 
 
 TA 
 
 r 
 
 /"C 
 
 TAA 
 
 <r-c 
 
 Ar<C 
 
 r 
 
 A 
 
 (1 
 
 AA 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 AAO 
 
 A 
 
 I>AD 
 
 AD 
 
 >AD 
 
 C>A 
 
 l> 
 
 A 
 
 ^ 
 
 2 
 
 3fe^ 
 
 ^3E 
 
 a.^^ 
 
 m^ 
 
 -{•^E 
 
 336 
 
 3^fE 
 
 a,f<?E 
 
 ^/fEE 
 
 asEE 
 
 ^EE 
 
 E 
 
 Y 
 
 f.v 
 
 / 
 
 /f=lF 
 
 
 ^AF 
 
 
 
 
 c 
 
 /■FC 
 
 FF 
 
 PF 
 
 
 'V 
 
 z 
 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 tl 
 
 I 
 
 ■I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 Z 
 
 ^ 
 
 E.Ii 
 
 B 
 
 HB 
 
 BH 
 
 B 
 
 B 
 
 BH 
 
 H 
 
 BH 
 
 BH 
 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 ® 
 
 ch 
 
 o® 
 
 ® e 
 
 ®®o 
 
 ®® 
 
 ® 
 
 ®© 
 
 ®© 
 
 ®0O 
 
 ®®G 
 
 ®0 
 
 ®o 
 
 e 
 
 t 
 
 i 
 
 U 
 
 »2S 
 
 ^1 
 
 ^^ 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 f 
 
 k 
 
 3|)IK 
 
 >I>IK 
 
 HKK 
 
 HtCK 
 
 /<K' 
 
 •yA>i 
 
 K 
 
 OikK 
 
 >I»K 
 
 HKK 
 
 n< 
 
 K 
 
 L 
 
 1 
 
 ir 
 
 ir/^ 
 
 1-\I 
 
 Mh 
 
 AA 
 
 irA 
 
 A 
 
 •JUV 
 
 Uv 
 
 AA 
 
 AAU 
 
 A 
 
 7 
 
 111 
 
 ^A^ 
 
 ^/W 
 
 M^M 
 
 A1/WM 
 
 MM 
 
 M 
 
 /n 
 
 VV\/»v/v\ 
 
 /^A\ 
 
 /«A\ 
 
 /^MM 
 
 M 
 
 ^ 
 
 n 
 
 V\|V 
 
 n/w 
 
 ^/'A' 
 
 ^A/V 
 
 A^N 
 
 ^rwN 
 
 AA' 
 
 ^V\/V 
 
 V\/VN 
 
 ^AW 
 
 h'/VN 
 
 N 
 
 ¥ 
 
 X 
 
 (KM) 
 
 
 
 i$ 
 
 
 if 
 
 + 
 
 + 
 
 + 
 
 +X 
 
 + 
 
 IT 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 oO 
 
 OO 
 
 O 
 
 00 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 000 
 
 000 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 P 
 
 nrp 
 
 TK 
 
 nr 
 
 irr 
 
 irr 
 
 TT 
 
 r 
 
 rn 
 
 rr<p 
 
 rn 
 
 r 
 
 n 
 
 ? 
 
 q 
 
 9? 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 9 
 
 ? 
 
 
 9 
 
 9<P 
 
 9 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 'X 
 
 r 
 
 <\f>q 
 
 <iqpD 
 
 qpisR 
 
 <if>i>p 
 
 PPD 
 
 qPD 
 
 RR 
 
 qpR 
 
 RRR 
 
 I>>RP 
 
 UftR 
 
 p 
 
 w 
 
 s 
 
 /AM 
 
 M 
 
 H« 
 
 A\M 
 
 ^n 
 
 ^^ 
 
 HS 
 
 5^2 
 
 5(5 
 
 Hs 
 
 5($ 
 
 z 
 
 X 
 
 t 
 
 T 
 
 r 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 TT 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 
 u 
 
 HKYV 
 
 VY 
 
 VYT 
 
 1KYV 
 
 VY 
 
 YX 
 
 V 
 
 YV 
 
 VYY 
 
 VK 
 
 V 
 
 T 
 
 
 ph 
 
 era) 
 
 CD(t) 
 
 04) 
 
 CD<><j) 
 
 
 
 
 CD 
 
 
 
 ®4) 
 
 (Dm 
 
 c}>® 
 
 
 
 
 ch 
 
 
 
 + X 
 
 + x- 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 ^ 
 
 vj' 
 
 >j'H- 
 
 
 vi- 
 
 X 
 
 
 ps 
 
 
 
 
 t . 
 
 sl't 
 
 vl't 
 
 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 V 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 f?n 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 Fig. 131. Development of the Greek alphabet. 
 
 tions may date from the 9th, possibly even from the loth 
 century B. c. The Cretan inscriptions are somewhat later 
 and the early alphabets of Attica and Corinth may date 
 from the middle of the 8th century. The dates of the Eu- 
 boean, Chalcidian and Boeotian alphabets also are some- 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 369 
 
 what conjectural; but those assigned are according to the 
 best authorities and consequently probably are reliable. 
 
 It will be noticed in examining the chart that the let- 
 ters A K M N T, and in a less degree a few others, 
 have been remarkably constant throughout the entire 
 period. This is especially true of the letter T, which has 
 never deviated from the original Greek modification of 
 the Phoenician character. Alpha has had few modifica- 
 tions and these have been of unimportant details. In 
 Attica alone it Is found lying on its side, as in the Phoeni- 
 cian. Beta, where it occurs, has either rounding or angu- 
 lar lobes except In the case of the local use In Corinth of a 
 strange symbol taken from the old Mediterranean sylla- 
 bary; the angular beta having been appropriated for the 
 letter E, an anomaly in Greek epigraphy. Gamma, as we 
 already have explained, was from the first. In all the East- 
 ern alphabets, poorly differentiated from lambda except 
 In the early Attic alphabet, in which L seemed to follow 
 the SIdonian variety of the Phoenician alphabet, which we 
 have used In the first line of the chart instead of the 
 Moablte. The upright angular form of gamma was the 
 Immediate precursor of the curving form, both more fre- 
 quent in the Western alphabets, and was the parent of 
 our C and G. The angular delta with one line horizontal 
 is more constant in the Eastern alphabets, while the up- 
 right form or the curving form, like the Roman D, Is 
 characteristic of the Western alphabets. Epsilon, except 
 In minor particulars, has been constant throughout, while 
 eta has the closed form in the older alphabets and the 
 H-form In the more recent ones. In Crete alone the old 
 Phoenician form seems to have been employed. F early 
 was dropped from the Eastern alphabets, but was re- 
 tained In the Western alphabets to be passed on to Italy. 
 It hardly changed Its form from the earliest period. Zeta 
 
3,)6 A History of writing 
 
 throughout the entire period followed the early Moabite 
 prototype until the variant of the Sidonian form of this 
 letter was introduced, when the Ionian alphabet was 
 adopted at Athens. Zeta, however, rarely was used by the 
 Ionian Greeks. We have used the Sidonian form of zayin 
 in the first column in the chart. Theta remained remark- 
 ably constant except for the markings within the circle. 
 
 In the earher alphabets iota had a zigzag form; obvi- 
 ously a modification of the Moabite character for yod; 
 but in the Ionic and Western alphabets it had the famlHar 
 form which has descended to us through the Roman al- 
 phabet. Kappa, after the earliest period in Thera and 
 Crete, remained constant; except for the reversing under- 
 gone by all the letters in the change from right-to-left 
 writing to the later European method. Mu and nu in the 
 earliest alphabets were high-stepped on the first bar, like 
 the Phoenician. This peculiarity of the parent alphabet 
 manifested Itself for some centuries In many of the Greek 
 alphabets until It was gradually superseded by the sym- 
 metrical shaped Wl. Omicron, small in the earlier alpha- 
 bets, like the PhcEnlcIan, afterward became of uniform 
 height with the other letters. Pi, which was only a sHght 
 variant of the Phoenician, for many centuries fluctuated 
 between the older form which resembles an unfinished P 
 and the form eventually adopted at Athens. The West- 
 ern alphabets clung more steadily to the older form, 
 which ultimately was transformed into the Roman P. 
 The letter Q remained fairly constant, but became en- 
 tirely obsolescent In the late Greek alphabets, but reap- 
 peared In the Italian alphabets. Rho, after starting out as 
 a fairly true copy of the Phoenician, early began to de- 
 velop a tail ; which, however, did not become a constant 
 appendage except In the latest varieties of the Western 
 alphabets, from which It passed to the Romans. The 
 
THE GREEK ALPHABET 371 
 
 development of sigma we already have fully described. 
 The evolution is well shown in the examples given in the 
 chart. The evolution of upsilon contains that of its deriv- 
 atives the Roman V and Y. It begins in the earliest alpha- 
 bets with both the latter forms which periodically reap- 
 pear throughout the long cycle. The classic form of up- 
 silon, Y, seems to be a purely Attic invention, probably 
 taken from the old Mediterranean syllabary, as before 
 remarked. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE ROMAN ALPHABET 
 
 The Roman alphabet, from which the capital letters of 
 our English alphabet have descended with hardly the 
 change of a single stroke for an interval of over 2000 
 years, was, according to the best historical evidence, de- 
 veloped from one of the early Greek alphabets, the Chal- 
 cidian, a variant of the Euboean mode of writing. It was 
 introduced into Italy at a very early date contemporane- 
 ous with the wide-spread Hellenic emigrations over the 
 entire north Mediterranean shores, from the ^gean 
 Islands to Spain, by Grecian colonists from Chalcis, who 
 established themselves In Cums, Sicily. It would appear 
 that some time in the loth century B. c, probably in the 
 latter part and not so long after they had transmitted 
 their precious alphabet to the inhabitants of Hellas, the 
 PhcEnicians retired from Greece and the iEgean. There 
 then followed a rivalry for colonial supremacy among 
 the Greeks. Miletus In Ionia contended with Chalcis in 
 Euboea, in Greece proper, for primacy In colonization. 
 They eventually divided the territory of the Mediterra- 
 nean between them, the Mlletlans being supreme in the 
 east and throughout the Euxine, while the Chalcidians 
 dominated Thrace and Italy. Thus It came about that the 
 Western variant of the Greek alphabet was Introduced 
 Into Italy. 
 
 Roman civilization owed everything to the earlier cul- 
 ture existing In the Peninsula before the arrival of the 
 Latins. Several centuries prior to the Roman settlement, 
 that Is prior to the nth or loth century B. c, the Etrus- 
 
 372 
 
THE ROMAN ALPHABET 373 
 
 cans, a non-Aryan race, probably Turanian, invaded the 
 land, emigrating — as most classic writers agree — from 
 Lydia in Asia Minor. The Greeks called them Turrhenoi, 
 while the Romans called them Etrusci. The Pelasgians, a 
 primitive Greek race, preceded them in the occupancy of 
 the land, being forced out or absorbed by the stronger 
 race. But they imparted to the Etruscans their heritage 
 of Greek culture, which became the basis of all subsequent 
 Italian progress in civilization. It was the Spartan-like 
 qualities of the Etruscans, — hardy, aggressive and war- 
 like, combined with the softer virtues of the earlier race 
 in the varied arts of peace, that made the Italian people 
 for so many centuries the dominating force in European 
 civilization; resulting in the wide dissemination, through 
 the continental marches of the conquering Roman legions, 
 of the arts of civilization to the benighted barbarians of 
 Germany, Gaul and Britain. 
 
 Almost all record concerning the Pelasgians and Etrus- 
 cans has been lost, as they left no literature, and what has 
 been written about them by the classic writers largely has 
 suffered a similar fate. Some massive walls of Pelasgian 
 masonry remain and a very few specimens of their writing 
 have been discovered. The Etruscans built no temples, 
 but their tombs are scattered over all the territory of 
 ancient Etrurla. What Is known of them has been recon- 
 structed from the " disjecta membra " In the form of In- 
 scriptions on bronze utensils, sarcophagi, burial stele, 
 cinerary urns and vases found in the anicent tombs. 
 
 It Is not known whether the Etruscans acquired the art 
 of writing in the Greek characters prior to their invasion 
 of Italy, but It is highly improbable. As we have noted, 
 the earliest known Phoenician writing does not antedate 
 the 9th century B. C. So it is reasonable to assume that 
 the Etruscans did not bring the Greek alphabet with them 
 
374 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 when they left their ancestral home In Lydla. If they 
 brought any written characters with them they probably 
 were those of the ancient iEgean syllabary. Nor Is It 
 known that the Pelasglans whom they found first In Italy, 
 were In possession of the Greek alphabet or any alphabet 
 at that time. This too seems highly Improbable. It would 
 assign to this alphabet an age more remote than any pale- 
 ologist Is ready to ascribe to It. The alphabet probably 
 was introduced by later Chalcldlan colonists emigrating 
 Into Italy; being largely disseminated throughout Etruria 
 by the Pelasglans. 
 
 It Is probable that the Pelasglan and Etruscan civiliza- 
 tions, like the later Etruscan and Roman civilizations, 
 were contemporaneous over extended periods of time be- 
 fore the final supremacy of the Etruscans was effected. 
 On the other hand It was not until 600 years after the 
 founding of Rome that the Latins finally overthrew the 
 virtual supremacy of the Etruscans In the great battle of 
 Cumae, 281 B.C. Through these centuries of national 
 growth, then, the Roman alphabet developed from the 
 basic type Introduced by the Chalcldlan colonists; being 
 influenced in its development by the Pelasglan Greek va- 
 riant on the one hand and the Etruscan mode of writing 
 on the other. The Pelasglan alphabet, called by some 
 authorities the Greek-Etruscan and recognized as the 
 primitive Italian alphabet and the prototype of the later 
 Etruscan and Latin alphabets, is distinguished among the 
 Greek alphabets for the use of the letters C D L P In- 
 stead of r A A n, used In most Greek alphabets. The 
 Etruscans speaking a wholly different language from the 
 Latins found no need of certain letters. They rejected 
 B D Q X. The Latins for similar reasons rejected ® * 
 *. The Etruscans, at least prior to Roman Influence, 
 wrote from right to left. This Is an Indication of the very 
 
THE ROMAN ALPHABET 375 
 
 early date when they acquired their alphabet. Yet the 
 Pelasgians wrote from left to right, and practically the 
 entire body of Latin inscriptions after the very earliest 
 examples is in this direction. 
 
 We give below two examples of the Pelasgian alphabet. 
 No. I probably is the oldest proto-Roman alphabet in 
 existence. It was found scratched on a vase in a tomb 
 near Cervetri in Italy. 
 
 No. 2 was scratched on a black amphora found in a 
 tomb at Formello. Both alphabets are rather crude 
 specimens of writing, especially the first. In No. i B is 
 reversed, probably through ignorance rather than habit, 
 as the scribe does not seem to be one who would know that 
 the letters were reversed in the earlier Greek retrograde 
 writing. The letters L and WI are injured by a fracture, 
 and koppa (Q) is left out. The M-shaped letter in the 
 1 8th station In No. 2, whose value is given in the curious 
 Greek character san, is derived directly from the old 
 Phoenician tsade. It appears as if the scribe of No. i 
 had transposed this character and the character he has 
 used for the letter N. These alphabets contain the twenty- 
 two original Phoenician characters and the supplemental 
 Greek letters Y # X *, but not O. It consequently can- 
 not be claimed that they date from an especially early 
 period of Greek writing, though they doubtless do confer 
 antiquity upon the art of writing in Italy. The Greek 
 letters beneath these alphabets will assist the reader in 
 identifying these earliest of Italian letters. 
 
 ^- A3C D^ K B ® 1 K A//*' 'iii'"'f^ ffl o p-^P^cTr^ ?^ 
 
 ABr AEFZ H0IKA M N SOH^ P2T Y X 4> * 
 ABrAEFZH®IKA M N S On'^VPSTYX** 
 
376 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Quite a few abecedaria of Etruscan letters have been 
 found, chiefly inscribed on vases discovered in ancient 
 tombs. They all are very similar in the order and shape 
 of the letters. It is difficult to say which are older or to 
 assign any positive date to any of them. We give below 
 reproductions of two of these alphabets which appear to 
 be of the earliest type. 
 
 No. I was inscribed on the base of a little cap found in 
 the necropolis of an Etruscan town near Bombarzo, 
 Italy. The form of zeta is very rare. It is usually shaped 
 as shown in No. 2. It seems to presage the later form of 
 the minuscle of zeta and our present script character. No. 
 2 is a rudely scratched alphabet etched on a black bowl 
 now in the museum at Grosseto, Italy. It contains Q 
 which did not properly belong to the Etruscan alphabet. 
 B and D are omitted in both alphabets, as are also O and 
 n. The R is reversed, the curve bending in the direction 
 that it does in the left to right writing. 
 
 ^XQYTSP^nNMAIOHZB ETA 
 
 # X ® Y TSPQ^nNM AKI0 HZ BETA 
 
 In both alphabets there are two S's, — M and X 
 There is a bit of history connected with this that we have 
 adverted to before. There were four sibilants in the Phoe- 
 nician, — samekh, zayin, tsade and shin. (See Fig. loi.) 
 The Greeks used but three, — zeta (dentil), sigma 
 (hard), and xi (see Fig. 131). There was a fourth in 
 use in early times, chiefly by the Dorians, — san (5)- 
 
THE ROMAN ALPHABET 377 
 
 This was lost before classic times. It will be interesting 
 but perhaps a little confusing on account of the inter- 
 changeability of the signs, to follow these sibilants through 
 the different alphabets in Fig. 131, and compare them 
 with the corresponding signs in the Phoenician alphabet, 
 Fig. loi. At least the comparison will enable the reader 
 to understand how our letter S has developed and been 
 handed down to us in the heritage of the alphabet. It 
 descended from the Greek sigma, 2, which in turn came 
 from the Phoenician shin, W, which is practically the same 
 form turned about. 
 
 We fortunately are able through inscriptions on ancient 
 Italian coins, a fairly large number of which have been 
 discovered, chronologically to trace the development of 
 the proto-Roman alphabet over quite an extended period. 
 We give below a short list of names of gods and cities 
 selected from these coins, arranged in approximately 
 chronologically order beginning with the 6th century B. c. 
 and ending with the 3rd century B. c. It appears from 
 these Etruscan coins that the Pelasgian Greek influence 
 toward left-to-right writing was exerted at least as early 
 as the 5th century B. C. It doubtless was much earlier. 
 The inscriptions on these coins are interesting as showing 
 the evolution of certain letters through progressive 
 changes in form during successive periods. The letter R 
 has developed as follows : H^^RR 
 
 The letter S has been evolved 
 through the following forms : ^ ^ /V\ 3 5 
 
 It will be noticed that the I in Poseidan resembles the 
 early forms of this letter in the Eastern alphabets. 
 
 There have been found from time to time in Italy in- 
 numerable bronze hand mirrors, beautiful in outHne and 
 
78 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 lesign, which were deposited by the Etruscans in the 
 lany tombs which have been discovered throughout an- 
 
 0|>p ro:^EIAAH 
 
 EA^AT =^nN^ 
 
 TAPA^ SKtUVI^ 
 
 133;? Ro/v\-^ 
 
 AAa^3A\on ROA\A 
 
 lent Etruria. They are adorned with etched drawings 
 Imost invariably of the Etruscan gods and goddesses, 
 n most cases beside each figure is inscribed the nam.e 
 
 Fig. 132. Bronze mirror from an Etruscan tomb. 
 
THE ROMAN ALPHABET 
 
 379 
 
 of the god, as in the Etruscan mirror illustrated in 
 Fig. 132. 
 
 Following will be found a series of proper names taken 
 from these mirrors. In all the older examples the writing 
 is from right to left. 
 
 The English equivalents of these names are as follows : 
 
 Atunis, Adonis Thalna, Juno 
 
 Herakle, Herakles Nethuns, Neptune 
 
 Echtur, Hector Apulu, Apollo 
 
 Menrfa, Minerva Artumes, Artemis 
 
 Maris, Mars Aiax, Ajax 
 
 Thesan, Aurora Elaksantre, Alexander 
 
 Turan, Venus Alksentre, Alexander 
 
 The Greek influence so manifest in the great body of 
 coins is absent in most of the inscriptions on Etruscan 
 mirrors. All the examples in the foregoing list are in the 
 Etruscan mode of writing and show a distinct departure 
 from the Greek alphabetic forms. Phoenician characteris- 
 tics persist, however, and we still find the slanting E, the 
 closed H with slanting bars, the high-stepped Wl and 
 
;8o A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 )ther peculiarities of the parent alphabet. The letters 
 nanifest a tendenq^ to sprawl, much more marked than 
 ;xamples of Greek writing of the same period. 
 
 The history of the progressive development of Latin 
 vriting, culminating in the beautiful classic Roman in- 
 icriptions of the monumental structures of the Cassars, is 
 vritten in the fragmentary inscriptions discovered 
 hroughout Italy and to be seen in the many museums In 
 hat country. In these inscriptions, beginning with the 
 arliest specimens In which the letters are almost purely 
 jreek of the early Phoenician type, one may trace the 
 gradual elimination of many Greek letters ultimately re- 
 ected by the Italians and the gradual development of 
 mrely Italian features. One also may note a progressive 
 mprovement in the shape and proportion of the letters, 
 LS well as a gain in uniformity of size and alignment, as 
 n the later examples of Greek writing. At first the letters 
 v&re written continuously without interruption, no atr 
 empt being made to separate words. Subsequently, yet 
 'ery early, dots were employed for this purpose, there 
 leing at first little appreciable space left between words, 
 he dots being crowded In between them. Later, provi- 
 lon was made for this new feature of writing, and the 
 ilanning and spacing of words in the line were made with 
 egard to these separating dots. This method of writing 
 ontlnued over a very extended period before the sepa- 
 atlng dots between words were relegated to the end of 
 he sentence or paragraph, and the space which they occu- 
 iled alone sufficing, as at the present day, to separate the 
 7ords. 
 
 We give below a very early example of Italian wrlt- 
 ig, found in Etruria and classified In " Corpus Inscrlp- 
 Lonum Itallcum " as Etruscan. It reads from left to 
 
THE ROMAN ALPHABET 381 
 
 right, however ; a very infrequent method with the Etrus- 
 cans. It was not employed by them until a comparatively 
 late epoch. The inscription, which seems to be of an ex- 
 tremely early date, may be designated as Pelasgian. The 
 design of the inscription is decorative, as there is an en- 
 graved line immediately below the letters, and beneath 
 this is another line of inscription, symmetrical with the 
 first, but upside down. The reading of this line also is 
 from left to right. We note in these letters the charac- 
 teristic Phcenician Nl and N, and the E with the slanting 
 bars. Apart from this the remaining letters resemble the 
 Chalcidian alphabet. By the retention of the high-stepped 
 Phcenician Wl the mix-up over WI and S has been avoided 
 and there is no ambiguity or confusion. The digamma 
 (F), very early dropped from most Greek alphabets, is 
 present in this inscription. It was reinstated as a perma- 
 nent letter in the Italian alphabets : 
 
 Fig. 133 is a very early example of Etruscan writing, 
 in retrograde reading. Though cruder in workmanship 
 
 Fig. 133. Early Etruscan inscription. 
 
 than the former inscription and careless in alignment, the 
 general Phoenician characteristics of the letters. In com- 
 mon with those of the former,' would Indicate about the 
 same early age of calligraphic art. The Inscription con- 
 
,82 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 ains a number of letters of marked archaism and is with- 
 )ut any means of separating the individual words making 
 ip the sentence. 
 
 Fig. 134 is a characteristic example of Etruscan writ- 
 ng. The reading is from right to left as customary with 
 he Etruscans. The five-barred Wl used in Crete, which is 
 limply the old Phoenician M equalized in height, is here 
 ;mployed. We find it in other Etruscan inscriptions. It 
 vas also in somewhat common use in Lydia. In common 
 vith the other alphabets of Italy, lambda in this inscrip- 
 ion has the Western form of L, always in the early stages 
 )f development upturned at the bottom instead of hori- 
 zontal as in later times. Many of the letters are still 
 jreek in form, not having advanced far in their ultimate 
 Tansformation into the typical Roman alphabet. 
 
 
 (w 
 
 wl 
 
 Fig. 134.. Typical example of Etruscan writing. 
 
 A significant advance is evidenced in this inscription in 
 :he matter of separating words in the sentence. Dots in 
 jairs are used for this purpose. In early inscriptions from 
 30th Umbria and Etruria words were separated by dots, 
 sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs, as in this example, 
 [n the former province small triangular dots occasion- 
 illy were employed for this purpose. In Roman writing 
 3f the classic period this device was very popular and was 
 
THE ROMAN ALPHABET 383 
 
 used to separate words as well as to Indicate abbrevia- 
 tions, so extensively employed by the Romans in their 
 monumental Inscriptions, and imitated to this day. 
 
 As time progressed, gradually the letters Improved in 
 proportion, uniformity of size and aUgnment, and the 
 spacing and general appearance of the letters in the line 
 became more regular and pleasing to the eye ; as in the 
 two final examples of Etruscan writing shown below. 
 The inscription shown In No. 2 will serve as an introduc- 
 tion to the well recognized mode of abbreviation later em- 
 ployed by the Romans. The example is from the Tomb of 
 the Volumnii (family) at Perugia, and reads: Pup. Ve- 
 limna Au. Caphatial. This would be expressed by the 
 Latins : P. Volumnius. A. F. Violens Cafatla. Natus, — 
 " Publius Volumnius, son of Aulus, by a mother named 
 Cafatla." It is somewhat surprising to meet with the 
 old Phoenician aspirate (cheth) persisting so late In the 
 development of the alphabet. The character Is here used 
 for the sound ph. The local Etruscan forms of M and N 
 resemble so strikingly the modern minuscules of these let- 
 ters as to suggest a possible source of their origin. 
 
 jflii'flafl)--vfi:flnmuar-nvi ^■ 
 
 One of the very earliest Latin Inscriptions, possibly the 
 oldest Latin Inscription extant. Is reproduced In Fig. 135. 
 It was engraved on a gold fibula found at Prseneste, and 
 is written in exceedingly archaic letters, in retrograde. 
 The diminution in the size of the letters toward the left 
 is due to the tapering point of the fibula. Each word in 
 the inscription is pointed off by separating dots, as will be 
 
;84 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 loted by referring to the transliteration below the cut. 
 rhe early Romans employed for these separating dots 
 ;ircles, semicircles and later small triangles. The latter 
 vere largely used in monumental sculpture in classic times, 
 ind frequently are used to-day with abbreviations in tab- 
 et and architectural inscriptions. The early date of the 
 writing may be judged by the use of the closed eta as an 
 ispirate, and the strange form of the Latin word fecit, — 
 'hefhaked. 
 
 ioi7ANAAVVl.<]^ME^5B^'(laW\.^0\V\/\VV\ 
 
 MANIOS MED FHEFHAKED NUMASIOI 
 
 Fig. 135. Oldest Latin inscription. Engraved on a gold fibula. 
 
 Dur next illustration. Fig. 136, is an inscription from the 
 lity of Antinum. Although the Greek form of P persists, 
 he other letters denote a progressive approximation to 
 he Roman alphabet of the classic period. The letters are 
 airly upright, generally well proportioned, and the hori- 
 ontal bars, save in the letter A, seem definitely to have 
 bandoned their old-time Phoenician slant. The Nl and 
 J follow the familiar archaic Greek types, with slanting 
 
 Fig. 136. Latin inscription from Antinum. . 
 
 ines throughout, giving to the letters a sprawling appear- 
 ince, dissonant with the general uprightness of the other 
 etters. This was corrected in classic times by making in 
 ;ach case the outside lines vertical. It was contributions 
 )f this character, improvements in the proportion and 
 hape of the letters, and corrections in form to harmo- 
 lize letters with each other in their general relationship, 
 or which we are so much indebted to the later Greeks 
 
THE ROMAN ALPHABET 385 
 
 and Romans, more especially the latter; for they have be- 
 queathed to us an alphabet incomparable in its legibility 
 and chaste beauty. 
 
 Fig. 137 is a Latin inscription on the Temple of Bona 
 Dea at Lavernas, now Prezza, Italy. It shows the Roman 
 alphabet practically in its completely developed form. 
 The letters are mainly upright and are fairly even in 
 height with the exception of an occasional I that runs 
 high above the line. Two or three of the N's still ex- 
 
 LSTATIVS^CN-F CHl LO 
 bPETTIVS'OF PANSA 
 
 GP ettivs-vf-geaaellv 
 
 LTATTIVST'F COX5A 
 
 ZfMAGfSTRMAVERNEIS 
 MVRVMCAEMENTl CIV/V 
 PORTAM-PORTICVM 
 TE/WPLV/wB ONAE-DEA F 
 PAGhDECR ETO*FACIEND\ 
 /RARVNTPROBARVNTO 
 
 Fig. 137. Latin inscription from the Temple of Bona Dea, at Lavernae, 
 now Prezza, Italy. 
 
 hibit the historic tendency to slant, but the remaining 
 ones are upright like the rest of the letters. The S also 
 shows a slight tendency to slant ; the A is somewhat over- 
 wide, and the Wl maintains the slanting side lines of the 
 parent Phoenician, soon to be rectified in the later age of 
 Roman writing, as it was In the classic age of Greek 
 writing. 
 
 The beautiful Inscribed marble tablet shown in Fig. 
 138 is from a Roman bath, and illustrates the letters of 
 the Roman alphabet in their highest state of development 
 
386 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 in the classic age. For beauty and elegance, for refined 
 proportions and subtle spacing, the lettering is almost 
 unexcelled. While maintaining in the highest degree the 
 formal exactness of the standard type of the letters, the 
 sculptor has permitted himself sufficient freedom to in- 
 troduce into the structure of the individual letters enough 
 variety to counteract the severity of a too mechanical 
 treatment. In a very definite degree the desirableness of 
 variety in an alphabet is answered in the very nature of 
 the Roman letters. The quality is inherent in this al- 
 phabet, and arises from the fact that only a little over 
 one-half of the Roman letters are straight-lined, the re- 
 maining letters being curved. In the Greek alphabet 
 two-thirds of the letters are straight-lined. This gives a 
 severity to Greek writing, hardly offset by the paucity 
 of the curving letters. Happily the severity of the 
 straight-lined letters is turned into a stabilizing force in 
 Roman writing, while the curving letters serving as a 
 complement supply the grace and variety demanded of 
 any Inscription as a pattern in decorative arrangement. 
 The reader may compare this example of the golden age 
 of Roman epigraphy with the inscription shown in Fig. 
 129, of the corresponding age of Greek writing. The 
 Greek inscription certainly is dignified, as we have said 
 before, but it is incontestably severe and, we feel, formal 
 and mechanical. Our Roman sculptor, on the other hand, 
 has given to almost every letter individuality — almost 
 personality — by the clever treatment of the serifs and 
 spurs, and the tails to the R's and Q's. His inscription 
 speaks to us as with a living tongue. The other impresses 
 us only as a dead language. 
 
 Moreover, in addition to the vital touches that give 
 action and emphasis to the Roman inscription, our sculp- 
 tor has exhibited a breadth of vision concerning the func- 
 
THE ROMAN ALPHABET 
 
 387 
 
 tion of a tablet inscription quite modern in its range. 
 He has taken into account the idea of principality in 
 the subject matter of the inscription. His lines of letters 
 are not uniform throughout. They are of varying 
 heights, with some words larger and more prominent 
 than others. The tablet is a sign, an advertisement of a 
 bath. The artist seems imbued with the spirit of the 
 modern poster designer — he was perhaps the first past- 
 master of the craft — and has made prominent the most 
 significant words of the advertisement to catch the eye. 
 Altogether the display, spacing and general style of the 
 inscription is admirable. 
 
 IRASSIFRVGI 
 
 MAR]I]bttlTBA.LN 
 
 Fig. 138. Latin inscription on a Roman bath. 
 
 We give in Fig. 139 the Roman classic alphabet In 
 letters selected from Inscriptions in the Roman Forum. 
 The shapes and proportions are according to the most 
 elegant examples of these inscriptions. It will be noticed 
 that our Roman capitals in the current book types differ 
 ■somewhat from these classic capitals in the proportion- 
 ate width of some of the letters and in the presence of 
 serifs, wanting In certain letters in the classic alphabet. 
 Our present Roman capitals, as we shall show in the 
 next chapter, have descended to us from the modified 
 
388 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 version of the classic examples evolved by the calligraphic 
 artists at the time of the Renaissance. 
 
 ABCDEFG 
 
 HIKLMNOP 
 
 C^STVXYZ 
 
 Fig. 139. Classic Roman capitals. From inscriptions in the Forum. 
 
 The reader will find In Fig. 140 the historical develop- 
 ment of the Roman alphabet from the original Phoenician 
 letters through the modification of these parent forms 
 as effected by the Greeks, principally those of Western 
 Greece and particularly of the Chalcldian colonists In 
 Italy. The reader will also be able to trace in the chart 
 the line of development of each letter through the 
 Pelasglan and Etruscan variants of the Greek alphabet 
 down to the completely developed Roman capital of the 
 classic monuments. The Latin alphabet differs in many 
 essential particulars from the classic Greek. There Is 
 one new letter, some restorations, slight changes In the 
 order and phonetic value of the characters, and modifica- 
 tions In the shapes -of most of the letters. It resembles 
 the old Phoenician alphabet more closely than the Ionian 
 Greek does, retaining twenty out of the original twenty- 
 two letters, while the Ionian retains only nineteen. 
 
THE ROMAN ALPHABET 389 
 
 The letter C which stands in the place of the Greek 
 gamma is not altogether a new character, as we al- 
 ready have met with it in certain Greek alphabets : the 
 Corinthian and the Western variants, — Chalcis, Elis 
 and Locris. In the Chalcidian alphabet C was used to 
 express the sound G (hard). In the Etruscan language 
 C and K were homophones, with the result that K ul- 
 timately became obsolescent. In Latin inscriptions 
 throughout the classical period C was used as the rep- 
 resentative of the unvoiced guttural stop (K). It would 
 seem that up to about the middle of the 3rd century no 
 discrimination in writing was made by the Romans be- 
 tween this sound and the voiced guttural stop (G hard). 
 About this time, however, a distinction was made between 
 these sounds, and a new letter G was evolved with this 
 latter value, which was very much the same as the old 
 gamma. C continued to express the sound of K. The 
 new letter was placed In the seventh station, in the place 
 of the Greek zeta, there not being up to this time any 
 Latin word requiring this sound. However, about the 
 1st century B. c. the discarded Z was restored to the 
 alphabet and placed at the end of the list. But it was the 
 new Attic form of Z, the analogue of the old Phoenician 
 character that was adopted and not the l-form character 
 that had so long persisted throughout the various Greek 
 alphabets. The letter K, which had descended without 
 interruption and almost without change of . form from 
 the parent Phoenician through all the local Greek al- 
 phabets, was adopted by the early Latins and Is found 
 In their earliest inscriptions; but it was quite early re- 
 placed by C and survived only in two or three words. 
 The digamma (F), which early became obsolete in cer- 
 tain Greek alphabets, as well as Q, which was generally 
 obsolescent If not altogether missing — except in the ear- 
 
390 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 b 
 
 10. 
 
 "S 
 
 2-2 
 0^ S 
 
 GKHKIv AI.PHABHTS 
 
 0- S 
 
 IIAJ.IAN ALPHABETS 
 
 li ASTERN 
 
 ■VVksturn 
 
 Chai.cidian 
 
 Pelasgian 
 
 Ltrl'scan 
 
 Early Laxin 
 
 Roman 
 
 K- 
 
 a 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 ^AA 
 
 a 
 
 AA 
 
 fl/^A 
 
 AAA 
 
 A 
 
 $ 
 
 b 
 
 B 
 
 N 
 
 B 
 
 b 
 
 B 
 
 
 re 
 
 B 
 
 ^ 
 
 g,C 
 
 r 
 
 < 
 
 AC 
 
 B.<: 
 
 <C 
 
 >3C 
 
 <CG 
 
 CG 
 
 A 
 
 d 
 
 A 
 
 > 
 
 AD 
 
 d 
 
 D 
 
 
 D 
 
 D 
 
 ■^ 
 
 e 
 
 E 
 
 E 
 
 .<?<^E 
 
 e 
 
 f E 
 
 ^■^363 
 
 ^C-E II 
 
 E 
 
 Y 
 
 f.v.u 
 
 
 F 
 
 t^ 
 
 w.f . 
 
 P 
 
 =1=13 
 
 tJFI' 
 
 F 
 
 -V- 
 
 z 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 z 
 
 tl 
 
 =t: + ± 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 e,h 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 GH 
 
 h 
 
 B 
 
 SB 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 ® 
 
 th. 
 
 ® 
 
 ® 
 
 ®o 
 
 th 
 
 eo 
 
 ®oo 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 f 
 
 k 
 
 K 
 
 K 
 
 K 
 
 k 
 
 K 
 
 > 
 
 K K 
 
 K 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 A 
 
 U 
 
 U 
 
 1 
 
 U 
 
 vl 
 
 U L 
 
 L 
 
 7 
 
 m 
 
 M 
 
 /v\ 
 
 rAA 
 
 m 
 
 r 
 
 w\mw 
 
 MAM-1 
 
 M 
 
 7 
 
 n 
 
 /v 
 
 A 
 
 AA' 
 
 n. 
 
 r 
 
 ^V\HH 
 
 A/N 
 
 N 
 
 ¥ 
 
 X 
 
 I 
 
 + 
 
 + 
 
 X 
 
 EB 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 on 
 
 o 
 
 oo 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 
 OO 
 
 O 
 
 T 
 
 P 
 
 r 
 
 P 
 
 rn 
 
 P 
 
 p^ 
 
 1A 
 
 rpp 
 
 P 
 
 V 
 
 IS 
 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 ^M 
 
 AAM 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 q 
 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 q 
 
 9q 
 
 
 9Qa 
 
 Q 
 
 ^ 
 
 r 
 
 p 
 
 \i 
 
 PRR 
 
 r 
 
 P 
 
 <iaq 
 
 kRR 
 
 R 
 
 w 
 
 s 
 
 c 
 
 5 
 
 ;a 
 
 s 
 
 s( 
 
 a2 
 
 ^5 
 
 S 
 
 X 
 
 t 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 t 
 
 TT 
 
 S-fKT 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 
 u 
 
 YV 
 
 YV 
 
 YV 
 
 u,v 
 th 
 
 + X 
 
 YVY 
 
 NIV 
 X 
 
 V 
 X 
 
 
 ph 
 
 ® 
 
 
 (DCJ) 
 
 pji 
 
 T 
 
 ®q> 
 
 
 
 
 ps 
 
 
 
 4- 
 
 ch 
 ( 
 
 Y 
 
 S8 
 
 
 
 Fig. 140. Development of the Roman alphabet from the Phoenician and 
 Greek alphabets. 
 
THE ROMAN ALPHABET 391 
 
 liest Greek alphabets — was restored by the Romans; 
 both occupying their former relative positions. Y was 
 borrowed from the Greek alphabet some time in the ist 
 century about the time that Z was restored. 
 
 We now have reached, in the classic days of the Roman 
 civilization — a time about contemporaneous with the 
 close of the Pagan period and the dawning of the Chris- 
 tian era — the complete development of the Roman 
 alphabet. Its foundations were laid in the earliest Greek 
 alphabets borrowed from the Phoenicians; its structure 
 was framed by the Chalcidian, Pelasgian and Etruscan 
 colonists in Italy; but the monumental perfection of these 
 wonderful letters that the ages were so long preparing 
 for us was the work of the Romans. The Roman letters 
 in their extreme simplicity and remarkable mutual dif- 
 ferentiation contain within themselves the elements of 
 their popularity and widespread adoption. It is the most 
 widely diffused alphabet in the world; being exclusively 
 used in England, America, Australasia and South Africa ; 
 and is practically in use throughout Europe, except where 
 the Gothic black-letter is employed in Germany and the 
 Slavonic alphabet in Russia. It is also in official use in 
 Egypt and India, and wherever the European nations, ex- 
 cept Germany, hold sway. The Arabic alphabet alone 
 competes with it in universality, being used throughout 
 Central Asia. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 The beautiful, clear-cut and legible script of the Roman 
 monuments, so simple and elegant in its chaste forms, 
 was employed for several centuries, both in monumental 
 inscriptions and in written manuscripts, with but very 
 little change in the shape of the letters. This may be 
 confirmed in the case of the monumental script by a com- 
 parison of the inscriptions on the Arch of Titus, erected 
 about 70 A. D., and those on the Arch of Constantine, 
 dating from 315 A. D., both now standing in the Roman 
 Forum. Though nearly three centuries separated the con- 
 struction of these two monuments, the lapidary script 
 in use throughout this period of time underwent no 
 important changes. 
 
 The Roman letters had been progressively improved 
 through many centuries in their long development from 
 their Phoenician and Greek archetypes, deteriorating 
 to any considerable extent only when the Roman Empire 
 began to crumble under the repeated assaults of the 
 northern barbarians. When culture began to revive after 
 the ravages of the Dark Ages, it was a very different 
 type of alphabet that came into use from that employed 
 in the classic age. But the changes were effected rather 
 slowly, and in point of fact the origin of some of the 
 modifications from the historic type date from the ear- 
 liest years of the Christian era and even prior thereto. 
 
 From a very early age both in Greece and in Rome 
 writing on wax tablets and on parchment was very ex- 
 
 392 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 393 
 
 tensively practiced. Examples of the former, owing to 
 the temporary nature of the material, very largely have 
 disappeared; but many precious specimens of manuscripts 
 in parchment have been preserved. The use of this mate- 
 rial for writing purposes came into general vogue some 
 time prior to the Christian era, being extensively er 
 ployed in Asia Minor. The name parchment comes from 
 Pergamus, a city in Asia Minor, where skins were pre- 
 pared for writing purposes. It is said that Eumenes II, 
 king of Pergamus, being unable through the jealousy of 
 one of the Ptolemies to secure papyrus from Egypt, intro- 
 duced the use of parchment, which subsequently was called 
 ''pergamena." We may take occasion at this time to 
 mention another material used for writing — surely an 
 odd custom — that has resulted in its name being in- 
 corporated into our language. Many commercial transac- 
 tions in Rome : tax collectors' receipts and business 
 memoranda, have been found recorded on potsherds or 
 ostraca, oyster shells; whence our word " ostracize," the 
 posting of the name of an obnoxious person. 
 
 The writing in these early manuscripts, in both Greek 
 and Latin, was in capitals, quite the same letters as those 
 used in the sculptured Greek and Roman monuments. 
 The small letters that to-day are used in the text of 
 printed books, which we call " Roman " to distinguish 
 them from " Italic," and which historically are known 
 as " minuscules " — though the unromantic printer ap- 
 plies to them the term " lower case " — had not yet been 
 evolved. Neither had the Italic.' This form of letter did 
 not appear until after the invention of printing in the 
 time of the Renaissance. The minuscule, both Greek and 
 Roman, was long in developing, and its complete history, 
 far too long for the scope of this treatise, is a most 
 interesting one. The earliest Roman manuscripts dat- 
 
J94 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 ng from the beginning of the Christian era were writ- 
 :en in letters known as " square capitals." These at first 
 ;vere almost identical with the monumental script, but 
 iiffered from it mainly through variations arising from 
 :he medium of their execution. These manuscripts were 
 written on parchment, vellum or on papyrus from Egypt, 
 with a flexible quill or reed, p.enna; and as the scribes 
 )ecame more expert in their art, acquiring speed in its 
 execution, certain tendencies toward ligatures and cursive- 
 less crept in, resulting in departures more or less marked 
 From the historic capitals. Fig. 141 is a fragment of a 
 nanuscript written on papyrus in Roman capitals which 
 
 nO/|hs7r(-}i-C0C-r^/- At.ljQy(-AD-3(-Li/\PAKAXw/- 
 
 ^ VTK^Qv/f■/OiLI:MJ^;/■|^6KW•^^■W^OCAv/fR^T■ORBf/• 
 ■'2JcOM/;!.i^; KTOxATrA'DVCVK^LV/XM'riOK.AKKx,!/-. 
 
 a. 
 
 Fig. 141. Manuscript written on papyrus. From Herculaneum. 
 
 ivas discovered in Herculaneum. Something like 1800 
 iuch manuscripts, more or less charred, were found in 
 jne box in a recess in the wall of a house. The owner, one 
 Lucius Piso Caesonius, was a medical specialist, and 
 learly all his manuscripts were of the Epicurean philoso- 
 jhy. Most of the inscriptions in the manuscripts from 
 Herculaneum are in Greek. Greek influence at both 
 Herculaneum and Pompeii was very pronounced. The 
 scribes largely were educated Greek slaves, known as 
 librarii, and were equally learned in the Greek and Latin 
 'anguages and skillful in the writing of both. There were 
 thousands of these educated slaves in Rome who spent 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 395 
 
 their entire lives in copying books. Some editions, it is 
 known, ran as high as 2,000 copies. It was due to these 
 educated scribes in Rome and its neighboring cities that 
 in their hands during the first century of our era the old 
 Greek and Roman capitals first began to degenerate and 
 to assume forms that later led to an entirely different 
 form of writing. 
 
 Very few Latin manuscripts have been found earlier 
 than the 4th century A. D., after which time they be- 
 came more common. It would appear that the changes 
 in the forms of the letters at first more largely involved 
 the Greek than the Latin writing, and that in some cases 
 the former changes reacted upon the latter, causing simi- 
 lar modifications in the old Roman letters. 
 
 The date of the Herculaneum manuscript which we 
 reproduce, cannot be later than 79 a. d., when the city 
 was destroyed and buried. It may have been some little 
 time prior, but probably not long. Already certain 
 changes In the shapes of the capitals may be detected. A 
 is beginning to lose its upright position and to slant to 
 the left, while the right hand line projects slightly at 
 the top ; but further than this — except in the word 
 " paratus " — It gives no promise of the strange trans- 
 formation soon to be effected. E and H already have 
 made half of their transformation into the minuscules e 
 and h. T is beginning to be cursive. The remaining let- 
 ters in this particular manuscript do not depart far from 
 the Roman capital type. Additional changes undergone In 
 the form of the letters at this period, and somewhat 
 later, will be noted from a study of other of these early 
 manuscripts. Fig. 142 illustrates; some of the more sig- 
 nificant of these transformations." A has progressed still 
 further toward the ultimate minuscule. The upper lobe 
 of B Is approaching the vanishing point. D has acquired a 
 
396 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 form very similar to the Greek minuscule delta, a shape 
 that it maintained for several centuries. E has almost 
 reached its goal. F is in its last stage of transformation 
 and the progress is as evident as an open book. The 
 various forms of G developed through several centuries. 
 But the whole process of evolution — or rather devolu- 
 tion — of a capital into Its minuscule is best Illustrated in 
 the series of successive shapes through which the letter 
 H has progressed. The final variant is our modern 
 minuscule. I K T and other letters in these manuscripts 
 have entered upon the cursive stage, which with most of 
 the letters was the Intermediate stage leading to the 
 ' uncial " and, later, to the minuscule letters. N rather 
 early acquired its minuscule form, almost attained in 
 our list; yet the capital persisted In many Incunabula 
 into the Middle Ages. The transformation of V into u 
 !s most interesting. The slipping by of the right hand 
 stroke is suggestive of the origin of y. 
 
 /\ becomes A 2V X \ I '^™l 
 
 B 
 D 
 
 • 5 
 
 K 
 
 N 
 
 f\ - 
 
 • NT\W 
 
 G 
 
 
 R 
 
 V 
 
 
 Fig. 142. Progressive transformation of certain letters in manuscripts 
 of the early Christian centuries. 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 397 
 
 In Pompeii during the progress of excavations there 
 were found 132 wax tablets in a box hidden over the 
 portico of the house of a wealthy Roman, L. Cscilius 
 Jucundus. The tablets were for the most part business 
 documents, — notes of payment, tax receipts, etc. They 
 reveal the existence as early as the middle of the ist cen- 
 tury A. D. of a cursive form of Latin writing employed 
 chiefly for secular manuscripts, business documents and 
 letters, inscribed on rolls, codices and wax tablets. This 
 cursive writing was somewhat similar in general appear- 
 ance to our modern handwriting, except that it con- 
 sisted of capital letters, Greek or Latin as the case may 
 be, more or less connected by ligatures. This style of 
 writing in secular manuscripts was in vogue for several 
 centuries, undergoing during an extended period progres- 
 sive changes, slow to be sure, which eventually affected 
 the more conservative type of the classic letters employed 
 in scientific and religious manuscripts. 
 
 That so little is left of the enormous quantity of manu- 
 scripts that existed In the classic period is a painful and 
 distressing fact. It is known that some Roman scholars 
 acquired as high as 60,000 volumes (rolls) of manu- 
 scripts. The destruction of manuscripts and libraries has 
 been appalling. At Alexandria under the Ptolemies an 
 era of high culture and refinement existed for a long 
 period. The culture was essentially Greek In learning 
 and language, as it was politically. Under Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus (200 B. c.) a great library was founded 
 which eventually grew to a total of 700,000 volumes. 
 Every volume of this immense library perished when 
 Caesar burned his ships In the harbor of Alexandria. 
 Subsequently, Mark Antony transported to Alexandria 
 the library of King Eumenes from Pergamus, to found 
 a new library in the Serapeum or Temple of Serapls. 
 
398 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 It was added to for three centuries and then scattered 
 (390 A. D.) by the fanatic Theophilus, patriarch of 
 Alexandria under Theodosius the Great. The library 
 was in a measure restored and added to during the en- 
 suing three centuries only to be utterly destroyed by the 
 Arab conquerors of Egypt when Alexandria was pil- 
 laged in the year 642. It is said that it took six months 
 to burn the last of the 500,000 volumes in the 4,000 baths 
 in the city. 
 
 The square capital was used in manuscript writing over 
 an extended period, faUing into more or less complete 
 disuse sometime in the 6th century. In its purity it de- 
 parted but little from the monumental script, as will be 
 noted by reference to the example given in the second 
 alphabet in Fig. 159, taken from the pages of a copy 
 of " Virgil's iEneid," now in the Vatican Library at 
 Rome; being a manuscript of the 4th century. It con- 
 tains two forms of A, characteristic of the manuscripts 
 of the period; the typical form and a transitional one 
 merging into the minuscule. FLY run above the line. 
 This is another peculiarity of manuscripts of this age. A 
 beautiful example of the square capital is illustrated in 
 Fig. 143, the reproduction of a fragment of the first page 
 of a manuscript copy, also of Virgil, in the Vatican Li- 
 brary. The entire work consists of nine verses, from 41 
 to 49, of the first book of the Georgics beginning: — 
 
 Ignarosq(ue) viae mecum miseratus agrestis 
 Ingredere et votis jam nunc adsuesce vocari 
 Vere novo gelidus canis cum montib.(us) umor 
 
 The manuscript is a beautiful specimen of the Roman 
 capital or " majuscule," as it is technically called, linger- 
 ing into the 6th century. The letters follow very closely 
 the classic models, with slight but significant changes in 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 399 
 
 LGNAROSQ.VlXEMlCVMM(StR.\TVS\ClitSTIS 
 INGRrDIRIITVOTlSI\MNVNC/VDSVlSCtVOC\R> 
 VIRl^slOVOGILIDVSC^NlSCVMMONTlB-VMOR 
 llClVlTVRn2tPHVROPVTRlSSlGl\tBA.R.lSOlVlT 
 DIPR.ESSOl>JCIPIA.TlA.Mi:VMMlHlTA.VRVS\R\Ta<. 
 INGIMlRinSVlCOXDTRlTVSSFllNDtSCiRIVOMm 
 
 lLl^sIGlSDlMV^iVOTISRISPO^^JDlR.tl^vvxR^ 
 
 AGRlCOl\tlblSQVMSOllMBlSfR.lGOR.\SINSlT 
 
 lUlVSlMMENSMRVPtRVNmOR-RlXMlSStS 
 
 Fig. 143. Page from a manuscript copy of Virgil's ^neid, written in 
 " Square Capitals." 6th century. 
 
 a few cases. The A has lost its horizontal bar, while 
 the serif at the bottom of the left slanting line is be- 
 ginning to curl up to form the body of the incipient 
 minuscule. E and F are considerably condensed, presag- 
 ing the " rustic " capitals; while F and L go above the 
 line, as in the previous manuscript, forecasting the 
 characteristics of these letters in our present minus- 
 cules. 
 
 The shading of the letters is unusually strong and bold, 
 adding greatly to their effectiveness. This was produced 
 by the shape of the quill or reed pen used by the scribes 
 of manuscripts throughout the Early and Middle Ages. 
 It was cut with a broad nib, sometimes square, sometimes 
 slightly oblique, and was held at such an angle that, 
 even without pressure, the right hand, slanting lines, as 
 in the letter A, were drawn heavy with the broad side 
 of the pen, while the left hand slanting lines were drawn 
 light with the pen held edgewise. Z is the only letter in 
 which a left-hand stroke was niade heavy. One easily 
 can judge in examining the shading of the round letters, 
 
400 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 especially O, how the hand and pen were held, enabling 
 the scribe to draw and shade the letters in two strokes 
 of the pen, left and right. 
 
 A variety of the square capital known as the " rustic 
 capital " early was evolved out of the classic letters. It 
 became a very popular form of letter and was extensively 
 employed. A beautiful example of these capitals is given 
 in Fig. 144, a manuscript of the 5 th century, now in 
 the Vatican Library. It is a free treatment of the classic 
 letters and evidences the tendency of the pen to break 
 down the conventional type of the monuments. The 
 serifs and horizontal bars made by the varying pres- 
 sure and position of the pliable quill or reed pen and the 
 strong shading of the letters — so much heavier than 
 in the classic letters — give us the first hint of the 
 " black-letter " so extensively used throughout the Mid- 
 dle Ages. Certain significant tendencies should be noted 
 In this Inscription, as they subsequently became fixed 
 characteristics of the minuscule letters for all time. B F 
 L in every case run well above the horizontal level of 
 the other letters. This peculiarity of running above or 
 below the line in a number of the capital letters very 
 early manifested itself, and in every case has been handed 
 down to this day and is retained In the modern minift^- 
 cules. This type of letter, the rustic capital, so fre- 
 quently met with in manuscripts of this period, will be 
 found illustrated in the third line of Fig. 159. It illus- 
 trates an important stage in the historic development of 
 the minuscule letter, as shown in this figure. 
 
 Although the rustic capitals fell Into complete disuse 
 as a book-hand, and were superseded along with the 
 square capitals first by the uncial and then by the 
 minuscule, as we shall proceed to show, they were not 
 altogether lost sight of, but were retained for several 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 401 
 
 centuries by the talented monks of the Christian church 
 who followed the profession of scribes. They continued 
 occasionally to use them in their manuscripts, along with 
 the new book-hand in which the bulk of the text was 
 
 DlCWlh'l-DAUOnACVlVM'ncVi'ANJ'MillBOil 
 NONV£R.VM'!GONlS-NVniVMlh'l'TiADlDlT'AiOONj 
 INr£liXO6IAAI£A:0V£HlCVS-lfil'Mi.A£iAM 
 DVAA-fOVlI-AGN £MI-Siblf r\A£F£ Ulll L£V£A.£TVi^ 
 U'lOAIilNViOVlS-CVilOi-MyAWlOmN-irCOiA 
 U-SVCMS'l I CO M.£ 1-LAGS VS DVCi TV A-A ON) 1 i 
 
 lAiClVidSTAVlALvIAA\£NlOMCl£Nj)A-M£A\£M10 
 
 MOVlMVi'n'OAn'I£UAM5V£iSA^V£MIliV5KirvCl5 
 
 ■iI-O^SiI'flClL£S'MrMlH'A£'lUs£rvi-SAC£llQ^ 
 
 Fig. 144. Manuscript written in " Rustic Capitals." 5th century. 
 
 written, for titles, sub-titles, initials and rubrics. Three 
 lines written in rustic capitals will be found in the sec- 
 ond column of text in the Speculum of St. Augustine 
 (Fig. 147). The sub-title "TERRA REGIS," and most 
 of the capital letters throughout the page from the 
 Domesday Book of Berkshire (Fig. 156) are rustic 
 capitals only slightly modified- The paragraph initials 
 in this manuscript, however, are the ordinary medieval 
 black-letter uncials. 
 
 The progressive changes undergone by the Roman 
 capital letters in the early centuries of our era were 
 affected and accelerated by, if not wholly due to, the 
 writing of manuscripts in the cursive style, both in Latin 
 and in Greek; for there were concurrent changes in the 
 Greek capitals, which were passing through a trans- 
 formation very similar to that of the Latin. The greater 
 speed with which secular manuscripts were written as 
 
402 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 compared with scientific treatises, works on philosophy 
 and the precious copies of the gospels, and the increasing 
 temptation to carelessness on the part of the scribes, 
 in time reacted upon the more careful writing of the 
 latter class of manuscripts and progressively modified 
 the shapes of the square capitals in which they were writ- 
 ten. 
 
 We will give a typical example of one of the many 
 
 A 
 > 
 
 77^> 
 
 > cl J>/iyy^^-v<- jcMy^y^<:^jijo 
 
 'XCi 
 
 'X^ 
 
 Fig. 145. Letter written on papyrus in cursive Greek writing. 15 A. D. 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 403 
 
 fragments of cursive Greek manuscripts of the classic 
 period, many of which have been recovered. Fig. 145 
 is a small and rather mutilated fragment of a papyrus of 
 the year 15 A. D. The original is in the British Museum. 
 It is written in capitals which with a few exceptions 
 closely follow the Greek originals. The letters are for 
 the most part written separately, there being few liga- 
 tures. As in nearly all Greek and Roman manuscripts, 
 there is little or no separation of individual words, though 
 there does appear to be a partial division of the inscrip- 
 tion into sentences. This itself is an innovation; and in 
 this particular manuscript also may be noted the begin- 
 nings of the new style, some centuries in fully asserting 
 itself, of commencing sentences with a large letter. The 
 first noticeable division of a page into paragraphs, in In- 
 cunabula of this period, was made by a slight break in 
 the text and a mark. Later, the initial letter of the first 
 line of the paragraph was written out in the margin 
 and made larger. These initial letters came into use 
 about the 6th or 7th century. 
 
 Fig. 146 is the reproduction of an exceedingly rare 
 Latin manuscript of the 3rd century, now in the 
 Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. It is written on papyrus, 
 for the most part in debased Roman capitals, in a beau- 
 tifully free, cursive style, with many ligatures and flour- 
 ishes, executed in the finest style of professional penman- 
 ship. The letters really are part capitals and part uncials 
 — the new style of letters then being developed — some 
 of them being written separately, while others are con- 
 nected by curves and flourishes. 
 
 By the 4th century the change in the shape of the 
 capitals, through the corrupting influence of the cursive 
 writing of secular documents, became so marked as to 
 constitute the beginnings of a new style of letter, the 
 
404 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Ml/^///'y7^A^#/^.'^^^^ 
 
 
 I) /? 
 
 
 cO 
 
 '/i/mnjc 
 
 SVJ' 
 
 Fig. 146. Manuscript on papyrus in Latin cursive writing. 3d century A. D. 
 
 " uncial." The capital letters, however, were not alto- 
 gether abandoned; but continued over a long period oc- 
 casionally to be used In the body of the text, later, only 
 as initial letters at the beginning of paragraphs. In 
 some localities, in Italy, they were used throughout the 
 text of the manuscript as late as the 6th or 7th cen- 
 turies, or even later. The uncial was a large letter, one 
 inch in height, as Its name Implies, resembling the capitals, 
 but with strong tendencies toward rounding. Fig. 147 is 
 a typical example of this new style of letter. It is a 
 portion of the Speculum of St. Augustine, a palimpsest, 
 now in the library of the Earl of Ashburnham. Thirteen 
 leaves of the original manuscript, which is written on 
 vellum In double columns, are extant. It dates from the 
 end of the 7th century. It is written in full-size uncials 
 without separation of words, but with large capitals at 
 the beginning of paragraphs, according to the new style 
 slowly establishing Itself. At the first casual glance the 
 writing seems to be In the old capitals, but a moment's 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 405 
 
 icnpiexAres 
 
 dmesTfSAdueR 
 s ARii s ex\ceRu^s 
 
 TlSeNlCOeaODCji:) 
 
 U0S]:eClT6NCD 
 
 AereRNtlCDSACRl 
 
 pcANiesdA.e<po 
 NnseTNONCo 
 
 |T€ODApOSTC)l<US 
 
 OiceNieseNicn 
 seesses\pieN 
 
 StlNXerCDUTAilG- 
 
 Rur<Tc;lpRiA!cr) 
 
 lNCORRapnBll,lS 
 
 diiNSicDil^i-mdi 
 
 NeiCDAClNlSODR 
 
 RapTHyil^iShoo}! 
 
 NiseTtiol^acRo ^ 
 
 ercjuxdRupe^v 
 
 eTseRpeNTiutn 
 
 pRopreRQuod^ 
 
 TRA^C>ldmll,OSC>S 
 
 INdesiCeRix^coR 
 
 dlSlUjORUCOlN 
 INCDUN^ITIXUT 
 
 coNTUcnel^iisxp 
 
 piQAlVTCORpORA: 
 
 supviNsecpenp 
 
 SlSqUITRAlSfSODU 
 TAUeRU NTtieRl 
 
 TAxecDiTsroDeNdA 
 cioercoTfieRtifsr 
 erseRuieRUT^fT 
 CReATURAepon 
 
 us qu A-CDCReATO 
 
 RiquiesTBeNe- 
 diCTusi^jSAecdl^ 
 
 pROpieRClUOd 
 TRAOldlTlllpSdS^ 
 
 ]]Nr RepROB^icnse 
 
 SClCDUXpACUNT 
 
 quA^eNc>NCONue 
 
 W N0NSvir£R\ND^l-VV5 
 ■^ \l\|A\t)ri)ETR\CTlOM 
 
 ^^udlTeoDeauiNoS 
 '*"\i SI u6i ciacnpo 
 
 puljUSCDeasiN 
 
 quoRacDCOR^e 
 
 lpccn€A.eSTisroljne 
 
 Fig. 147. Speculum of St. Augustine, written in " uncial letters, 
 of the 7tii century. 
 
 End 
 
 Study reveals the changes that already had been effected 
 toward the ultimate minuscule. Six letters in particular, 
 
4o6 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 a d e h m u, are noticeable for their rounding tenden- 
 cies. The strange looking A, first met with in the Hercu- 
 laneum manuscript, at once strikes the eye. D and E 
 either have been borrowed from the Greek delta, 8, and 
 epsilon, e, respectively, or have been modified under the 
 same common influences that operated to produce these 
 letters. H and M have departed very far from their 
 straight line prototypes. DHLFGPQgo above 
 or below the line and presage even at this early age this 
 peculiarity of just one-half of the minuscules in our 
 alphabet to-day. Of the remaining number of these 
 minuscules in our modern alphabet, b j k t y z (cursive), 
 the tendency to go above or below the line in manuscripts 
 of this period may be detected in B K Y. 
 
 Fig. 148 taken from a manuscript in the Bibliotheque 
 Nationale in Paris, beginning with the Latin title: 
 " VENIAMUiS AD ILLUM Locum," etc., is a very 
 fine example of the French uncial. Certain letters still 
 
 , ,..^^.M 
 
 L,OCUOr)7Mqud^cr>'c>MS1NcI,v tuoo 
 S u aor:>t> 6l,3^B O R I p, vh i-ll^J^SODLN 
 "DijMC^e^esT^qtiieTepeaDa 
 c e n6 uol^uiT ; :(^u^x:>s^cr) 6Tip 
 
 C^MeB3^Tsepissime"biceMs; 
 '^:j(^ u cniloi quia^p6ReqRi>j3crio 
 
 Fig. 148. Manuscript in French uncials. 8th century. 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 407 
 
 remain practically unaffected; — as B O I O S. A has al- 
 most entirely effected its transformation, while G is 
 advancing. E shows two varieties, — the classic E and a 
 form very similar to the Greek minuscule, epsilon, £. 
 F consistently remains considerably below the line, while 
 L keeps well above it. Tendencies toward the Gothic 
 minuscule, the black-letter of the Middle Ages, may be 
 detected only in the letter S. 
 
 The uncial continued to be the prevailing book-hand 
 for all clerical and literary productions down to the 8th 
 or 9th centuries, or even later on the continent. But even 
 as early as the 6th century, its degeneracy, owing to the 
 influence of secular documents in the cursive style of writ- 
 ing, became marked. In time this constituted an epoch 
 in writing, dominated by the " half-uncial " style of 
 letter which obtained for a century or more. The In- 
 novations were most noticeable In the letters a b d e 1 
 m n r s, which were rapidly progressing toward the 
 minuscule. Two examples of the uncial letter will be 
 found in Fig. 159, an early and a later variety, separated 
 by about four centuries. The alphabet in the fourth line Is 
 from a palimpsest of " Cicero's Republic," in Latin, and 
 dates from the 3rd century. The alphabet In the fifth 
 line Is from the Speculum of St. Augustine (Fig. 147), 
 also in Latin, and of the 7th century. 
 
 Contemporaneous with th'e decline and ultimate ex- 
 tinction of the uncial letters, the cursive style Itself grad- 
 ually passed out of use, to be revived in the late Middle 
 Ages. Both of these styles of writing which had been 
 practiced In Italy and the Roman provinces for several 
 hundred years, during the Dark Ages merged Into the 
 new book-hand, the minuscule, which rose to Its perfec- 
 tion In the nth and 12th centuries. We will give one 
 final example of the cursive writing of this period (Fig. 
 
4o8 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 149), further to Illustrate the contemporary hand that 
 shared in the transformation of the old Roman capitals 
 and uncials into the minuscule letters. It is a fragment 
 of a manuscript In Lombardic cursive writing of the 9th 
 century. The original Is In the Monastere de la Cava 
 In Naples. The letters are for the most part separate, 
 not many being connected by glides or ligatures. The 
 exaggerated strokes of the letters b d 1 are strongly char- 
 acteristic. The Cursive alphabet will be found Illustrated 
 In the sixth line In Fig. 159. 
 
 It was in the provinces that the changes In the type of 
 
 
 \^'^*^'Py'^*]oc^\day'tyr\(^yrrt^^^ , 
 
 Fig. 149. Fragment of a manuscript in Latin, written in Lombardic 
 cursive writing. 9th century. 
 
 the letters became most rapid and marked. The 
 minuscule had firmly established Itself In Irish and 
 Anglo-Saxon manuscript writing before it had become at 
 all marked In Roman or Italian manuscripts. Roman mis- 
 sionaries had Introduced the art of writing Into Ireland 
 and England in the early centuries of the Christian era. 
 
WKllUNU IN THE MIDDLE AGES 409 
 
 The Irish monks, being apart from the warring turmoil 
 of the continent, became free to develop at their leisure 
 their own local style of calligraphy. Under the pens of 
 these cloistered monks, removed from the conventional 
 forms that might hold them fast to traditional types, 
 the old capitals underwent a more rapid transformation 
 than on the continent. The Irish uncial was not only a 
 distinctive script, but it was perhaps the most beautiful 
 of all the book-hands. There is a tradition that St. 
 Patrick (432-458 A. D.) carried the uncial style of writ- 
 ing — it probably was the half-uncial — into Ireland 
 from Gaul, where he is believed to have acquired the 
 art. 
 
 There are extant to-day two books, classics in the his- 
 tory of Irish epigraphy, which contain numerous exam- 
 ples of extraordinary beauty of the wonderful art of the 
 Celtic monks. The more famous is the " Book of Kells." 
 Kells is in County Meath, Ireland. Here in the 6th cen- 
 tury St. Columba, or Columbkille, founded a monastery 
 that became a renowned center of learning. Nothing now 
 remains of the monastery; but the wonderful Book of 
 Kells, an illuminated copy of the Gospels in Latin, con- 
 taining also local records dating from the 6th century, 
 has survived all the ravages of the Saxon and Danish in- 
 vasions and the wars of the English conquest. It is now 
 preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. The 
 other book is known as the Book of Armagh, a manu- 
 script containing books of the New Testament, written 
 by Ferdomnach, a scribe who died in 844. The writing 
 in both of these books, more particularly the former, is of 
 extreme beauty and delicacy, being embellished with il- 
 luminations in color that are among the rarest examples 
 of Celtic tracery and interlacing, for which the Irish 
 monks were famous. The following alphabet of Irish 
 
jncials — really " half uncials " as they are called, for 
 hey have almost completed even at this early age their 
 ull transformation into the minuscule — has been taken 
 rom the pages of the " Book of Kells " : 
 
 i6cDdef^hi^mnviopqRRStu;>cs^ 
 
 The Irish uncial was fully developed in the 6th cen- 
 :ury, and traveling monks carried their art into Eng- 
 and where it markedly affected the Anglo-Saxon book- 
 land. In the Saxon invasion of England the continuity 
 jf the Roman civilization had been largely destroyed, 
 ind the art of writing languished with other elements of 
 Roman culture. As early as the days of King Alfred the 
 jreat, the Danes had destroyed the greater part of all 
 :he books in England. King Alfred pathetically exclaims : 
 ' I saw, before all were spoiled and burnt, how the 
 ;hurches throughout Britain were filled with treasures 
 ind books." When learning revived, the influence of the 
 [rish book-hand was strongly manifest in ecclesiastical 
 writing in England. The Irish missionary Aidan founded 
 :he see of Lindisfarne in the north of England in the 
 rear 635, where he established a school of writing. The 
 Lindisfarne Gospels or " Durham Book," written by 
 Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne, about 700, is the best 
 example of the Anglo-Saxon round-hand of this period. 
 
 Fig. 150 is a fragment of the New Testament from 
 :he Bodleian Library, Oxford. It is a beautiful example 
 )f the Anglo-Saxon half-uncial letter of the 7th century. 
 [t is, however, even at this early period well advanced 
 :oward the minuscule, the latter being far more in evi- 
 ience than the former. The only letters that have not 
 :ompletely effected their transformation into the minus- 
 :ule are F R T, and these are more advanced than any 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 411 
 
 yet shown. The tendency, however, toward the medi- 
 eval Gothic or " black-letter," is little more marked. 
 The general form of the letter is still Roman, and the 
 perfected minuscule as shown in e h m n u are almost 
 precisely like our modern minuscules or small Roman let- 
 ters with which this book is printed. Many other letters 
 almost as strongly resemble them. Tendencies toward 
 Gothic or Old English, soon to be the prevailing style 
 of letter for centuries, are seen only in O S T. The divi- 
 sion of the writing of the manuscript into separate words 
 and sentences with partial use of punctuation marks 
 shows the distinct contribution of these scholarly monks 
 to the progress of the art of writing in Europe. 
 
 ^^ep^es'sus el&iuiRSusccchnaReomnisqugaiRbx^ 
 uenie6ax>oc leum soocefeaceosr^eL-cumpRCcecie-^ 
 RIRQ- uidrc leum ociphei sedentem ocdxieionum 
 Buoav \lb. sequeRj&meSJirRj&ens secucus efereum.',* 
 ft poEtximefo cumccumfieR&mdomo iZftus mulu 
 pupiicccm QpeccaroRcs simurpiscumbebccnc 
 
 Fig. 150. Manuscript copy of the New Testament, written in Anglo-Saxon 
 half-uncials of the 7th century. 
 
 The inherent difficulties and disadvantages of the 
 uncial hand as the basis of a practical book-hand arose 
 from the fact that they could not be made rapidly. Being 
 founded on the Roman capital letters, of which they were 
 the direct descendants, they retained to a considerable 
 extent their straight-line characteristics; although many 
 of the letters, more particularly in the Irish and Anglo- 
 Saxon scripts, early had developed rounding character- 
 istics. Gradually, through the continued debasmg tenden- 
 cies of the cursive writing, the forms of the letters from 
 
412 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 decade to decade underwent further changes, and the 
 gradual development of the new minuscule hand was the 
 result. This development was under way on the continent 
 about the 8th or 9th century and reached Its highest 
 perfection In the nth or 12th century, when it degener- 
 ated until the invention of printing. The northern type 
 of the Anglo-Saxon script, the elements of which had been 
 introduced into England by Irish monks, was among the 
 most beautiful of the semi-uncial scripts and was destined 
 to have a marked Influence upon the future development 
 of writing in Europe. It prevailed up to about the 9th 
 century. It was the immediate precursor of the Caroline 
 minuscule, which soon spread throughout Europe, dis- 
 placing the old monastic uncial and the cursive writing. 
 
 Another beautiful example of the round Anglo-Saxon 
 minuscule, written In England In the 8th century, is re- 
 produced in Fig. 151. It is one of 41 leaves of vellum, 
 being the " Account of the Passion from the Gospels," 
 followed by a series of Prayers on the " Life and Pas- 
 sions of Our Lord." The page begins: 
 
 Gratias tibi reffero et per hoc exoro aol 
 ue a me misero uelamen uitiorum uirtu 
 tibusque indue pro ultiis, Ut in illo nuptiali 
 conululo non nudus sed Indutus ueste nupti 
 ali intrare merear, Domine iesu christe amen. 
 
 We detect at once a change In the general appearance 
 of the letters. They are less rounding and more angular 
 than In the earlier manuscripts. The serifs are no longer 
 horizontal but are slanting, and the curves of the letters 
 are giving way to angular strokes. It is in fact a transi- 
 tional letter between the minuscule and the black-letter. 
 One will notice a further change in the letter A. The 
 curve of the body reaches fully to the top of the right 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 413 
 
 •^iier- 0.1116- mis ^uj uelamdi unjcWuntm 
 
 Dwmo mm^iviy SeainbirmrudTe^ntipn 
 oh tiTmuixeriii^6m.®Tift-ilrux:,?e-^^., 
 
 Oncix|o becollo 
 Qyons- om-Mium bonoimm ccrcJ.-fortmcu 
 n&ux.e-h\x1m^hum^ - C|ui coUtj^utTson 
 
 uocSxibl ctgo d-phoc StibTnij-<3rcL Con^r 
 C^iutc6- <3tippl^ obseoxo , :0)ncebe-milii 
 iKiams ■^oi-uofir'paixrc^ Ctnrietipdiiiae^ 
 pdlui^-jabebi-pnict ti^hicEpiSxcce-; IJi^ft-' 
 ilitycp er cLtn ^1 •; D e^na cIti)- d'ln am hvtr 
 Q di D^cc^ict tJonctrortd', saltrar qtiilmd, 
 chictTUcL «D(iL^bc^bi|xi Tiiligio Ctvaory 
 
 ■MCjiace-icr'-piaaner clatiil)> p^tculifb 'Cli^ 
 Tuici: actiiiiiiie-Tiiiioru-p d^l^om-p peccoj^ 
 
 Fig. 151. Leaf from the "Life and Passions of Our Lord." Written in the 
 Anglo-Saxon minuscule of the 8th century. 
 
 hand bar, as it does in our modern handwriting and 
 in certain varieties of the black-letter. Two varieties of 
 N are employed: the old uncial capital and the new 
 minuscule. Two varieties of R also are employed: the 
 old uncial capital, the bar of which runs below the line. 
 
414 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 and the far more frequent one that much resembles the 
 minuscule n. Likewise two S's are used: the one that re- 
 sembles the capital letter and one that runs far below 
 the line and explains the old-fashioned C , only recently 
 
 obsolete in the last century. In this manuscript, now for 
 the first time, we note a consistent purpose, consciously 
 and systematically carried out, of dividing the writing 
 into paragraphs, with headings ; the paragraphs into sen- 
 tences, with initial letters; the sentences into separate 
 words, with punctuation marks to indicate clauses. It was 
 not until the nth century, on the continent, that the 
 custom of spacing the words throughout the manuscript 
 became general, and then only in manuscripts in Latin. 
 Greek manuscripts were not separated into words with 
 punctuation marks until the Age of Printing. The first 
 punctuation mark was the stop at the end of the sen- 
 tence. At first it was made the same as our colon. Later, 
 one of the dots was dropped, and the remaining one 
 served as a period, a colon or a comma, according as 
 it was placed even with the top, the middle or the bot- 
 tom of the small letters. The Anglo-Saxon half-uncial 
 alphabet is illustrated in the seventh line in Fig. 159. 
 
 One of the most unique of medieval manuscripts is 
 the one represented in Fig. 152. It is one of 171 leaves 
 in vellum of the " Lex Salica," or " Laws of the Salian 
 Franks together with the Laws of the Visigoths and 
 Allamanni." It was written in the year 794 by Van- 
 dalgarius who signs his name at the end of the volume. 
 The writing is in Lombardic minuscules. The first four 
 lines read: 
 
 IN NOMINE D(OMI)NI N(OST)RI 
 (I)esu Christi incipiunt titulus legis salice 
 I : de mannire 
 Si quis admallu(m) legib(u)s dominicis 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 415 
 
 1 ^fi^xi^c- feeuflttvnifnoTicUa.-inSj(r 
 '^ -(otjxV • Gi- CU1 • tno-rvuit ■ oaT> 13 otjo-t •^• 
 
 at'.i'tvrceltunt lotcofrucfin decTiunne^ 
 
 'ctittii- ^rf- ca»t- S?ctr-- 
 
 Fig. 152. Leaf from the Lex Salica. Written in Lombardic minuscules. 
 
 794 A. D. 
 
 The Salic Law originated with the Salian Franks, 
 who, in the 5th century, founded the Prankish kingdom. 
 
4i6 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 According to this law women are precluded from succes- 
 sion to the throne. Again we detect in these letters the 
 angular serifs arid the angular strokes in place of curves 
 in the body of the letter. They now have become the 
 permanent characteristics of medieval writing employed 
 in all incunabula, to be still more emphasized and devel- 
 oped in the Gothic black-letter in use throughout the Mid- 
 dle Ages and abandoned only after the invention of print- 
 ing in the renaissance of learning, when there was a 
 return to the Caroline minuscule. We find in the letters 
 in this manuscript two types of A : the one that resembles 
 our modern minuscule (a) and the one similar to our 
 script (a). The uncial capitals: N R and their respec- 
 tive minuscules both are employed, as in the former manu- 
 script. 
 
 In the development of the minuscule letter, which 
 preceded the black-letter of the Middle Ages, the Eng- 
 lish monks played no small part by their splendid con- 
 trioution to the art of writing. Alcuin of York, England, 
 who had been invited to France by the Emperor 
 Charlemagne, to become instructor in the school of the 
 palace, established a school of calligraphy at the Abbey 
 of St. Martin at Tours, in 796, maintaining it until the 
 year 809. Alcuin became Abbot of the convent of St. 
 Martin, making Tours famous by attracting to it monks 
 from all parts of Europe who came to acquire the new 
 style of book-hand. It was chiefly the Benedictine monks 
 who wrote the manuscript copies of the scriptures, the 
 incunabula and other literary productions through the 
 Dark and Middle Ages. It is to them that we are in- 
 debted for the conservation of literature in these many 
 years of struggle and warfare. A room in the monastery, 
 known as the " scriptorium," was set apart for this work. 
 The outfit consisted of parchment from calves, goats 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 417 
 
 or sheep ; vellum from unborn lambs or kids ; pumice 
 stone for smoothing the skins; quills, reed pens; black 
 ink, and red ink from red earth (rubrica) for the 
 rubrics. 
 
 The new book-hand was based on the beautiful set 
 minuscule of the English manuscripts of this period; 
 which, as we have learned, had developed in the Irish 
 monasteries. It was a half-uncial hand, part uncial and 
 part minuscule — largely the latter — influenced by the 
 best features of the French and Italian — Lombardic — 
 models. It eventually developed, early in the 9th century, 
 into the Caroline minuscule, which continued until the 
 black-letter was fully established in the 12th and 13th 
 centuries. The perfected Caroline minuscule was a small, 
 somewhat rounded, set letter, legible and rapid of execu- 
 tion, and unexcelled as a book-hand. The Caroline 
 minuscule is illustrated in the eighth line of letters in 
 Fig. 159. The alphabet has been taken from "Tropes 
 and Sequences for the IVIass," a manuscript written at 
 Winchester, in the reign of Ethelred (979-1016). 
 
 It is the minuscule of the loth and nth centuries 
 that served as a model for our modern book-type. In in- 
 cunabula written in this style of writing we find spaces 
 between words, capitals for sentences, division of the 
 pages into paragraphs and the use of punctuation and 
 diacritical marks, somewhat the same as in our modern 
 printing. It was Alcuin who first systematized the punc- 
 tuation of manuscripts. He insisted that copyists should 
 pay attention to the pauses, — " per cola et commata." 
 The semicolon at first was used in manuscripts to denote 
 the Latin bus and que. Later, commas, colons, periods 
 and hyphens were used; but the full system of punctua- 
 tion as followed to-day was not fully developed until 
 after the invention of printing. 
 
4i8 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 a^.tjaccvy^j. a4-b<rcc,\xui. a^-Kxcc.^vMi. aH-bccc^^vnu- 
 ffuS.-'OicefXjcpc- a«<-bccc99^ii;aH-btvay95,vi- hm bwcc^xwi- 
 
 aH-bccc<j,Y^icnu '^eftpojirtjjelrraiicmr onrcotLttS certeiigEtnt^Lnb 
 Kept ^mibj-c^pnene- "jhit-initeL opjthengi)i>c- 
 
 .•t^^cceijx^^cvii^CjTceWiTancing' foiila'binKren. twitnapwligjrm. 
 -jliif bpo5o[tt(Jc TO'!)Tnun'& rtjjfeUnr • ealboal<vnie'ripmion>n 
 0Cfcr«fCC rpupbcv ttXMm- ftubeonim nantonJi . boji'b vfaU/ 
 cUiFon- heovon txtcho i m'ba' haiuonalacuni- opnan co't 
 
 campeop- w latjiagelipi^ne tan!feeal^'i>pnlio|iS']K4mrt|' 
 kccwife cjinnroT) • fc otrg, t eoW qrc-^pylorttn trt^fieolUn 
 •Eelb bennafeErecra/niace. ri^anrunnetipp onnton-KJtrib 
 TTWnerunTOL.Tiaicij:e|tTTiunbapTo'6e|vanbelb«nkt/tccr 
 t>jtmtti?r' oWeotetelex^rcertFc mKcoretle-Wn'cer j^ec^moni^- 
 Tatium aroreb-^man nottScjine- bcenr c^l'bpote n rpilcc 
 
 eop^cypxjtn onLafcLe^WUi|>utnoeo'&ofv- lteoponke|te 
 pLymcm tjm'bftnWnlemecum.mjy'Wni'ceap-pMm tn^ju* 
 nep^p-nbon • Wn^eptidtibplcgan K<eU|?<v n(^Tn^v||<^jt<^^emt^ 
 <MiLipc-opepeap^l)U»nS onlt^ep topme Urt&5ej*oKtoap(J!g! 
 togcpeolite pipellgHi- onjjrttncampptEVc ai^apgcon^c- 
 fpropWrn^pepbc, ppilcevn-eac eopUranUpep.-ninjum 
 Jienjer. plomn-jpcocatWjcpl^mc'bpgap^J ■ nojtVmaroiA. 
 t|irg»nKft>c^**b^.«li1>i:ppzBfntl^i:Upejio^Ccpe<i&cnttp- 
 
 Fig. 153. Page from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 934 A. D. 
 
 Fig- 153 is the reproduction of a page of the famous 
 " Anglo-Saxon Chronicle " which was kept continuously 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 419 
 
 in England from the coming of the Saxons to. the time 
 of the Conquest in 1066. There are but fifty pages of the 
 Chronicle extant: The first complete record in the page 
 here illustrated is for the year 934 and reads : 
 
 Anno dccccxxxiiii. Her for aethelstan cinq on scot- 
 land aether ge midland here gg mid scyphere 
 and his micel oferhergode. " This year went King 
 Athelstan into Scotland both with a land force and a 
 sea force and laid waste much of it." 
 
 The type of letter in which this precious record of the 
 early history of England is written is a late form of the 
 Anglo-Saxon minuscule verging into the black-letter. In 
 the body of the text the cursive form of A (a) is used 
 throughout, but in the dates the earlier form (a) con- 
 sistently is used; as is also the old uncial capital N. 
 
 Gradually through the early Middle Ages the Anglo- 
 Saxon minuscule developed from the round, set minuscule 
 of the 7th and 8th centuries, illustrated in Fig. 150 and 
 Fig. 151, through the more angular type of the loth cen- 
 tury, as shown in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, until finally 
 it developed into the black-letter or Old English letter 
 in the 12th and 13th centuries. With the coming of the 
 Normans and the general introduction of Norman- 
 French culture, the purity of the Anglo-Saxon language 
 began to suffer from the admixture of foreign elements, 
 and for several centuries the language passed through the 
 formative stages that eventually gave us our fully de- 
 veloped English speech of the Ehzabethan period. Writ- 
 ing developed along quite the same lines of historical 
 culture, passing through a period quite similar to that of 
 the spoken language and to the somewhat parallel de- 
 velopment on the continent, which gave rise to the Gothic 
 
420 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 black-letter used until the Invention of printing, but soon 
 thereafter abandoned, except In Germany. 
 
 
 Fig. 154. Charter of the City of London. Granted by William the 
 Conqueror {circa 1066). 
 
 Fig. 154, a facsimile of the Charter of the City of 
 London, granted by William the Conqueror in 1066, is 
 written in the beautiful Saxon minuscule of the nth 
 century. The transformation Into the black-letter or Old 
 English Is almost complete, as far as the small letters are 
 concerned. The English In which the charter Is written 
 is so early and quaint that it actually needs translation to 
 be understood to-day. It reads: 
 
 " William, king, greets William, bishop, and Geof- 
 frey, Portreeve, and all the Burghers within Lon- 
 don, French and English, friendly. And I make known 
 unto you that I will that ye be worthy all those laws 
 the which ye were in King Edward's day, and I will 
 that each child be his father's heir after his father's 
 day, and I will not suffer that any man do you any 
 wrong. -God give you health." 
 
 The reader will detect a few strange characters In this 
 Anglo-Saxon writing. The character for " and " is an 
 innovation. Two other characters have been taken from 
 the ancient runes and incorporated into the written 
 script. They both resemble the letter p. The one that 
 occurs in the word "will" (wylle) Is the rune "wen" 
 (w) . The other one that occurs several times in the 
 words "the" and "that" Is the rune "thorn" (th). 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 421 
 
 The latter character continued In use for several cen- 
 turies, finally changing into y and persisting into very 
 recent times in the word "ye" (the). A noted exam- 
 ple of this usage is to be found in the inscription on 
 Shakespeare's tomb in the old church at Stratford-upon- 
 Avon (Fig. 155). 
 
 Good frend for ksvs ^ake forbeare, 
 
 TO Dice THE DVST ENCLOASED t£ARE t 
 BlESE be f MAN T SPARE! TIE^ 5TONE5; 
 AND CVRST BE HE ^ MOVES MY BONES' 
 
 Fig. 155. Inscription on Shakespeare's tomb. Stratford-upon-Avon. 
 
 Another very precious relic written in the Anglo-Saxon 
 minuscule of the period is the famous " Domesday 
 Book," a survey of the counties in England, executed in 
 1086 under the orders of William the Conqueror. 
 There were several of these Domesday Books, all of 
 them written in Latin, but executed by many different 
 hands, as is attested by the individuality of the hand- 
 writing. There is one in the Public Record Office in 
 London, in two volumes. The first volume consists of 
 382 double columns, nine and one-half inches by fourteen 
 and five-eighths inches, written in double columns. The 
 second volume consists of 450 double pages of single 
 columns. It is a survey of the counties of Essex, Suffolk 
 and Norfolk. Another large section is in the Exeter 
 Chapter Library. It is the survey of the counties of 
 Dorset, Wilts, Somerset, Cornwall and Devon. There 
 are in all 532 pages of this survey, written in Latin by 
 several different hands, the scribe who completed the final 
 page writing at the bottom: " Consummatum est." 
 
422 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 huhi 
 
 nrtflk.ttn -isdiitxix^ ii^M (unc tn utiU^.C ti^.^ mtif>*«f 
 func ;?oc<ji. qi^ 5r5abl<^74eiUif^«MnCv»ifc loUai, 
 
 <Aefirma..Lo.r<Jl'.7ii- moUm dt>jocuJtA7*n.'^«f7oi;A.'iH- 
 
 XjoaAxn f>uf fioxen.t(.cterta oi.iu l>S]^ajf;«aTfifci TaeK 
 <tt a5mnatu.7 ujt. at. l*^ 
 
 Fig. 156. Page from the "Domesday" of Berkshire. 
 
 We reproduce In Fig. 156 one of the pages of the 
 Domesday Book containing the survey of Berkshire. 
 The language is so quaint that we will give the tran- 
 scription of the first paragraph : 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 423 
 
 THE KING'S LAND 
 
 King William holds Windsor in demesne. King Ed- 
 ward held it. There are twenty hides. There is land 
 for ... In demesne is one plough and twenty-two 
 villeins and two bordars with ten ploughs. There is 
 one serf, a fishery with six shillings and eight pence and 
 forty acres of meadow. A wood for pannage of fifty 
 hogs, and another wood enclosed, and there are yet a 
 hundred hagae, less five in the vIU. Out of these 
 twenty-six are quit of gabel, and the issue of the others 
 is thirty shillings." 
 
 The lines drawn through some of the proper names — 
 WilHam, Windsor, Thatcham, Hundred — are not 
 erasures, but red ink lines to indicate importance, that 
 have taken black on the photograph. 
 
 As a whole the writing in all these books is quite uni- 
 form in style, all being in the Anglo-Saxon minuscule cur- 
 rent in the nth century. The letters are in a pointed, set 
 hand, transitional between the round Saxon minuscule and 
 the black-letter. The capitals in the superscription, and 
 elsewhere, are almost pure uncials, with hardly a trace of 
 Old English. Up to the end of the 12th century the old 
 square capitals, and the uncials that developed out of 
 them, were used for initial letters with the angular minus- 
 cules for the text; but in the 13th century arose the new 
 series out of the Carohne, and the Gothic capitals rapidly 
 displaced the old forms and continued in use until the 
 original Roman capitals were restored in the time of the 
 Renaissance. 
 
 The reader will perhaps recognize in the last two 
 manuscripts a perfected type of letter markedly different 
 from the earlier Anglo-Saxon letter, which was full and 
 rounding. This new type of letter is the medieval black- 
 
424 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 25ittrSolBd enSttt 5003 mSw in9inj--^^vv-v.vv-*v.'-— *^— 
 {Jpyann* conncnccful at)ta|li^a£OiitrtimmivKe"ttia©« 
 an9 ^Kcngte yi>on-f>anencE.to ifHAit m^to \)k fhlU 
 Ati9 fciSe Ijim {t\f- (lyt SortQt.fo l;rt- be JonK UjiUtf 
 
 flfo,rt<i So a« SDCtuitV4JwU*s)).p5zi)ot6el i (jtt-^ol&j 
 -yAt r>ft«Ail*^ to t«d)tf oy*)Ai,^ Scbcr il)ol£)e htt- 
 }MS\)i yixfdoy Hi 'j)<i.tt<!ijty,\]fi)\Si V)rt-fi^y«i hifbt- 
 
 ^m facttr t- 9ontent-inamiiv5 nocabttiti • 
 ti^Vfe 'yote d'etre <)n()9 concuJnce»c9f^4 tBljat uf -SolBol 
 \i)mi itu i^cn(<9 i\\ws> di\^i>{)i qtft biitr m tore 
 
 •ff:>t^(f>c«> lone 'pc-pto«|)iurtn»\iatr>fnvun^TWS« mconcs 
 aU«! By nc mnnjlm5«3 ♦ dnS aXW Uynt cyAftiS- 
 5ftu<2 loiie ttns UittttanS lolBrnffiCf 1)«!^ 
 Xrxd no -h^n- ^ tabif'to ^eu(i -y^is fOity^lUc. 
 :3iTt:9il»^ atnir^^TOu Ans> 9n« qws Itrtabtr TtaUnariotiio 
 an6.pwi»e^ b>i yn>«)' jtiUif^n^iralU; y^ngcy"tl(?nio bomi6 
 ymr Wl \on« ims i^t)>c "T^ ioy u5 to "btj fonnScru~-— *'-**"^ 
 (^jtio8J3*)««'\7i4)lotib-m*n:prtnettccs mnmntr 
 Vx fOK ^ctiwl 4>cta«i fdjftl^ncn -wttr 1 fciSo. 
 A11S ft-tfoVU« bi fotiirOS •«n9 ^ j'rtfcij l)it- n<fntf)<t 
 -yat-9if« Socii9ili^9intiii9 y^mnmp' 
 Uyeyttlt votb l)inx);<Lp<»».»ntfn<i-|i!2»^i mjrti|v-^-— -*-** — 
 ^pTafi- l)Otii coV&- on Tjid I)«s.of ^Ue byriSif fpedjc 
 
 ffona i^nry yi Ibrtb atiS Usi y y i U}o?s»T«s lou« fatti Q|jtnn« 
 tin;* ^«tf ifim 1^ atiS' *ft->tfn(j>< drijw nisc 
 
 ^n0 lanlje iw bim yit5 IBrp lonc^-nllje Uuljc oti yc 
 
 An9 bittrl)c botec f«>2 yn5 bctj>n8T»ljl^nS trune i lB«?2t>C'"^'**' — ' 
 
 (PCnS ftbttn ijtf bi«S£»< 1 teo^cs yi»s«tUitt« no man aft*^ 
 Vi\)<y ^iyiS yi ylonljnian bi fftm»)'o ^^tfnjili f;e,tt<tTte 
 ;vn» v<fon v*i ttfrej^An^ ^tl^) Ibiy pim jcS)* 
 isa nc cwun«n(K an8 d<>itne»i coi^$< no mo ftfijiii-''--'^^' — 
 
 ^pCrtS :f)aoena :pi(mcili i^jaaft^yo f<iyi6 itau ■yiuSjyai'lSiS 
 
 ^[fvbolSc dns » Ibil bas«H4.ts>)mi< al f>aniire 
 
 CSiy onw bi>mTij!»n*-i>f biJvt)C;*»»ji<nj> bloS frtjtSSpniJ-*—- ~^ 
 4[ywU< tbt4)n«ij]< i]uo9 1)t!»mrl)oUttJvitT) ft^jeijftneKS nmair 
 
 Fig. 157. Page from the poem of "Piers Plowman." Anglo-Saxon book- 
 hand of the 14th century. 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 425 
 
 letter. It is condensed and angular, the curves of the 
 Caroline letters giving way to points. It is an economical 
 letter, taking up comparatively little room, but hard to 
 read on account of its uniformity. This letter with little 
 modification remained the popular book-hand in England 
 until the Invention of printing. 
 
 We will give two final examples of English manuscript 
 writing in the black-letter. Fig. 157 is a reproduction of 
 a page of " Piers Plowman," a poem composed by Wil- 
 liam Langland, who lived 1362-1393. The full title of 
 the work Is : " The Vision of William concerning Piers 
 Plowman together with Vita de Dowel, Dobet and Do- 
 best." The writing is in the English minuscule or Old 
 English of the latter half of the 14th century. That the 
 reader may identify the letters and at the same time ob- 
 tain a hint of the historic growth of the language and 
 especially of the orthography of this age, we will give a 
 transcript of a part of this quaint old English poem, be- 
 ginning at the third line : 
 
 Thanne conclence ful curtelsliche a countenaunce made 
 And prengte upon pacience. to preie me to be stille 
 And seide him self sire doctor, so hit be youre wille 
 What Is dowel and dobet. ye dyuynours knoweth 
 I haue I seld seide the doctor. I can sele no bettere 
 Forte do as doctours telleth. for dowel I hit holde 
 That traualleth to teche othere. for dobet I holde hit 
 And he that doth as he techeth. I holde hit for the 
 
 beste. 
 Qui facit et docuerit magnus uocabitus. 
 Now thou clergie quod conclence. carpe what is dowel 
 Hauve me excused quod clergie. bl crist but in scole 
 Schal no swich motyng be meuet. for me but there 
 
426 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 For peres loue the ploughman, that enpungnese me 
 
 ones 
 Alle kyne cunnynges. and alle kyne craftes 
 Saue loue and leute. and lownesse of herte 
 And no tixt to take, to preue this for trewe. 
 But dilige deum et proximum and dominie quis. habi- 
 
 tabit in tabernaculo tuo 
 And proueth be puyr skille. inparfit alle thynges Nemo 
 
 bonus 
 But lei loue and truthe. that loth is to be founden. 
 
 Our final example of the English black-letter or Old 
 English, is a manuscript copy of the " Poem de Regimine 
 Principum," by Thomas Occleve, dedicated to Henry, 
 Prince of Wales (Fig. 158). It is written in the English 
 minuscule of the court hand type, in a set angular, form, 
 arranged in poetic stanzas, with illuminated initials. It 
 is a beautiful example of early 15th century writing, just 
 prior to the invention of printing. 
 
 In the last two manuscripts we notice a peculiar form 
 of capital letter used for initials at the beginning of each 
 line of the poem, according to our modern custom. The 
 letters are widely different from the capitals used in the 
 earlier centuries, — the square, rustic and uncial letters. 
 They are the medieval capitals, the Gothic uncials, of 
 which there was a large variety. The devolution and 
 evolution of the classic capitals is a strange story of degra- 
 dation, elimination and complete ultimate restoration. 
 For a few centuries the square capitals illustrated in the 
 second line in Fig. 159 were exclusively used in written 
 manuscripts, as illustrated in Fig. 143. All the letters in 
 every word were capitals, only very slightly changed 
 from the classic letters. There being no small letters em- 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 427 
 
 ytst t9 xnaM otJ)tif twetv m-ttmem^ttmue 
 
 ^«« op (jju^ of penv cem/rrij r^/Wtitttf' 
 <I!>f .)?o««f,t»f««eft «^att a, vitig-jttmt'^ 
 
 i^«^ of y« ^tttfjle tr S»vCw^ &w»^ 
 l^^rtr tf^omc ^oC$<u wjnwou) %tti9 ($*(» 
 
 /Va enmf&ttfe g»$ooti ovw ©f w-SS^ 
 
 :pa/]rc «€)f u^ 6C(!ffi8 txtmtb 
 
 fipK ^«u Wl9j «fe y tkb^ 1 ccimiK 
 
 r 
 
 Fig. 158. Page from the "Poem de Regimine Principum," by Thomas Oc- 
 cleve. Written in English minuscules of the " court-hand type." Early 
 15th century. 
 
428 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 ployed, such as we now use throughout the text of a 
 printed book, Initial letters, when used — which was 
 rarely — were simply enlarged capitals. During a part of 
 this early period, and later, the free variety of the square 
 capital known as the rustic capital was used for manu- 
 scripts, as has been shown in Fig. 144. This form of let- 
 ter was a more marked departure from the classic capital 
 than the square capital; but it possessed undoubted ele- 
 ments of grace and beauty. Again the entire manuscript 
 was written in these capitals. There were no small letters 
 and no Initial letters employed except the rare use of 
 enlarged capitals of the style of letter used throughout 
 the text of the manuscript. 
 
 In the 5 th and 6th centuries the classic capitals became 
 degraded into the uncial letters, which contained a 
 strange mixture of the old capitals and the incipient forms 
 of the approaching minuscule letters. Still, only the one 
 alphabet was used throughout the manuscript. Words, as 
 a rule, were not separated, and the use of large letters for 
 initials still had not come Into vogue. When, however, in 
 the 7th and 8th centuries, the semi-uncial and in the next 
 century the minuscule letters became fully developed In 
 Ireland and England and later on the continent, and it 
 became the settled practice to divide the pages into para- 
 graphs, sentences and clauses, the use of initial letters 
 for the opening words of the literary divisions of the 
 manuscript began to be the custom. The choice of letter 
 for these Initials varied with the preference of the scribe. 
 Sometimes the type of letter chosen was an enlarged form 
 of the minuscle with which the body of the manuscript 
 was written; sometimes It was the old uncial, the old rus- 
 tic or the early square capital that was used for the Initial 
 letter. These various usages will be observed in the 
 manuscripts illustrated in this book. 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 429 
 
 rS KN <^ 
 > > > 
 
 H H H 
 ^ en ^ 
 Oi) Pi) ^^ 
 
 O O o 
 
 S S s 
 
 I — r I — p — • 
 
 u u <^ 
 
 IR ^ — ITP 
 s L_ r^ 
 
 a~ o^ 0-" 
 Q^ Ol-. p^ 
 000 
 
 i ^ ^ 
 leg 
 
 K MH •^ 
 
 O O o 
 
 IX| tiH Im 
 
 W W >-M 
 
 Q Q ^ 
 
 U U cj 
 
 < ^ -<; 
 
 ^ r^ -^ 
 
 i) ci; ^ 
 
 ■^ -^ T-> 
 
 ^ ^ ^ 
 
 w^ ico ^-^ 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 4J -^ 3 o 
 
 U^ -^ S 
 
 P 
 
 . mt/] m 
 
 ^ y C (U 
 
 c on o 
 
 •r! "^ V 
 rt tn . S 
 
 C Sj ii h « 
 
 a i^-2io& 
 
 o — . . ^^ 
 
 " — u> 
 
 J3 if 3 » 
 
 a >i&S 
 
 £ °tc3 S"^ 
 
 ^ .ss; 
 
 U O 
 
 CO rt y d'^'^ 
 
 c M , 3^ 
 
 c*^ O J? o 
 
 ^ ri K S w. 
 
 
 iS «' C! rt w 
 
 3 rt rt c ^ 
 O o , aj }- 
 
 
430 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 EXEARPSVMDE 
 EANONIBVSEATH" 
 
 LICORVMPATRV 
 
 VELP^NITENTEE 
 
 ADREMEDIVMANI 
 
 MARVMDOMNIEEE 
 
 BERHTIAREHIEPI 
 
 EBVRA CIVITATIS> 
 
 Fig. 1 60. Title page in Roman capitals of a manuscript written in the 
 Anglo-Saxon minuscule of the loth century. 
 
 That the old classic capitals were never lost sight of, 
 even by scribes in farthest Britain, is confirmed by the 
 beautiful title page (Fig. 160) to a manuscript written 
 in the Anglo-Saxon minuscule of the loth century. The 
 manuscript is a copy of the different prayers, liturgical 
 readings, services for ordination and confirmation, etc, 
 prepared by Egbert, Archbishop of York, brother of Eg- 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 431 
 
 bert, King of England (827). The only letter that at all 
 has changed its form from the classic Roman type of the 
 early empire — save a certain severity of treatment en- 
 tirely defensible in a title page — is the letter G. An in- 
 teresting example of capital letters used In the following 
 century is the alphabet shown in Fig. 161, selected from 
 the Inscription on the tomb of Gundreda, sister of Wil- 
 liam the Conqueror (1085). The Roman spirit predomi- 
 nates, only four uncial forms being employed. The letters 
 are beautiful in shape and proportion, and with hardly 
 an exception would dignify any modern poster design. 
 
 ABCDGFGblkL 
 MNOPaRSTVX 
 
 Fig. 161. Capital letters selected from an inscription on the tomb of 
 William the Conqueror. 1085. 
 
 When the Caroline minuscule finally had become super- 
 seded by the black-letter in the 12th and 13th centuries 
 and the full spirit of Gothic medievalism prevailed 
 throughout Europe, the old capitals began to be obsoles- 
 cent and finally became a very rare occurrence. A new 
 series of capital letters arose, based largely on the uncial 
 modification of the old capitals, especially evidenced In 
 the letters DEGHKMNTV. These new Gothic 
 capitals were marked by an increasing degree of floridlty 
 in their treatment. At first this feature was only a mod- 
 erate characteristic, as shown in the following alphabet 
 selected from a manuscript of the 12th century. Two 
 forms of D were used, — at first the old capital, 
 then later the uncial variation. Both were given scrolls. 
 
432 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 ^BCDt)Ee'p(abjBlM 
 
 amopQRS'Suvxyz 
 
 Two forms of E and M were used, — the old capital, 
 actually looking out of place with its rounding and florid 
 companions, and the more cursive, uncial form. The al- 
 phabet is very ornamental, and manuscripts illuminated 
 with initials and rubrics in these beautiful letters are a 
 positive delight to the artistic eye. 
 
 The alphabet illustrated in Fig. 162 is one of the finest 
 examples of the medieval Gothic capital letters employed 
 in stately inscriptions and monumental brasses in the 
 cathedrals and abbeys of England and the continent. The 
 letters are selected from the inscription on a tomb in the 
 Cathedral at Liibeck, which bears the date 1341. Letters 
 similar in shape and ornamentation are to be seen in St. 
 Margaret's Church at Lynn Regis, Norfolk, England, 
 bearing the date 1349. These letters are so precisely 
 
 Fig. 162. Gothic letters selected from a tomb in the Cathedral at Liibeck. 
 
 1341 A D. 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 433 
 
 similar to those at Liibeck that one decides at once that 
 the same talented artist designed both monuments. 
 
 In the 14th and 15th centuries, as we know, manu- 
 scripts were written in the pointed black-letter, the medie- 
 val Gothic minuscule prevailing at this period. The style 
 of capital letters used for initials and rubrics with this 
 type of letter varied considerably with the individual 
 scribes, some being exceedingly ornate with scrolls and 
 elaborate foliations in color and shading. The general 
 type, however, through the late Middle Ages conforms 
 rather closely to the Gothic uncials illustrated in Fig. 163. 
 This is the style of capital that we associate most inti- 
 mately with the medieval black-letter of the monasteries. 
 It frequently is called the " monastic script." 
 
 X)^Xiffi3:io:ea 
 
 Fig. 163. Gothic uncials of the Middle Ages. 
 
 In Germany we find the black-letter on congenial soil. 
 There the capital rose to its highest point of develop- 
 ment or rather elaboration. As specimens of free pen- 
 manship some of the German manuscripts are unexcelled, 
 if they are very difficult to read. Fig. 164 illustrates the 
 German Gothic capitals drawn by a most clever penman 
 in a free, facile manner, executed with a broad quill pen, 
 and decorated with sparkling embellishments that do not 
 too much disguise the character and shape of the letters. 
 This alphabet, of the 13th or 14th century, seems to take 
 
434 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 us to the very summit of digression from the classic capi- 
 tal from which it developed step by step through the 
 intervening centuries. Let the reader turn back now to 
 the Roman capitals shown in the first line in Fig. 159 and 
 compare the two alphabets letter for letter. Is it not an 
 extraordinary transformation? If we were not long fa- 
 miliar with Gothic capitals and the sequence of the letters 
 in the alphabet, it would be difficult at once to identify 
 them, they have so widely departed from their Roman 
 prototypes. 
 
 Fig. 164. German Gothic or Black Letter. 
 
 Contemporaneous with the book-hand in England there 
 existed throughout the Middle Ages a somewhat cursive 
 form of writing employed in state and legal documents 
 known as the " Court " or " Charter " hand. It grew out 
 of the book-hand, being based like it on the Caroline 
 minuscule of the 9th and loth centuries. It did not begin 
 to be distinctive until about the 12th century, deteriorat- 
 ing after the middle of the 13th century. It was employed 
 in making grants, charters and legal documents. It was 
 a smaller letter than that used in religious manuscripts, 
 and not so black, being a much lighter letter. At first the 
 letters were separated, as in the book-hand; but later they 
 became linked up with ligatures and connecting strokes. 
 Up to about 1350 the letters were comparatively round; 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 435 
 
 but about this time they became increasingly more pointed 
 or angular, until late in the 15 th century, when there 
 was a return to the round letter, resulting in greater free- 
 dom in penmanship. The reader probably is familiar with 
 one example of the Court hand, the famous Magna 
 C'harta, signed by King John in 1215, granting rights and 
 privileges to the barons and people of England. Fac- 
 simile copies of this manuscript printed in colors are quite 
 common. The letters in this manuscript are small and 
 neat, neither pointed nor cursive, and show the type of 
 letter which with successive modifications ultimately de- 
 veloped into our modern script used in handwriting. 
 
 The style of writing known as the " Chancery " hand, 
 used in the law courts of England, a variety of the Court 
 hand and very similar to it, was a neat, set, decidedly 
 beautiful letter when well written, as may be judged by 
 the alphabet shown below: 
 
 a6t5efs^tfCmixo$qTg<tuTOpf^j 
 
 This hand remained in vogue in the writing of all records 
 which passed the Great Seal until the i6th century. So 
 long as these court hands remained pointed, the writing 
 continued to be cramped. There was Httle freedom. In 
 the more cursive examples of the court hand, as seen in 
 the letters of the more intelUgent classes, the hand- 
 writing in many cases was a sad degeneration of the cur- 
 rent hand. This is illustrated by the writing shown in 
 Fig. 165, a letter written by the Prince of Wales in the 
 
436 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 reign of Henry IV (i 399-1413). It is among the earli- 
 est specimens of English written script. With the inven- 
 tion of printing and the return to the round Caroline let- 
 ters, there was a marked reaction upon the penmanship 
 of court scriveners and educated people who read and 
 wrote. Writing became much freer and more regular. 
 Also a new type of script capitals was evolved. After 
 1500 letter- writing became common, as the average of 
 intelligence increased under the inspiration of the Renais- 
 sance- which was then fully under way in Europe. 
 
 ^f^^XZrr- &L ^p>g(t^ Stt> psr,,.,i,!^|^^p3.i ?■*«»" -^^ "f^y- ^ ,5, 
 
 Fig. 165. Handwriting in the reign of Henry IV (1399-1413). Extract 
 from a letter of the Prince of Wales. 
 
 At the close of the 15 th century the formal book-hand 
 disappeared, being superseded by the printing press. Co- 
 incident with this the cursive hands increased in impor- 
 tance ; the northern, pointed type giving way to the south- 
 ern, rounded forms, more especially to the Italic script, a 
 new form of letter invented by Aldus Manutius in Venice, 
 in 1495. It is said that this Italic script was a close imi- 
 tation of the handwriting of Petrarch. It produced a pro- 
 found effect upon the handwriting of the day in Italy and 
 in other European countries and in England. This period 
 may be said to mark the birth of modern handwriting. 
 Gradually the cursive hand lost its angular character and 
 became rounder and more regularly linked-up in the line. 
 It was the Chancery hand, that was so much used in the 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 437 
 
 courts and In domestic correspondence in England, im- 
 proved by the adoption of Italic features, from which 
 our modern English handwriting has developed. We 
 should also mention as another formative factor in our 
 present script letters the somewhat angular " Secretary " 
 hand, used by lawyers and scriveners. 
 
 In the 1 6th century letter-writing began to be quite an 
 ordinary accomplishment among intelligent people. But 
 the "hand " in which correspondence was written varied 
 as much as the individuals who penned it. Some wrote 
 every letter separately, the page looking like printing; 
 some wrote a round Italic hand; while others wrote with 
 an angular, pointed letter. Letters to Queen Mary of 
 England from potentates in Europe, about 1550, nearly 
 all are in fine, rounded letters, slanted and generally sepa- 
 rated. Such is a letter from Cosmo de' Medici, September 
 I, 1553, to Queen Mary. The queen herself wrote a per- 
 fect Italic hand, unexcelled by any of her correspondents ; 
 though the general average of the handwriting of the 
 English nobility of the period was decidedly poorer than 
 that of the European courtiers and literary men. Da 
 Vinci, who was left-handed, printed his letters in his volu- 
 minous notes on art, mathematics, astronomy, geometry, 
 science and mechanics. Michael Angelo and Tasso wrote 
 remarkably fine hands, conspicuous for their well-formed 
 letters. Lady Jane Grey, the talented and tragic victim 
 of her cousin Mary's jealousy and bigotry, wrote a beau- 
 tiful hand in round letters, sometimes printing each letter 
 separately, again writing cursively with the letters regu- 
 larly linked-up. Her writing shows her to be the prodigy 
 which she really was among her sex. Queen Ehzabeth 
 also at times printed her letters — generally In her 
 younger years — and again wrote cursively, always with 
 well-shaped letters, extremely legible, as we would well 
 
438 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Fry fifj%.i**j wwif'ty-"' ./ - 
 
 ' cVnMYor cof?nHfi ta any thma^ ...~. „..^., „. j,...-™ — 
 mint /nr(H tlifr(& jn- Ritbly hifffcffi your ■mK'ttfli^ h h^ 
 
 
 an ns.y^oy . 
 
 £iftci)t vi 
 •Minocrtv prozurti 
 
 «rH^r L upoyt (cmwc ^n^s "ijJottrfl^JoH h,r€ rf 
 
 fo f /;r prtf^U of tfiir pMcc Pj^^^^^r 4>? M^^r 
 
 [orde 
 
 ''If 
 
 .. . .: brcjiMci of 
 
 
 of- t(,ir pMcc ^;m^^\ M^Ji M f?"^"^, IJYj 
 
 ■Knowen 
 
 1 66. Part I. Letter of the Princess Elizabeth to Queen Mary. 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 439 
 
 'thtrhr. om (»| 
 
 rfff ^Si/f-t 
 
 nat- 
 ch: 
 
 if^l<r,ey/c not my/W/e ^cf cftn csj L^w^' mv^lfe^.-ft 
 
 mi PI mp* but- o« «iy .7 nehH^r runr^pl any from (inn fiiP 
 fis fvTT Wuoxt of nri Uttnt hni- to th^ frTifye M*yt&r ^Ipfj^y 
 
 tnkepy lAtir iiy /my jmenes rfint( (v ihts <m^ wy irtmn ■ 
 
 7\ h»mbk emut tnl »n(y onr Woiilt 
 
 
 Fig. 1 66. Part II. Letter of the Princess Elizabeth to Queen Mary. 
 
440 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Imagine. In Fig. i66 we reproduce a remarkable letter 
 of hers to Queen Mary, written March i6th, 1553-4, 
 when as Princess Elizabeth she was undergoing imprison- 
 ment In the Tower, at the hands of her half-sister Mary, 
 the queen. Pathetic though this letter Is, we are the more 
 Impressed with the unusual sagacity and maturity of mind 
 of the young princess, then but twenty years of age. 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, the unfortunate and Ill-fated 
 queen of France and Scotland, printed her words In very 
 large and bold letters, entirely separated from each other. 
 Her letters from the Tower during her nineteen years of 
 imprisonment are very pathetic, especially the one dated 
 June I, 1569, and addressed " To the Queen of England, 
 madame, my good Sister and Cousin." 
 
 
 The handwriting of the men of Elizabeth's court seems 
 very much more cursive and more sophisticated than that 
 of the women. Essex, Buckingham, Leicester, Bacon and 
 Raleigh, all wrote hands quite similar to those of to-day; 
 though the latter sometimes resorted to printing, as in 
 the postscript to a letter to his rival, Dudley, which we 
 reproduce above. It reads: " The Queen is In very good 
 tearms with you and thank be to god well pacified and 
 you ar agayne her sweet Robyn." 
 
 We will give a final example. Fig. 167, of the hand- 
 writing of the Elizabethan period, which is perhaps a fair 
 average of the penmanship of the day, though It may be 
 a trifle less legible than many of the letters of well-known 
 
WRITING IN THE MIDDLE AGES 441 
 
 men of that period. The letter is one of John Knox's 
 broadsides. But the subject of his attack, Queen Mary, 
 the Catholic monarch of Protestant Scotland, and one 
 who was brought up amid the gayeties and frivolities of 
 the French court, is most adroitly concealed, leaving no 
 incriminating evidence. It is impersonal, but Cecil must 
 have read the meaning between the lines. 
 Knox writes as follows : 
 
 " Benifittes of Goddes handes receaved, crave that 
 menne be thankfull, and daunger knowen wolde be 
 awoided. Yf ye strik not att the roote, the branches 
 that appear to be brocken will budd agane (and that 
 mor quicklye then menne can beleve) with greattar 
 forse then we wolde wishe. Turn your eie unto God. 
 Forgett yourself and yours, when consultation Is to be 
 had In matters of such weight as presently lye upon 
 you. Albeit I have been full medly handllled, yet was 
 I never enemey to the quietnes of England. God grant 
 you wisdome. In halst of Edinburgh the 2 of Janner 
 1569. 
 
 Yours to command In 
 
 God, 
 
 John Knox with his 
 
 one foote In the 
 
 grave 
 More dales then one 
 wolde not suffice to expres 
 what I think. 
 
442 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 
 -^^^ 
 
 J-^^-^lC^^^ . 
 
 
 g:^ 
 
 Fig. 167. Letter of John Knox to Sir William Cecil. January 2, 1569-70. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 EUROPEAN ALPHABETS DERIVED FROM THE GREEK 
 
 Before the culture of Rome carrying with it the Latin 
 alphabet spread over Europe after Caesar's conquest of 
 Gaul and Britain, there was in use in northern Europe, 
 particularly in Scandinavia — Norway, Sweden and Den- 
 mark — a system of writing with alphabetic characters 
 known as " Runes." In the Scandinavian countries men- 
 tioned have been found thousands of inscriptions in this 
 ancient alphabet. Runic inscriptions also have been found 
 in the valley of the Danube, but not in Germany; in cer- 
 tain parts of England, but not in Ireland; and in general 
 they have been found only in those places where the 
 Scandinavian races were known to have lived or colonized. 
 The transmission of alphabetic writing to the Baltic tribes 
 must have taken place in very early times, as it is known 
 that the northern Goths traded with the Greeks in the 
 countries north and northwest of the Black Sea in classic 
 times. Dr. Isaac Taylor ("The Alphabet") believes 
 that this transmission must have occurred some centuries 
 prior to the Christian era. 
 
 The old name of the Runic alphabet, " Futhorc," in 
 which these inscriptions were written, was applied to it on 
 the same principle of aerology that gave the Greek name 
 to our own alphabet, being derived from the initials of the 
 ancient names of the first six runes : fe (/) , ur (u) , thorn 
 (th), OS (o), rad (r), and cen (c) . There were several 
 variants of this alphabet, all very much alike but differ- 
 ing according to the locality in which the alphabet was 
 
 443 
 
444 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Phonetic 
 value 
 
 Gothic 
 
 Anglian 
 
 Scandi- 
 navian 
 
 Phonetic 
 value 
 
 Gothic 
 
 Anglian 
 
 Scandi- 
 navian 
 
 f 
 
 ?^ 
 
 ^P 
 
 r 
 
 ih,i,eo 
 
 A/s/^ 
 
 v/^ 
 
 
 u 
 
 An 
 
 nn 
 
 n 
 
 P 
 
 ^ 
 
 KG 
 
 K 
 
 th 
 
 DI>I> 
 
 l> 
 
 P 
 
 a,i,k,x 
 
 Y 
 
 Y 
 
 
 a,ae,o 
 
 ^f= 
 
 pp 
 
 =f 
 
 s 
 
 s 
 
 H 
 
 h 
 
 r 
 
 RR 
 
 R 
 
 RA 
 
 t 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^/| 
 
 c,fc 
 
 <A 
 
 k 
 
 K 
 
 b 
 
 ^ 
 
 B 
 
 B 
 
 g 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 
 e 
 
 nM 
 
 M 
 
 
 v,w 
 
 l> 
 
 p^ 
 
 
 m 
 
 M 
 
 M 
 
 ?t 
 
 h 
 
 NHHH 
 
 f^ 
 
 t 
 
 I 
 
 h 
 
 h 
 
 h 
 
 n 
 
 %'\' 
 
 1^ 
 
 i^k 
 
 ng 
 
 o<> 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 d 
 
 ISIN 
 
 M 
 
 
 y,ge>j>a 
 
 ^h0 
 
 ^ 
 
 /k/l 
 
 o,oe 
 
 5^M 
 
 f\ 
 
 
 Fig. i68. The Runic alphabet 
 
 used. We are indebted to Dr. Taylor for the following 
 brief summary: The oldest runes are the Gothic. They 
 were in use throughout northern Europe prior to the 6th 
 century A. D. It is the primitive type from which the 
 others were developed. Dr. Taylor In a very scholarly 
 analysis, which there will be no occasion to quote at length 
 here, convincingly traces back most of the Gothic runes 
 to Greek alphabetic prototypes, and concludes : " It ap- 
 pears therefore that a Greek source remains as the only 
 
ALPHABETS DERIVED FROM THE GREEK 445 
 
 possible hypothesis for the origin of the Runes." Two 
 other distinctive types of runes were in use through the 
 Dark Ages: the Anglian, used in Northumbria from the 
 7th to the 9th centuries, and the Scandinavian Futhorc of 
 sixteen runes, used in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Cum- 
 berland and the Isle of Man, from the loth century on- 
 ward. 
 
 The three types of the Runic alphabet will be found in 
 Fig. 168, as given by Dr. Taylor. Greek origins for a 
 number of the runes easily will be recognized by the 
 reader, as the resemblance is quite obvious. The order of 
 the letters, however, is strangely perverted from the orig- 
 inal Greek alphabet. There appears to be almost no 
 sequential relationship between the two. P S T follow 
 each other; but this seems to be the only parallel, unless 
 we identify th with d, when we find ae following it. The 
 angular nature of the runes, the absence of curves and 
 horizontal lines indicate that they originally were carved 
 on wood rather than written on skins or paper of any 
 sort. Being cut In the direction of the grain, as shown in 
 the " clog almanacs " with runic characters still extant, 
 serifs or horizontal lines would be a disadvantage. 
 
 A most precious and unique specimen of Runic writing 
 combined with quaint carvings Is the so-called " Frank's 
 Casket," a small box of whale's bone, nine inches long by 
 seven and one-eighth inches wide and five and one-eighth 
 inches in height, found at Auzon, Department of Haute- 
 Soire, France. It is now In the British Museum. Three 
 sides and the top are preserved, but the remaining side 
 is wanting. The left side and the back are reproduced in 
 Figs. 169 and 170 respectively. The carving on the left 
 face of the box illustrates the finding of Romulus and 
 Remus. The Inscription begins on the left at the lower 
 corner and proceeds over the top and right-hand side. 
 
446 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 reading from left to right. The reading continues on the 
 lower line, but with inverted letters, still reading from 
 left to right. The dialect is the Anglo-Saxon of the 8th 
 or 9th century, and is as follows: 
 
 (Left) Othlasun neg (top) romwalus and reum- 
 walus twoegen (right) gibrothaer (bottom) a fcEddae 
 hiae wiilif in romaecaestri. 
 
 Translated: "Outlay (were exposed), nigh, Rom- 
 walus and Reumwalus, twain brothers: fed them a (she) 
 wolf in Rome city." 
 
 Fig. 169. Left face of the Frank's Casket, showing the finding of Romulus 
 and Remus, with the Runic inscription. 
 
 The back face illustrates the storming of Jerusalem by 
 Titus (the left half) and the flight of the Jews (the right 
 half). Beneath on the left is a tribunal, as explained by 
 the word dom, " judgment." On the right a prisoner is 
 being carried away and beneath is the word ffisl, " host- 
 age." The writing begins on the left, as in the left face, 
 and reads in Anglo-Saxon up to the middle, where the 
 throne is, as follows: 
 
ALPHABETS DERIVED FROM THE GREEK 447 
 
 (Left) " her fegtath (top) titus end giutheasu." 
 
 Beyond the figures on the arch the Inscription Is taken 
 up In Latin, and proceeds : 
 
 "hlc fuglant hierusallm (right) afitatores " (or 
 hablbatores). 
 
 Translated the two Inscriptions read: 
 
 " Here fight Titus and the Jews." 
 
 " Here fly from Jerusalem the Inhabitants." 
 
 "."""'f^^^S^'^^P^y^r^^t^'- 
 
 m. 
 
 
 I*""!* — '..^-A -■. •■-• ' ."r-r 1^-i' w '■■ , i » ■ -■! ■ ■ ■!■ ■Ill — J 
 
 t'lC-f, 
 
 mi 
 
 Fig. 170. Back face of the Frank's Casket, showing the capture of 
 Jerusalem, with the Runic inscription. 
 
 The front of the box — not shown by us — carries an 
 Inscription in Runic which quaintly describes the history 
 of the box Itself. The characters run around the carvings 
 the sarrie as in the two side inscriptions, except that the 
 bottom line is not Inverted and reads from right to left. 
 It is known that many of the older Runic inscriptions were 
 either retrograde or boustrophedon. in their reading. 
 This Is one of the arguments advanced to prove that 
 alphabetic characters were Introduced Into northern Eu- 
 
448 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 rope at a very early age, when In Greece and Italy the 
 direction of writing followed the Oriental method. 
 
 The entire inscription on the front face of the box 
 reads as follows : 
 
 " hronaes ban fisc flodu ahof on fergen berig warth 
 gastric grorn thaer on greut giswom." 
 
 In modern English: "The whale's bone from the 
 fish flood I lifted on Fergen Hill. He was gambol- 
 ing (?) crushed, where he on the grit (shingle) swam." 
 
 As the reader may discover, the Inscription is written in 
 the Anglian type of runes, shown in the second column of 
 runes in Fig. i68. As the language Is the old Anglo- 
 Saxon, he may find some pleasure and perhaps some profit 
 in translating the runes; characters that have descended 
 from the old heathen Northmen, who in the earlier cen- 
 turies of the Dark Ages Invaded the fair south lands of 
 Thrace, Greece, Italy and France, laid waste their cities 
 and despoiled them of their priceless Inheritances of art. 
 This precious Runic casket from France, which the North- 
 men invaded, plundered and finally claimed as their own 
 — in Normandy — is a rare bit of historical legendary. 
 It links the Christianity of its day with the dawning Chfis- 
 tianity as well as the paganism of ancient Rome, and is 
 eloquent to us of the then recent conversion of Rolf — 
 or RoUo — Duke of the Northmen, who In 912 was bap- 
 tized in France, taking the baptismal name of Robert, 
 and offering at the same time the allegiance of Normandy 
 to Charles, King of the Merovingians. 
 
 A strange alphabet known as the " Ogham " alphabet 
 was in use In Ireland, Wales and in limited locaKties in 
 Scotland and southwestern England, before the Christian 
 missionaries disseminated the knowledge of the Roman 
 alphabet through the manuscript copies of the Scriptures. 
 
ALPHABETS DERIVED FROM THE GREEK 449 
 
 It is known that Scandinavians settled in these parts, but 
 no trace of Runic inscriptions have been found here. 
 Most of the earliest records of Ireland and Wales were 
 written in these strange characters, known as " Oghams." 
 The word may have come from the old Celtic ogma, sig- 
 nifying letters written in cipher; or from the Welch ogan, 
 meaning an augury or a divination. Dr. Taylor believes 
 that " Ogham writing was simply an adaptation of the 
 runes to xylographic conveniences, notches cut with a 
 knife in the edge of a squared staff being substituted for 
 
 b{f) 
 
 1 f(w) 
 
 s 
 
 n h(ch) d t c 
 
 1 
 
 II III 
 
 III! 
 
 imr ^ -^ ^ -""-: 
 
 -/- 
 
 if- # 
 
 tT 
 
 ^ + + + -t- 
 
 m 
 
 g ng 
 
 st(z) 
 
 r a " e 
 
 Fig. 171. The Oghams. The ancient Celtic alphabet. 
 
 the ordinary runes. That the Oghams were derived from 
 the runes is indicated by the fact that they are found ex- 
 clusively in regions where Scandinavian settlements were 
 established, and also by the fact that the names of the 
 Oghams agree curiously with the names of the runes of 
 corresponding value " (" The Alphabet "). 
 
 We give in Fig. 171 the Oghams arranged according 
 to their groupings, with their phonetic values. The most 
 ancient values are enclosed in brackets. Dr. Taylor fur- 
 ther writes: " An explanation of the mode in which this 
 alphabet was obtained from the runes Is suggested by the 
 somewhat similar Scandinavian ' tree runes,' which were 
 a sort of cryptograms, constructed on the plan of indi- 
 cating, by the number of branches on the tree, the place 
 occupied in the Futhorc by the corresponding ordinary 
 rune." The runes were divided into families; branches to 
 
450 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 the left of the stem indicating the family, and branches 
 to the right the place of the rune in the family. No exact 
 date can be ascribed to this peculiar system of writing, 
 but it is believed they were in use In the 5th century A. D. 
 Their use did not extend outside of the British Isles. 
 
 The Slavonic alphabets of northern and southeastern 
 Europe — the Russian, Bulgarian, Servian and Ruthe- 
 nian — have descended from the Cyrillic of the time of 
 the Greek Emperor Michael III (842-867) and of 
 Boris, Prince of Bulgaria (855-863). Tradition relates 
 that " formerly the Slavonians had no books, but they 
 read and made divinations by means of pictures and fig- 
 ures cut on wood, being pagans. After they had received 
 baptism, they were compelled, without any proper rules, 
 to write their Slavonic tongue by means of Greek and 
 Latin letters. But how could they write well in Greek 
 such words as : bog, zhivot, zelo, or tserkov . . . and 
 others like them ? And so many years passed by. But then 
 God, loving the human race, had pity upon the Slavonians, 
 and sent them St. Constantine the Philosopher, called 
 Cyril, a just and true man, who made for them an alpha- 
 bet of thirty-eight letters, of which some were of the 
 Greek style, and some after the Slavonic language." 
 (From memoirs of Khrabre, a Bulgarian monk, recorded 
 In the works of John, Exarch of Bulgaria (890—922).) 
 
 Cyril's original alphabet consisted of thirty-eight let- 
 ters, which later was Increased to forty-eight. Additional 
 characters were needed to represent the peculiar vowels, 
 sibilants and nasals of the Slavonic tongue. Many of the 
 letters of this amplified alphabet — over twenty — were 
 Identical with the Greek uncials' of the 8th and 9th cen- 
 turies; others were taken from an older Slavonic alphabet 
 and syllabary known as the Glagolitic, which was used by 
 the Croatians as early as the 7th century, or even much 
 
ALPHABETS DERIVED FROM THE GREEK 
 
 451 
 
 A 
 
 A . 
 
 XI 
 
 B 
 
 M" 
 
 Iff 
 
 B 
 
 H» 
 
 ^ 
 
 1' 
 
 ° 
 
 B 
 
 4 
 
 11. 
 
 LI 
 
 E 
 
 P 
 
 B 
 
 IF 
 
 c ■ 
 
 -B 
 
 3 
 
 T ' 
 
 3 
 
 tf 
 
 y " 
 
 K) 
 
 I 
 
 $ ' 
 
 )I 
 
 ft 
 
 e / "V" kh 
 
 e 
 
 K 
 
 Fig. 172. The Russian alphabet. 
 
 y 
 
 ch 
 sh 
 
 shch 
 (e) 
 
 (i) 
 
 ye 
 
 yu 
 
 ya 
 
 ph 
 
 i.u 
 
452 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 earlier. The remaining characters were invented, as the 
 legend runs. 
 
 In the reign of Peter the Great (1672-1725) the old 
 Russian alphabet was revised, many characters being dis- 
 carded and one new letter added. Fig. 172 shows the 
 Russian alphabet of to-day. The reader will recognize it 
 as being more than an alphabet, as it contains several 
 syllabic characters, besides modified vowels and conso- 
 nants. Nineteen of the characters either are identical with 
 the Greek letters or are only slight modifications of them. 
 
 This can easily be explained. It probably was not until 
 about the 6th century that the state of culture of the 
 Slavs brought them to the point where they began to use 
 the Greek letters to any considerable extent in their writ- 
 ten records. At this late period, as we already have 
 learned, the classic Greek capitals had undergone many 
 centuries of modification. The cursive writing of secular 
 documents and letters, with their modifying tendencies, 
 had produced by this time a series of uncials, intermediate 
 between the classic Greek capitals and the later minus- 
 cules. It was from these uncial letters that the Greek 
 letters in the Slavonic alphabets of Europe were taken. 
 The departures from the classic capitals, however, are 
 very slight, and their Greek parentage is most obvious. 
 The reader who wishes to see the strange-looking Glago- 
 litic characters and the Cyrillic alphabet from which the 
 modern Slavonic alphabets have descended, will find 
 them — along with almost every other alphabet — in 
 Dr. Taylor's monumental book: " The Alphabet." 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE AGE OF PRINTING 
 
 At the close of the Middle Ages, scholarly inclined men 
 outside of the Church monasteries — up to this time the 
 only Institutions In which literature of any character had 
 been conserved — began to desire a more liberal educa- 
 tion. The catechism and the church services and rituals 
 alone failed any longer to satisfy the more Intelligent 
 among the masses, and there arose a wide-spread demand 
 for more general Information than the Church up to this 
 time had provided. This period marks the emergence of 
 the intelligent classes from the narrow bigotry and des- 
 potism of the priests, and the emancipation of the minds 
 of thinking men from the ecclesiastical fetters with which 
 medieval orthodoxy had bound them. It was the era of 
 the revival of classic learning, of literature, philosophy 
 and art. Dante (i 265-1321) already had written his 
 immortal poem, the " DIvIna Commedia," and Petrarch 
 (1304-1374), the great Italian poet and scholar, had 
 opened the doors to the realm of the Latin and Greek 
 classics, and disclosed their Incomparable beauties. With 
 Boccaccio (13 13— 1375) writing in a lighter vein, the 
 foundations of modern literature were at this time estab- 
 lished in Italy. A renaissance of learning had set in which 
 soon spread from Italy throughout all parts of Europe. 
 By the middle of the 15th century many men of learning 
 had appeared. These great scholars and writers revived 
 the learning and revised the philosophy of the ancient 
 world, and even dared to discuss the principles of the 
 
 4S3 
 
454 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 Christian religion. New universities of learning were es- 
 tablished throughout Europe, and libraries for the preser- 
 vation of books were founded. The University of Leipsic 
 was established in 1409, Louvain in 1426 and the Vatican 
 Library was founded in 1447. 
 
 Prior to this period practically all books were labori- 
 ously written or copied by the hands of consecrated 
 monks, scriptores, as they were called, working in their 
 quiet cloisters in the church monasteries. The production 
 of a single Bible was the effort of many months — per- 
 haps years — of assiduous and painstaking labor. This 
 copy was kept for the exclusive use of the clergy, the great 
 body of worshipers being kept in ignorance and illiteracy. 
 Most of the nobles, even kings, were unable to read or 
 write. This condition of civil illiteracy was not deplored 
 by the Church, but rather encouraged by it. A council of 
 the Church as late as 1229 forbade the translation of the 
 Bible into the vernacular, and decreed that none but the 
 clergy could have copies of it — the Latin version — in 
 their possession. As late as 1536, William Tyndale was 
 burned alive in the public square along with his English 
 translations of the Latin Bible. 
 
 At this period of comparative respite from the devas- 
 tating wars of the Middle Ages, when men turned from 
 militaristic affairs to embrace the arts of peace, literature 
 again came into its own. The 100 years' war between 
 England and France, which had paralyzed the energies 
 of both countries, had ended. In Italy the various Italian 
 states had long since rallied from the invasions of the 
 northern races, and were further advanced in progressive 
 civihzation than any other country in Europe. The for- 
 gotten — or tabooed — classics became resurrected and 
 were read by scholars who had access to them; while 
 widening fields of thought and inquiry in the realms of 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 455 
 
 literature and science were opened up by the recent exca- 
 vations among Greek and Roman ruins. By degrees there 
 sprung up an increasing demand for books, that could not 
 easily be met. They were produced slowly and only with 
 great labor and rare skill, and were entirely beyond the 
 means of every one but those of the wealthiest families. 
 Some more expeditious means of production by duplica- 
 tion than the slow copying of manuscripts by hand began 
 to be the great desideratum, and occupied the thoughts of 
 thinking men. 
 
 The art of duplication by engraved wooden blocks was 
 by no means unknown at this period. So early as the time 
 of William the Conqueror engraved stamps and seals 
 were used in authorizing legal documents, charters and 
 other state papers. Many impressions of such seals may 
 be seen affixed to documents preserved in England and 
 on the continent. As for this, we know by the quantities 
 of seals and signets preserved In almost every archseologi- 
 cal museum that they have been employed from the earli- 
 est Babylonian period. While this can hardly be classed 
 as printing, the engraved seal or plate must have sug- 
 gested the first idea of the means of duplicating In the pro- 
 duction of books. Some rubrics In medieval Incunabula 
 are so uniform throughout the pages of the book as to 
 lead to the conclusion that they were printed In by hand 
 from wooden blocks after the manuscripts were written. 
 We are compelled to admit the priority of the East in the 
 matter of printing. Printing from wooden blocks is 
 known to have been practiced In China and Japan from a 
 very early period — It Is said as early as the 2nd century 
 in China — while the printing of books from engraved 
 wooden blocks was quite common In the loth century in 
 that country. Printing from movable types cut in wood 
 is reputed to date from the middle of the nth century 
 
456 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 in China. A book printed In Korea from movable type, in 
 1337) i* '"^ the British Museum. 
 
 Prior to the Invention of printing In Europe there were 
 In common use playing cards, Image prints or picture 
 books, which originally had been drawn and colored by 
 hand, and the inscriptions — whenever they occurred — 
 written In with the pen. But the Increasing desire for 
 knowledge and the demand for cheaper books outran the 
 resources of the monastic scribes, and in the course of 
 time was met by the invention of xylographlc printing. In 
 which each entire page was printed from an engraved 
 block of wood. In the early stages of the new art only 
 single sheets were printed from the engraved blocks, being 
 printed on one side only by rubbing on the back of the 
 sheet. Sometimes the sheets were bound together back to 
 back; sometimes they were pasted together to form 
 one sheet. Again, Impressions from two wooden blocks 
 were printed on one sheet, which was folded up 
 back to back. When made up in book form several of 
 these folded sheets were bound together. This gave to 
 this kind of book the name " Block-Book." These books 
 at first were largely religious picture-books, which the 
 clergy employed In educating the lower classes as well as 
 the Illiterate monks, and Instructing them in the truths of 
 the scriptures. They were originally printed on cloth or 
 vellum, but later on paper. They became very popular 
 throughout Germany, Flanders and Holland, in the 14th 
 and 15th centuries. The earliest block-books contained 
 only pictures; then pictures with inscriptions and brief 
 reading matter engraved on the same block. Later, they 
 consisted chiefly of engraved text with artistic illumina- 
 tions and woodcut illustrations. The development of the 
 art of wood engraving In pictorial illustration and the art 
 of printing from movable types were almost concurrent; 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 457 
 
 the beginnings of the former art antedating the latter by 
 only a few years. The earliest dated woodcut was 141 8, 
 the next, 1423; but others doubtless were earlier. At 
 first the drawing was very crude ; but improvements in the 
 artistry of the engravers were so rapid that when print- 
 ing was invented in the middle of the century we find the 
 art in a highly advanced stage of development. 
 
 One of the most popular block-books was the " Biblia 
 Pauperum," a book of forty pages consisting of illustra- 
 tions of important events in the scriptures. The first page 
 of the Bibha Pauperum is shown in Fig. 173. -The central 
 picture is the Annunciation. Eve's temptation is illus- 
 trated on the left, and Gideon's fleece saturated with the 
 morning's dew is pictured on the right. The letter " a " 
 indicates that it Is the first page of the book. The book 
 is believed to have been first printed early in the 13th cen- 
 tury. When one realizes that the artist in producing the 
 text, as well as the illustrations shown on the page, had to 
 cut away the wood of the block wherever it shows white 
 in the print, leaving the fine lines of the letters raised, the 
 difficulty of the task and the importance of the revolution 
 effected by the invention of printing from movable types 
 may well be conceived. 
 
 Another popular block-book was the " Speculum Hu- 
 mans Salvationes " or " Mirror of Human Salvation." 
 One of the copies of this book is a transition book from 
 the block-book to the type-printed book. It consists of 
 sixty-three pages, twenty of which were printed from 
 wood-blocks and forty-three from movable types. Large 
 numbers of these block-books were printed, and not a few 
 of them are preserved to-day in national and civic mu- 
 seums and in private collections. 
 
 As in the case of many great inventions, there are sev- 
 eral claimants to the honor of being the inventor of the 
 
458 
 
 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 ■ 1 1 ■■ 
 
 Xq|lEUtrH53j£'.iu-£ap!V' 
 
 Fig. 173. First page of the Biblia Pauperum. One of the earliest 
 Block-Books. 
 
 art of printing from movable types. Although the pre- 
 ponderance of popular belief undoubtedly confers this 
 honor upon Johann Gutenberg ( 1398-1468) , it probably 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 459 
 
 will surprise most readers, who have from youth read 
 that Gutenberg invented the art, to know that there is no 
 written evidence in existence that can stand the test of 
 legality that Gutenberg ever printed a book. The evi- 
 dence is wholly inferential, but nevertheless convincing 
 from the reliable nature of collateral, historical facts con- 
 cerning his life and associates. It is known that in 1450, 
 possibly from 1450 to 1455, a partnership of some 
 kind existed between Gutenberg and Johann Fust,^ in 
 Mainz (Mayence), Germany. It is not positively known 
 whether any books were printed by them during their 
 partnership, if partnership it was. It appears that Guten- 
 berg was impecunious; indeed an inveterate bankrupt, 
 and borrowed large sums of money from Fust, which were 
 not returned even after judgment was secured in a suit 
 brought against him by the latter. In defending himself 
 in this suit and explaining how he had spent the money, 
 Gutenberg refers to : " tools, paper, vellum and ink . . . 
 used in the work of the books." This is the only contem- 
 porary evidence we have that Gutenberg was engaged in 
 printing books from movable types between 1450 and 
 1455, unless we except a most important record of the 
 French court which relates that Charles VII, hearing of 
 Gutenberg's experiments, dispatched in 1458 Nicolas Jen- 
 son, who had been Master of the Mint at Tours, to 
 Mainz to obtain Gutenberg's secret. The record says : 
 " On the 3rd of October 1458, the king having found 
 that Sieur Gutenberg, Knight, living at Mayence, Ger- 
 many, a man dexterous in engraving and in making letter 
 punches, had brought to light an invention for printing 
 
 i^The family name was originally Fust; but in 1506 Johann Schoffer, 
 the son of Peter Schoffer who married Fust's daughter, in a dedication 
 to the Emperor Maximilian of a translation of " Livy," calls his grand- 
 father: Faust. Ever since this the family has used this spelling. 
 
46o A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 with metal characters," etc. The Royal instructions to 
 Jenson were: " to secretly inform himself of the ' forme 
 et invention.' " This is pretty strong collateral evidence 
 that Gutenberg was engaged in developing the art of 
 printing books. 
 
 Within two years of the termination of the partnership 
 between Gutenberg and Fust appeared an edition of the 
 " Psalterium," a sumptuous folio of 350 pages, in large 
 missal type, printed in Mainz by Fust and Schoffer, and 
 dated August 14, 1457 ; being the first printed book with 
 a date. Beyond question the five years of experimental 
 work conducted by Gutenberg, even if he never refers in 
 the suit to anything but the " tools " he had made or was 
 going to make, must have been productive of some tan- 
 gible results, if his financial backer was able within two 
 years to print in conjunction with his adopted son, Peter 
 Schoffer, so important a book as this Psalter. The book 
 to this day is remarkable for its typography and for the 
 beauty of its illuminated initials, which were printed in 
 two colors, red and blue, from two-piece types. It is gen- 
 erally beheved that Gutenberg was the brains of the firm, 
 in this short partnership, engraving the types and con- 
 ducting the experiments in printing from the movable 
 types — the " tools " to which he refers — and that Fust 
 was the one to profit by these experiments. 
 
 Before continuing further with the account of printing 
 in Mainz, we feel obliged in the interest of historical facts 
 to say that even if Gutenberg did print books in Mainz 
 between 1450 and 1455, there is very strong evidence 
 that Lourens Janszoon Coster of Haarlem, Holland, 
 printed books from movable types between 1440 and 
 1446. Coster was at first a block printer, but subsequently 
 printed books from movable types. The first word of 
 challenge of Mainz being the cradle of the art of printing 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 461 
 
 comes from a very near contemporary of Gutenberg, one 
 Koelhoff, himself a printer in Cologne, who writes in the 
 Cologne Gazette, in 1499, that the art of printing was 
 found first of all in Germany, at Mainz. " In 1450," he 
 writes, " they began to pi-int, and the first book that they 
 printed was the Bible In Latin, in a large letter, resem- 
 bling that with which at present missals are printed. Al- 
 though the art was found at Mainz, as aforesaid, in the 
 manner in which it is generally employed now, yet the first 
 prefiguration was found in Holland from out the Do- 
 natuses ^ which were printed there before that time, and 
 from out of them was taken the beginning of the afore- 
 said art, and it was found much more masterly and exact 
 than that other manner was, and has become more and 
 more artistic." This is a pretty candid statement for a 
 contemporary German printer to make, and is worthy of 
 credence, unless It Is too much colored by professional 
 rivalry that may have existed between the two cities, 
 Cologne and Mainz, both centers of the new art. 
 
 Many of Coster's printed books are preserved In mu- 
 seums In Holland. There are numerous fragments In 
 Haarlem, or Its neighborhood, of as many as forty-seven 
 different editions, all very much resembling each other In 
 type and In workmanship. Some of these are entire books, 
 some but single pages. The majority were printed on 
 vellum, which was In use before paper became popular 
 for printing purposes. Some of these books, or fragments 
 of them, are printed only on one side of the sheet like 
 block-books ; while others are partly printed from blocks 
 and partly from type. The types vary considerably, there 
 
 1 The Donatus was a Latin grammar, the work of ^lius Donatus, a 
 Roman grammarian of the 4th century. It was one of the earliest books 
 printed from movable type. A 27-line Donatus was printed from the 
 same types used in printing the 3i-line Letter of Indulgence (1454) 
 generally ascribed to Gutenberg. 
 
462 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 being as many as eight or nine different fonts, with much 
 variation in each font; appearing — as is suspected — 
 that Coster did not cast his type, but cut each individual 
 letter by hand and frequently renewed them. Besides, he 
 probably did not use a durable metal. In any event Cos- 
 ter's work seemed to have failed in its outcome in Hol- 
 land; while Gutenberg's art by the perfection of his me- 
 chanical processes, and by reason of its excellence, even 
 in the earliest stage of its development, created an epoch 
 in European affairs as his art spread from one great 
 center of intellectual life to another.^ 
 
 The first printed documents with a date, 1454, were 
 two different editions of the same " Letter of Indul- 
 gence " of Pope Nicholas V. Authorities differ as to the 
 printer of these two letters; but Gutenberg is generally 
 believed to be the printer of the 31-line " Letter of In- 
 dulgence." Gutenberg also is generally credited with 
 being the printer of the so-called " Mazarin Bible," a 
 copy of which was found in the library of Cardinal 
 Mazarin. It is commonly called " Gutenberg's Bible," 
 although many assert that it probably was printed by 
 Peter Schoffer. It is also described as the Latin Bible of 
 42 lines. It is entirely probable that Gutenberg cut the 
 types, but that Fust — probably Fust and Schoffer — per- 
 formed the presswork. It is considered to be the first 
 Bible printed in Europe, or elsewhere. The sumptuous 
 work is a folio of 1282 pages, printed in double columns, 
 with spaces left for illuminated initials and rubrics. The 
 few copies that have been preserved are magnificent 
 specimens of typography and would be a credit to any 
 
 lA most complete historical sketch and critical commentary on the 
 Coster-Gutenberg controversy will be found in " A History of the Art 
 of Printing." N. Noel Humphreys, London, i868. Also in the Encyclo- 
 paedia Britannica. 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 463 
 
 wntiimoDalaljia litca ututtoratoe. 
 Ifftifamiim mri wilmmmi raci (altt 
 ttoaarammttquianianua Domini 
 m^t mt.lfcuact jKf£qmini me ficut 
 tt9:^ tarwto mm Ummmxditm 
 mitQtMbuacut fccibauturrmuonto 
 mtii IEUI0 micti'i mm tiarmmcm 
 iiibco Silo too tt plubilamma : ud 
 tccte ftulpanir in fiUce^&rio mi tp tt* 
 iinnptot mtua uiuat tt in noutiTtmo 
 te tttta rurcedur? fira^i&rucfum riccii^ 
 iBbm )xUe ntm:i f came nm utoebo iz^- 
 um.Ipue uiRn:9 fii ego ipe:^ otulimri 
 tofpediiri funt:^ non alms, tooftca 
 rft ^tc Ipea mea infmu mea.lDuait rc^ 
 ganUncDiririsgrfquamucfiir^taij^ 
 ffiuuetbimumiam? mmifa^tt 
 \tm a fane glam]:qmnItoz niidmtii 
 glaDi? en frimte eOe iuDmuJtX- 
 ||J|[erponDm0 ant rop^^itaama^ 
 ■ygpiiae iJijrir^Dritcotaoifafine^ 
 meeMmefuccEiJutribbmes m^mn:^ 
 rarapitur*iDdrinam quamearguta 
 auDm: ft fpiriftia intdligenae mfere* 
 
 Fig. 174. Part of one column of the Mazarin Bible. Attributed to 
 Gutenberg, 1450-1453. 
 
464 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 publishing house to-day. A little more than half of one 
 of the columns of this Bible is shown in Fig. 174. The 
 Initial letter and decorations were drawn in by hand sub- 
 sequent to the printing. A fac-simile edition of this Bible 
 has been published, printed on vellum, with illuminated 
 initials in red and blue, reproduced from a copy preserved 
 In the Berlin Library. '^ No book was ever more worthy 
 of being called an " edition de luxe." 
 
 Another Bible attributed to Gutenberg is the one 
 known as the " Bamberg Bible " or the 36-line Bible. But 
 a critical examination of all the facts have led many 
 prominent authorities to ascribe the printing of this work 
 to Albrecht Pfister, a printer of Bamberg. 
 
 The Psalter, published a year or two later than the 
 Mazarin Bible, was even a finer production than this fa- 
 mous work; being printed in larger type, with very bold 
 and highly ornamental illuminated initials, the types for 
 which were separated Into two blocks locking together; 
 one block printing the parts of the letter which were In 
 red and the other the parts In blue. Our illustration, Fig. 
 175, Is a reproduction of the first page of the Psalter, 
 greatly reduced In size. 
 
 The first description of the new method of printing 
 from movable types was given In a copy of the " Do- 
 natus " printed by Peter Schoffer, probably before 1456. 
 In the colophon (introduction) of this work — which 
 printers In those days placed at the back of the book — 
 Its printing was described as : " Arte nova imprlmendi 
 seu caracterlzandi . . . absque calami exaratlone " (by 
 a new art of printing or making letters . . . without 
 the writing of a pen). Again, m the Psalter, printed Au- 
 gust 14, 1457, appears the statement in the colophon: 
 
 1 " The Gutenberg Bible. From the Copy in the Royal Library in 
 Berlin." Leipsic, 1914. 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 
 
 465 
 
 ^i^nijiB Difte poft frfln mnifariB*|nuitatiKimu, 
 
 4| 
 
 im 
 
 ftegf magnu onintimitt aDicfmuaJe "Bmitr- 
 Mills Ditto piftfeftii cpSitlnmratiniu- 
 
 6amswqn! — — 
 nonabijtin 
 
 jEuouae* 
 
 ronftljoimptozn rrtn 
 uiaptroi^noftmniin 
 mftrDraprihlrarnofr" 
 
 iitaslRefmWrino mrDiralJif bit ar 
 nottt, @t rrit tan$ iignu tfi plarani iOr 
 rmi9 imirfud aqiirqi^ frudu fuu Dabitin 
 tpt fuo^t fbliu ei^ no irflurtn ofa qcmp^ 
 fariftip'abuf J^ofirimpijnofir (irD 
 tan$pitlma que jnritumtue a fm tm, 
 Tpto nonrrfurgf tiinpij m iuDinornr^ 
 ptrb^remrofilioiuIhiQ Qmnomtdna 
 Diaiultourt iffrinip!0i|pnDir,0fia 
 
 Fig. 175. First page of the Psalter. Printed by Fust and Schoffer, I457- 
 The first book printed with a date. 
 
466 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 that it was perfected at Mainz by " adinventio artificiosa 
 imprimendi ac caracterizandi absque calami uU exara- 
 tione." 
 
 The experience of printers in printing block-books must 
 have taught them how short-lived this material was, and 
 prompted them to seek a more durable medium. It is be- 
 lieved by some authorities that the first movable types 
 were cut from wooden blocks; but this belief is based 
 largely upon the irregularity of the printing from some 
 of the early types, more particularly Coster's. John Ph. 
 de Lignamine, in 1474, refers to types as " metallicas for- 
 mae." Types early were called " forms," and before 
 this, as early as 1468, they were spoken of as " caragma," 
 and later " caracter." Hence our two modern words, 
 " form " and " character," as applied to movable types. 
 The word " typographus " seems first to have appeared 
 in print In the preface to the first edition of the " Astrono- 
 micon " of Manilius, by P. Stephanus Dulcinius Scolae, 
 printed at Milan in 1488. 
 
 The types used by Gutenberg and by Fust and Schoffer 
 in their printed books were letters copied after the pre- 
 vailing book-hand of the day, the pointed black-hand or 
 Gothic of the Middle Ages, locally used in Germany at 
 that period. They selected as models for their letters 
 well-written manuscripts of strong characteristics, and 
 proceeded to copy the letters with the utmost fidelity, 
 imitating as nearly as possible the actual pen or reed writ- 
 ing of the scribe. To carry out this object and to simu- 
 late as closely as they could the handwriting in the manu- 
 script, they employed a number of " by-forms " of letters 
 having serifs or spurs modified to suit certain combina- 
 tions with other letters, as well as several combinations 
 of two letters. The combinations : bo, da, de, do, ha, pe, 
 va, and ve, will be found in our illustrations from the 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 467 
 
 pages of the Mazarin Bible and the Psalter. Manu- 
 scripts had been used for so many centuries and the style 
 and mannerisms of the scribes were so famlHar to the 
 clergy and the reading public, that they set the standard 
 of form m the letters, from which the early type-cutters 
 naturally hesitated to depart. These conditions prevailed 
 for many years until the printer's art had built up its own 
 technique, and established rules and principles recognized 
 by literary men. 
 
 The first types were made substantially as they are to- 
 day, being cut in relief by hand on a soft steel punch, 
 which was hardened after the letter was finished. These 
 punches were used only as dies to be driven into a block 
 of soft metal, iron or copper, to form a matrix for the 
 casting of the types. The original punches, being in hard- 
 ened steel, outlasted many fonts of type and even the 
 matrixes, which were renewed from time to time as they 
 showed wear after many castings of the types. Some au- 
 thorities believe that each one of the individual types used 
 by Gutenberg were cut by hand, as they show so many 
 slight differences. If this be true, it is no wonder that so 
 much of his time and Fust's money were spent on his 
 " tools," as the court evidence shows. However, a broad 
 examination of the type used in the Mazarin Bible does 
 not support this theory. It is certain, however, that Fust 
 and Schoffer used cast types. We are indebted to De 
 Vinne (" The Practice of Typography ") for the follow- 
 ing information in regard to the sizes of types used in the 
 earliest printed books. The Mazarin Bible was printed 
 in 20-point type; the Bamberg Bible was printed in 24- 
 polnt type, and the Psalter of Fust and Schoffer was 
 printed in 36-point type. Even the smallest of these types 
 is considerably larger — about twice — than the types in 
 which modern books are printed. 
 
468 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 The following alphabet, engraved by Albert Diirer, is 
 a very good example of the Gothic black-letter in use in 
 Germany at the time of the invention of printing. 
 
 abrdrffliiMnino 
 
 Diirer was as clever with the engraver's tools as he was 
 with his pen and brush. The inscription on his tomb de- 
 scribes him as : " The light of the arts — sun of artists, — 
 painter, engraver, sculptor, without example." He was as 
 practical and scientific-minded as he was artistic. The use 
 of letters in engraving and printing occupied his mind 
 equally with artistic engraving on wood and copper. He 
 was a thorough artist in all forms of applied art, as is 
 attested by the reproduction shown in Fig. 176 of the first 
 page of the Gospel of John, containing a part of the first 
 seven verses, engraved by this artist in a very beautiful 
 rendering of the prevailing black-letter. Diirer was more 
 progressive than the generality of his countrymen, who 
 have tenaciously clung to the medieval black-letter; for 
 when the reform immediately set in — outside of Ger- 
 many — for the return to the Roman letters, he was 
 among the first to design a beautiful set of Roman char- 
 acters with rules and proportions for every line and curve, 
 and complete diagrams for type cutting. 
 
 In 1462 Mainz was sacked and mainly destroyed by 
 the conquering army of Adolphus of Nassau. Printing in 
 consequence ceased in this city, and became more or less 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 469 
 
 awtuerotapuDt^C" 
 
 um:a&eu6 emtrert)u-g)OC 
 emt mpundr>ioapiU) ^ciim 
 ©miaperipfuinfottafuntit 
 fiuetpfo famxertni|t(: c|Uo& 
 faaumelttnipfeiDftaerot: et 
 Maeratte^omimimte lur 
 intenetofe lucet: et tene^:e ea 
 ncn tpmi:ne|)en&a:u& xj^ 
 fbmomi(]ii^a?)eo:tuiitoml 
 eratSoiinne^' §\tvmmc 
 fttmomut^ : vt teftimomum 
 
 Fig. 176. Part of the first seven verses of the Gospel of St. John. 
 Engraved by Albert Diirer. 1515. 
 
 Stagnant throughout Germany. The tide of printing and 
 printers turned toward Italy, where the Renaissance had 
 become well established and where wealtl;iy nobles patron- 
 ized the arts and liberal-minded ecclesiasts encouraged 
 the wider dissemination of learning. Printers from Ger- 
 many carried their art, with their fonts and matrices for 
 founding the types, into Italy. Here they found manu- 
 scripts and incunabula in great abundance awaiting print- 
 ers to convert them into books for the reading public. 
 These Italian manuscripts were largely in the Carlovin- 
 
470 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 gian and Lombardic hands; which, we have learned, were 
 the immediate outgrowth of the uncial letter before it 
 had reached Its extreme pointed development In northern 
 Europe. Italy never had taken very kindly to the medie- 
 val Gothic; but always had favored a rounder hand. As 
 she had adopted the pointed arch in architecture only with 
 great reluctance, and had clung most tenaciously to the 
 round arch, so she adopted very late and quite half-heart- 
 edly the pointed Gothic letters, only to abandon them 
 about the time of the invention of printing for the round 
 Caroline letter. The small letters shown below give a 
 very good Idea of the prevailing type of letter used In 
 Italian manuscripts about this period: 
 
 A A'B CD e^ eio^'yuvMH 
 
 H0PaqUs'5UV;Ncy^ Si- 
 
 abct)defgbtlmnopqrxivsrtur-y 
 
 The crowns of the letters show a marked tendency to 
 be rounding rather than angular; and several of the let- 
 ters come squarely down to the bottom without a break; 
 or, if there be one, it is a rounding one, rather than an 
 angle, as In the Gothic letters. The capitals show how 
 little Lombardic writing, at least In southern Italy, had 
 advanced beyond the old uncials of the loth century. 
 These particular capitals were written at the bottom of a 
 page taken from a Commentary of St. Gregory upon the 
 Book of Job, written in the middle of the 15th century; 
 that IS, just the period of time we are now talking about. 
 All of these letters, whether capital or minuscule, are but 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 471 
 
 slightly pointed. The four lines of writing illustrated in 
 ^ig- 177 are of an earlier age of Italian writing, being 
 reproduced from a page of an incunabulum of the first 
 half of the 12th century: " Homilies and Lessons for Sun- 
 days and Festivals from Advent to Easter Eve.," at pres- 
 ent m the British Museum. The manuscript consists of 
 317 leaves of the most beautiful writing, so regular as to 
 be discovered not to be printing only by the closest scru- 
 tiny. It suggests to us the kind of manuscripts that the 
 printers who first went to Italy selected for their types. 
 
 / ucn ^ annoi*um n oim^tTta feptum ♦ 
 ^^ apparutt a dnftrSsxpf cum dvCcxpulx^ 
 fuif ctdtxrc a-^cntaDmcr-qumtem^ 
 eft ut q3utcnf wconutuio irteo ♦ cum. 
 
 Fig. 177. Part of a page from " Homilies and Lessons for Sundays and Fes- 
 tivals from Advent to Easter Eve." Italian manuscript of the i2th cen- 
 tury, illustrating the writing from which types were made in the 15th 
 century. 
 
 The first German printers who emigrated to Italy 
 appear to have been Conrad Sweynheym and Nicholas 
 Pannartz, who took their printing presses to Subiaco, 
 near Rome, and worked in the Benedictine monastery. 
 Cardinal Torquemada, who had been Inquisitor General 
 in Spain under Queen Isabella, appeared to treat them 
 with more consideration than he had shown the liberal- 
 minded Catholics in Spain and the Low Countries; for he 
 gave them every encouragement to advance their art in 
 Rome. Sweynheym engraved the types and Pannartz • 
 did the printing. They first printed Donatuses; then in 
 1465 they printed the sumptuous " Lactantius," a large 
 folio volume, a page of which is reproduced in Fig. 178. 
 It was printed in an entirely ne-yy style of type, very sim- 
 
472 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 — [ACrHOfifextt(Ieafgananfri(|aonfledoclrnifpf' 
 nitus cle<£<iilTenc:(|iiic(|iikiIaboris poenatimpendii: 
 Icontontis omnibus publiris 8i prbiads acHonibiis; 
 ad nujiiiredf uericois (hidiu (c contuteruc :exi{bma ^ 
 KS mulco ((Tc prfdarois bumanaru diuinarwp nru 
 mueftigare ac (are raoone ^ llruedis op Aus auc CU' 
 molandtsbonoribiis Ribera'e:(]^tbu9 rebus quoniamfiagilesccrmteq^ 
 func :M ad Ibliius corpons pnn<nc culmm nono mdior : nemo uiftior cffid 
 pocefLErat (piidej dii ueritaos cognioonc dignflTimi quam fcire taropere 
 o>ptueruc:at<^ icruteam rebusomnibusantepoiurec:Ham M sbicdSle 
 anofda res Familiares fuas tt renutiafle uniuerfis uolnpCubus conftat .- nr 
 (oU nudamq^ nirnite : nudi expedmc|^ f^uermc :canrfi apud cos urrnuis 
 nomen et aucloriCts uabiit : ut m ea omne fummi bom premium pdicarer . 
 Sed neq; adepa fik id quod uolebat; Si opera fimul accj3 mdudrii ^ide> 
 riic:<]uiaucricis ideftarcbanti fumi dei qui fecitomnia mgenio ac ^priis 
 Icnribns no pted compbedi : alioquin nibil inter deu bommecp diflaret fi 
 cofiliaSi diipoftdonesilliusmaiellatisaemecogicvioairequererbuma' 
 na. Quod quia fieri no potuic ut borarhig le ipfii ideo diuina noicere : non 
 A paCfUs bomiiiendeus Ibme lapienne reqnirentem diucins enare :ac fuie 
 uUo Ubons difieclu uagari per tmbms ihcxmcabtles: aperuic oculos eius 
 aliquando : 31 nononem uericitis munus fbu fedc : uc oi bumana faptoiiia 
 nulla e(te monlliaret : Si erradac uago uiam coUoquendf immortaliatis 
 c(lederet.Veriiquon{apauciunincDOccele{iibeneiuioacniunere :quod 
 obuoluQ ihobfcuro uerias later: eat^uel contemtui doctised: quia ido" 
 neis atTercoribus eget : ud odio idociis ob infica fibi auftmcice : qua naca 
 bominum prodiuis in mda pan nonpocefl: : Kam quia uirouibus amari' 
 oido ^ijcia e : oitia uero uoli^xate condia funt : ilia offenfi : bac delntid -- 
 femnoirih pc^:ac bono^ Ipeoe Falfi mala ^ bonis ampIecfamc.Succur' 
 redu ef le bis erroribns credidi ut et docti ad uera lapiendam dirigattT : a 
 Didocti ad uera reIigione.(^ prof ef fto mulco melior : uolior : gl orioTior : 
 putanda dt ^ ilia oratoria in qua doi uerlad: non ad uimue fed plane ad 
 Vgnd raalicia imunes erudioMmus. Mubo ^ppe nuc re^s de pceptis 
 
 Fig. 178. First page of the Lactantius, printed by Sweynheym and 
 Pannartz at Subiaco, 1465. 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 473 
 
 liar to our present Roman minuscule, or lower-case letter 
 of the books of to-day. The letters were copied from 
 current Italian manuscripts written in rounded Caroline 
 letters, to which the Italians had just returned after theii 
 short familiarity with the pointed Gothic black-letter, 
 If the letters are examined under a reading-glass, how- 
 ever, it will be detected that they are without serifs; the 
 heavy vertical strokes ending with an angle at the bottom 
 instead of resting squarely on horizontal serifs, and thai 
 the curves at the top are still inclined to be a little angu 
 lar. The capitals also are partly Gothic and partly Ro 
 man. The Lactantius was the first book printed in Ital;; 
 with a date, 1465. Sweynheym and Pannartz printec 
 books in Sublaco from 1467 to 1472, averaging abou 
 eight works a year. Copies of their works are found ir 
 many libraries and museums in Europe. 
 
 Venice was the rival of Rome in the printing of book: 
 in the last quarter of the 15th century. John of Speyer 
 Germany, had settled there in 1469, and printed hii 
 " Letters of Cicero." He had cut a font of beautiful 
 round letters in the pure Roman style, with serifs, anc 
 with capitals to match; the first purely Roman letters cu 
 by any printer. Sweynheym and Pannartz have generally 
 been reputed to be the first to have used Roman type; bu 
 we have just pointed out that their letters were transi 
 tional between the Caroline letters and the later Romai 
 minuscule. The types of John of Speyer are In the ful 
 Roman style. An example of his printing is given in Fio; 
 179, being the reproduction of a page of his " Tacitus,' 
 printed in Venice In 1469. The crowns of the letters an 
 rounding, showing no angles. The straight limbs enc 
 squarely on the bottom horizontal line, with heavy hori 
 zontal serifs both below and above, instead of the anglec 
 or clubbed ending of former types. The reader will rec 
 
474 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 AM Valettom Afiaricu b'sconfulcm: foifle 
 
 ' quonda adDlteruetqscredidit:'pariterq;ortis: 
 
 inhians quos i^le a lucuUo captos infignt ma^j 
 
 gnjficeiia extollebatSuillum accuf adis utrilqj 
 
 imitrit. Adiangitar Sclibius Britannici edu 
 
 j cator: qui per fpectem beniuolentif moneret 
 
 Oaudiu caucri vim abj opes principibus infenfas. Precipuu 
 
 aucaorem AfiaticS inteifirciendi Cffaris no extimoiflc cocione! 
 
 populi romani fateti: ^oriamtp facioris ultro petcrc darum ex 
 
 \ CO in ntbc dedita per ^aicias fama pararc iter ad germanicos 
 
 exercitustquando genitus vicnf multifcj et validis propinqui/ 
 
 tatibns rubnixus-'torbare gentiles nationed promptu babere. 
 
 At Claudias nibil ultra fcrutams-cttis cu militibus tanq opp 
 
 medo bcllo: Crifpinu prf tortj pff fe<ftii mifit. A quo repertus 
 
 eft apud Baias:vinclifqi inditisin urbc raptus: neq? data fcnat? 
 
 copia intra cubiculum auditur Meflalina coram & Suillo: cor 
 
 ruptione militu quos pecuia & fiupro in omni fiagitio ctftri'' 
 
 <ilos arguebat-.cxinde adukeriu Poppef. ac poftrcmu moUicia 
 
 corpori&obiecJlantc. Ad quod inito filentio prorupit reusiet 
 
 interroga inquitSuille filios tuos: virum me efTe fatebuntur: 
 
 ingfeffufijj defenfionc comonis maiorem in modu.n: Qaudio 
 
 Mcffalinj^ lacbryroas exciuit:qnibus ablucdiscubiculo egre/ 
 
 dicns ar.onet Vuellium nc elabi reum fmcret. Ipfa ad pcmitie 
 
 Poppef feftinat fubditos qui terrore carceris ad xoluUtis mor 
 
 * »empropellerpnt:adeoignaroC?fare:ut p^aucos poft dies epu' 
 
 lantern apud fe maritumeius Scipioncm pcontaretnr:cur firic 
 
 uxorc difcubuiffct: Atqi ille funcfta fa to refpodcret.Sed cofultati 
 
 fuper abfolutioe Afiatici:fiens T?itellius:c5mcmorata vetuftatc 
 
 amicitij ut«^ Antoniam principis matrcm pariter obferuaflct 
 
 deinde pcurfis Afiatici in rcm.p.officiis:rccEntiq» aduerfus Bri 
 
 taniam militia q, alia conciliSdf mifericordif vidcbant :libcrii^ 
 
 Fig. 179. Part of a page from " Tacitus,'" printed by John Speyer, 
 Venice, 1469. 
 
 ognize, now for the first time, a page of printing in true 
 Roman minuscules, very similar to the kind of type which 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 475 
 
 has come to be called " old-style," and which varied only 
 in unessential and minor features during succeeding gen- 
 erations. 
 
 Nicolas Jenson (1420-1480), who went from France 
 to Mainz in 1458 to learn the art of printing, later went 
 to Venice. Here he first printed the famous " Decor 
 Puellarium," a book of deportment for young girls, in- 
 structing them in matters of behavior and etiquette. The 
 book was a small quarto volume intended for the pocket, 
 and contained 118 leaves, twenty-two to twenty-three 
 lines to the page. The colophon declares it was printed 
 by Nicolas Jenson in 1461. It is the general belief, how- 
 ever, that the date is wrong, and should be 1471. The 
 date is printed in Roman numerals — as was and has 
 been the prevailing custom for some centuries — and 
 probably one of the x's was omitted. This is judged to be 
 the fact by known events in Jenson's life, and from the 
 fact that none of his books bears any date between 1461 
 and 1471 ; whereas his books were fairly numerous every 
 subsequent year, he having printed up to the time of his 
 death in 1480 at least 155 different editions of books. 
 He surely was not idle for ten years. 
 
 The style of type used by Jenson was a Roman type of 
 his own engraving, for he was a skillful engraver. He 
 perfected the Roman small letters to such a degree that 
 they became the standard models for all subsequent print- 
 ers. His fonts were renewed from time to time, but the 
 types used throughout the eleven years of his business 
 life in Venice appear largely to have been made from 
 matrices struck from the original punches. The perfec- 
 tion of Jenson's types, the setting-up and general press- 
 work hardly have been excelled. 
 
 Aldus Manutlus succeeded to the Jenson press. In Ven- 
 ice using Jenson's splendid outfit of fonts of Roman and 
 
476 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 other types; for Jenson cut a fine Gothic type, an improve- 
 ment on the old black-letter. Aldus was the founder of 
 the famous Aldine Press, of world-wide fame. He 
 printed in 1501 an edition of Virgil in a new type, since 
 called " Italic"; the model for which was the handwrit- 
 ing of the poet Petrarch. The letters were somewhat 
 less inclined than they later became, and the capitals 
 were — at first — plain, like our ordinary Italic capitals. 
 In the hands of subsequent printers a more florid style of 
 Italic letter (Fig. 180) was evolved, which has remained 
 popular to this day. 
 
 Fig. 180. Flourished Italic letters. Italian Renaissance. 
 
 Under the spirit of the Renaissance the Italian archi- 
 tects and sculptors modified and refined the old Roman 
 letters used in monumental inscriptions, and developed an 
 alphabet that for grace and refinement hardly can be 
 equaled. It is the authority for sculptured inscriptions to 
 this day. Fig. 181 illustrates this Roman alphabet. It 
 has been selected from architectural and monumental in- 
 scriptions of the Renaissance period. The letters are as 
 full and round as the classic letters, more delicately 
 shaded, and much more uniform in appearance and treat- 
 ment. Nearly all architectural inscriptions of the present 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 477 
 
 day, that are In Roman letters, are in the style of the 
 Italian Renaissance. 
 
 ABCDEF 
 GHIKLM 
 NOPQRS 
 TVWX YZ 
 
 Fig. 181. Roman capital letters. Italian Renaissance. i6th century. 
 
 The first books printed in England were printed from 
 black-letter types. William Caxton, the first English 
 printer, had resided in Bruges for over thirty years; 
 though as he says in the Prologue to his first printed book, 
 his translation of the popular medieval romance, " The 
 Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye," from the French 
 of Raoul le Fevre: " I was borne and lerned myn Eng- 
 lissh in Kente in the Weald." As ambassador in Bruges 
 for many years In the court of the Dukes of Burgundy, 
 Caxton had access to the rich library of the court. His 
 Recuyell was printed in Bruges in 1474 or 1475. In the 
 epilogue to this book Caxton quaintly undertakes to ex- 
 plain the advantages of a printed book. He says: 
 
 " Thus ende I this book, whyche I have translated 
 after myn auctor as nyghe as God hath gyven me 
 connyng, to whom be gyven the laud and preysing. 
 And as for as moche as in the wryting of the same 
 
478 A HISTORY UF WRi'ilJNU 
 
 my penne is worn, myn hande wery and not stedfast, 
 myn eyn dimed with over moche looking on whit paper, 
 and my corage not so prone and redy to laboure as 
 hit hath been, and that age crepeth on me dayly and 
 feebleth all the bodye, and also because I have prom- 
 ised to dyverce gentilmen and to my frendes to ad- 
 dresse to them as hastely as I myght this sayd book; 
 therefore I have practysed and lerned at my grete 
 charge and dispense to ordeyne this said book in prynte 
 after the manner and forme as ye may here see, and it 
 is not wreton with penne and ynke as other bokes 
 ben, to thende that every man may have them attones, 
 ffor all the books of this story, named the Recule of 
 the Historyes of Troyes, thus imprynted as ye here 
 see, were begonne in oon day and also finished in oon 
 day," etc., etc. 
 Of course Caxton means by this that all may have copies 
 at once, for they were all struck at one time. 
 
 In September, 1476, Caxton returned to England, tak- 
 ing with him a new font of improved types, and estab- 
 lished a printing press in Westminster. The first book 
 printed by him in England with a date was Lord River's 
 translation — revised by Caxton, who was very much of 
 a scholar — of " The Dictes or sayengis of the Philoso- 
 phres," dated 1477. From this time on Caxton was 
 busy writing, translating and printing, until his death in 
 1 49 1. He made voluminous translations and wrote much 
 original matter of his own. In all Caxton printed ninety- 
 six different works or editions of works. Among them 
 may be mentioned: Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales," 
 Mallory's " Morte d'Arthur," " Troilus and Creseide " 
 and the " Golden Legend," which he translated in 1483, 
 very late in life, despite his " wery hande " and " dimed 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 479 
 
 eyn " and " age that feebleth all the bodye." This book 
 ^^^/^,^^"strated with seventy woodcuts. In the " Royal 
 00k," or book for a king, printed in 1484, we find the 
 J^axton type at its best. The initial letters and wood- 
 cuts also were well executed. Fig. 182 is reproduced 
 from a page of this book in the British Museum. It will 
 be of interest to know that a copy of this book sold in 
 1902 for $11,125. 
 
 pitiaon9 
 
 <e9 ttfat 
 hpnmw 
 
 (p^invftete xeumim 
 tn&^gn^ and (xdfi Xf9 . 
 
 tbl;»r&]i»t^gtrcaU|)D t^9*mti ^^(fbwt^ iecaU^oC 
 ^ fyAg 0^oa. Hfixv ^{ftx^tt (^ h ikvm sifted oOa^i^^ 
 
 Fig. 182. A page from the Royal Book. Printed by William Caxton 
 
 in 1484. 
 
 Caxton used eight different fonts of type in his press 
 work. One of them was an exact copy of the type used 
 by Fust and Schoeffer, and was the size known as double 
 
48o A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 long primer, or 20-point; a very large type, as will be 
 noted in the illustration, which by the way is much re- 
 duced. The capitals of this font, however, were the 
 Flemish " secretary " letters. The familiar Old English 
 black-letter of to-day is very similar to the type used by 
 the first English printers. It remained for several gen- 
 erations the prevailing type used in charters, acts of Par- 
 liament, legal documents and ecclesiastical literature, de- 
 spite the wide use of the Roman letter on the continent. 
 Gradually, however, the latter type, on account of its 
 greater legibility, won its way in the printing of secular 
 matter; but the Old English letter long continued in use 
 for ecclesiastical purposes, and remains to this day a popu- 
 lar type for much church printing. 
 
 After Caxton, presses were set up at the Universities 
 of Oxford, Cambridge, and a famous one was established 
 at St. Alban's Abbey. The Roman Catholic party in Eng- 
 land were powerful enough for many years to prevent 
 the printing of the Bible in English, or even the reading 
 or the possession of the Latin Bible by the laity. Pope 
 Hildebrand in 1080 had decreed that " it is the will of 
 God that his word should be hidden, lest it should be 
 despised if read by every one." We already have stated 
 that in 1229 a council of the church published a decree 
 which not only forbade the translation of the Bible 
 into any " vulgate tongue," but also forbade all but the 
 clergy to have copies in their possession. Nevertheless, in 
 i535> Tyndale's translation of the Bible into English, 
 copies of which had found their way into England, was 
 revised by Miles Coverdale, printed abroad — without 
 the name of the printer, for fear of meeting with 
 Tyndale's fate — and allowed by the then reigning king, 
 Henry VIII, to be circulated and read. Several editions 
 were successively printed, to keep pace with King Henry's 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 
 
 Wt tix\t m Of ^(^ «* 
 
 _P)'mt«<,a»ntt C^l^^.cal■c«»<Ttegwrt■ Ctl«IW«».»«j«.i»«*t 
 
 481 
 
 «nt>f enrc^ 
 
 anb 04rcf' 
 neswAs V' 
 
 pe,7jrpie' 
 K ♦! (Efob 
 rooncb »p$ 
 
 %rtb (Bob («vb«! Utt^c be Iig^t t^e 
 iwietB^.anbtBcbriiiw t^IiB^t^tie 
 w«»Be«b.CM<BW>b«p>pb«b fligt^pum 
 tbcbattfrte»,<«n*MlUI>e^liB^t,to«jj:«nb 
 
 «i*l»iiiT"lf»'**»""'*"^Wf6ii»«. 
 
 2tnb ©i>b (<tf be; (jt t^tt bed fimiimeiK 
 itttKnctyt»Meri>, anllccitteiybe f tea 
 ttretflUnbtr.C^ciKBobmobc ffirmtsmH, 
 anb pitrceb t^ie wucixe vtibcr tl;e (imiAinft^ 
 frem t^e moters (ibsiic t|ic firmmtieiiti Jt'n» 
 |o ic citme to pufp. Stttti ®ob Mlleb ^ finiM 
 mem, ^uiuin.t^cn of t^c cuenyitBetmot 
 n^nge was m4bc t^c feconbcbtfyt. 
 
 2lnb<Siira<i'>t:lttc^ettaarimittpti' UW 
 ncn MC^ t^SfcInes mt^one flau, f t^ m>4« 
 ti'feIoiib<ltMfe4ppMre.21>ibfbi'c «inet« 
 piin^'}l>)b®obcDU(b ^ bi';el»nbe,CCa>tfn 
 <«nbe^eg4t^aii){fc togetb^of wdkm c4| 
 IcbHf @"-3nb(Sobr4iw i^fcmiegoob 
 
 :;inb(5obf4';be:Iet f,Mrc^bmgt%)^^ 
 
 grcit(grii(je4iib^be,eb4tbe4itt^(»eir • 
 fhit(fiilltK£9,t^tm4ve be4K fam, cmry 
 
 t>ei'nc^mfelD» eponc^e(4tt^.3lfib/bfe 
 c4inec« pAJIe ■ 2(nb c^( e4tt^ biODg|k:fi«^ 
 grene BT4(Ii«nb ^erb>, ^ burec^ )!t< cwrr 
 «nt«f&r^i>ttnb<,«<rte»bMifi)g(|faig^^^ 
 
 Fig. 183. First page of the " Coverdale Bible." Printed in 1535. 
 
 marital changes. The ifirst one referred in the dedication 
 to the King to " your dearest, just wyfe and vertuous 
 
482 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 prencesse Queene Anne." In the next edition, issued the 
 same year, 1535, " Queen Jane " had to be inserted! In 
 Fig. 183 the first page of the " Coverdale Bible," printed 
 out of England, is reproduced. The type is a variety of 
 the black-letter, not very different from Caxton's font. 
 
 Richard Grafton, an author and scholar like Caxton, 
 was one of the early printers whose scholarly attain- 
 ments assisted in the early development of the printer's 
 art in England. He was the founder of the Grafton 
 Press. In 1540 he printed the fine folio Bible commonly 
 called " Cranmer's " or the " Great Bible." From this 
 time on no particularly important edition of the Bible was 
 printed. In the short reign of Queen Mary no encourage- 
 ment whatever was given to the printing of the Bible, 
 and in Queen Elizabeth's reign the printing of general 
 literature attained for the first time national importance 
 and its use became greatly extended. 
 
 The change from the black-letter to the Roman letter 
 in England was largely assisted by John Day, who was 
 a celebrated printer under Queen Elizabeth. He cut a 
 beautiful Roman font in 1572 in 24-point, for books for 
 the church service. Archbishop Parker In a letter to Lord 
 Burleigh dated December 13, 1572, writes: 
 
 " To the better accomplishment of this worke and 
 other that shall foUowe, I have spoken to Dale the 
 printer to cast a new Italian letter, which he is doinge, 
 and It will cost him XL marks; and loth he and other 
 printers be to printe any Lattin booke, because they 
 will not heare be uttered, and for that Bookes printed 
 in Englande be in suspition abroad." 
 
 Day's most important work was his " Acts and Monu- 
 ments, &.," better known as " Fox's Book of Martyrs," 
 a caustic arraignment of the acts of Romanism in Eng- 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 483 
 
 land. On the title page, as in most of his books, was 
 printed his trade device, — a sleeping man awakened by 
 the rising sun, with the words: "Arise for it is Day." 
 In his native parish of Bradly Parva this epitaph is en- 
 graved on his tomb : — 
 
 Here lyes the Daye that darkness could not blinde. 
 When Popish foggs had overcast the sunne; 
 
 This Daye the cruel nighte did leave behinde. 
 To view and shew what blodie actes were donne. 
 
 The ablest type founder of the i8th century in Eng- 
 land was William Caslon (1692-1766). He was the 
 founder of the Caslon Press conducted successively under 
 four generations of the same family name, and still in 
 active business. Caslon's Roman " old-style " types are 
 the models to-day for this style of type. They have been 
 closely copied by modern type founders and bear the 
 name " Caslon." This book is printed in ii-point Cas- 
 lon type. 
 
 Through the 17th and i8th centuries types held very 
 closely to what modern printers call " old-style," or 
 " old-face," which they had acquired from the scrittura 
 umanistica of the Latin Renaissance. These letters had 
 developed under the skillful hands of the master print- 
 ers: Jenson, Aldus, the Estiennes of Paris and Caslon. 
 Claude Garamond also should be mentioned, for he is 
 known as the " father of letter-founders." He cut in 
 15 15 a font of beautiful Roman letters, the model to-day 
 of the French type cutters. 
 
 Later in the 17th century began a slow change from 
 the old-face to the " modern-face " type. This new type 
 was mainly due to Giambattista Bodoni, a noted scholar 
 and printer of Parma, Italy. He cast a series of fonts in 
 
484 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 the new style. From the last half of the i8th century 
 to the middle of the 19th century nearly all books were 
 printed in this modern-face type. Later, however, there 
 was a revival, and the old-face types, largely shaped on 
 the lines of Caslon's type, were restored to favor and 
 remain to this day the most popular Roman type. How- 
 ever, the modern-face type is still largely used in all 
 lines of printing, to lend variety to the make-up of printed 
 matter, in headings, titles, advertisements and the many 
 uses that modern times demand of type. The modern- 
 face types are narrower in the " set " or width of the 
 type as compared with the old-face, and the shaded lines 
 are proportionally heavier, while the fine lines are much 
 finer, being described as " hair lines." The curves, or 
 "crowns" of the minuscule letters (lower case), are 
 vertically symmetrical instead of slanting as in the old- 
 face, which is a close copy in every detail of broad pen 
 lettering. 
 
 De Vinne ^ has this to say about modern-faced type : 
 " As a bit of drawing each letter of a well-made modern- 
 face is exact, and carefully finished in all its details; but 
 when any letter is seen with its mates in a mass of com- 
 posed types, its high finish does not seem to be a merit. 
 A letter of modern-cut is really not so distinct as the 
 same letter in the old style. The old punch-cutter and 
 the modern punch-cutter worked to reach different ends. 
 The old cutter put readibility first; he would make his 
 types graceful if he could, but he must first of all make 
 them distinct and readable in a mass. His object was to 
 aid the reader. The modern punch-cutter thinks it Is his 
 first duty to make every letter of graceful shape, but his 
 notion of grace is largely mechanical; the hair-line must 
 be sharp and tend to its invisibility; the curving stem 
 
 I " The Practice of Typography,'' Theodore Low De Vinne, A.M, 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 485 
 
 must dwindle to its hair-line with a faultless taper; the 
 slender serif must be neatly bracketed to the stem. 
 Every curve and angle is painfully correct and precise, 
 but the general effect of types so made, when put in a 
 mass, is that of the extreme of delicacy, and of the 
 corresponding weakness of an over-wrought delicacy. To 
 use a painter's phrase, the work is niggled, or overdone." 
 Some of the most popular of old-face types employed 
 to-day are : Caslon, Cheltenham, Jenson and De Vinne. 
 The following line of printing illustrates this type of 
 letter: 
 
 THIS LINE IS SET IN 14-POINT 
 CASLON CAPITALS. 
 
 This line is set in 14-point Caslon lower case. 
 
 A good example of modern-face type is illustrated in 
 the following style of letter : 
 
 THIS LINE IS SET IN 12-POINT MODEEN 
 CAPITALS. 
 
 This line is set in 12-point Modern lower case. 
 
 By far the greater proportion of all modern printing 
 In English, whether In books, magazines, newspapers or 
 other publications, or for advertisements In these publi- 
 cations, is In the Roman type, or modifications of it. This 
 probably also holds true for advertisements of every 
 kind, — posters, show bills, etc. The fundamental kinds 
 of types are very few in number, though there are almost 
 innumerable varieties of each. After the Roman, we 
 may enumerate what the printers of to-day call 
 
486 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 " Gothic." It is an inexcusable misnomer, that at some 
 time in the past crept into the trade nomenclature. It is 
 less Gothic than any other historical name that could be 
 appHed to it. It is in fact the basic letter of the original 
 alphabet: Greek, Etruscan or early Roman; but is cap- 
 able of endless variety in form, in condensation or ex- 
 tension, in light or heavy lines and bars. The pure Gothic 
 letter is without serifs; but the addition of serifs converts 
 it into a legion of types that occupy scores of pages in 
 the trade catalogs of modern type founders. The follow- 
 ing line illustrates the pure letters : 
 
 THIS LINE IS SET IN 8-POINT GOTHIC CAPS. 
 This line is set in 8-Point Gothic lower case. 
 
 The different varieties of " Italic " and " script " let- 
 ters about complete the enumeration of the fundamental 
 forms of our modern letters. There are, of course, hun- 
 dreds — we may say thousands — of fonts of types of 
 every conceivable modification of these fundamental 
 types. They fill heavy trade books issued by the present- 
 day type founders; and we see them displayed in the ad- 
 vertisements in current magazines and periodicals. 
 
 One of the many important activities that the exigencies 
 of the great world-war unexpectedly brought to the front 
 in the service of this country, as well as in England and 
 France, was the very large number of pictorial posters 
 issued by the several governments to give publicity to 
 the national loans, war savings plans and other measures 
 needing the financial aid of the people. These various 
 enterprises were presented to the public in attractive and 
 forceful war posters, with colorful drawings and strik- 
 ing lettering. A large variety of lettering was employed 
 by the designers of these posters. As in almost every 
 case the artist was no novice, and was experienced in this 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 
 
 Buy U.S.Covt Bonds 
 THIRD UBEDTYLOM 
 
 ' HALT !!k HUN! 
 
 WAR Savings STAMfg 
 
 ENUSTv:.NAVyl 
 
 Mi 
 
 ^^ 
 
 p^ 
 
 L n 
 
 K^ 
 
 ^Wi 
 
 j_j«S 
 
 "V^^ 
 
 ImL^S^ 
 
 "~>--«(i!; 
 
 TO ARMS 
 
 am bioovtRHKEKT Bonos 
 
 rHIRD LIBERTY LOAN 
 
 LiW l±m i, Hand 
 BUY 
 
 LIBERTY BONDS ' 
 
 feX. 3, 
 
 lev 
 
 TO MAKE THE WORLD 
 A DECENT PLACE TO LIVE IN | 
 
 oo VOUR PAftT-BUV u.s.aovEBHMENr BPNDS 
 
 THIRD LIBERTY LOAN 
 
 STAND BEHIND THE 
 COUNTRYS GIRLHOOD 
 
 YWCA 
 
 Help 
 Them 
 
 KBBPTOBE 
 TAR SAVINGS 
 
 PLEDGE 
 
 Fig. 184. Reproduction of War Posters issued by the United States 
 Government. 
 
 line of art expression, and as most of the designs were 
 selected by competition or by the judgment of juries, we 
 find illustrated in this series of posters the kind of letters 
 
488 A HISTORY OF WRITING 
 
 that were sure to be generally acceptable and to meet with 
 popular approval. 
 
 The actual range of type in these posters was not 
 wide, the differences being those of proportion rather 
 than of change in type ; as will be seen by referring to our 
 last illustration, Fig. 184, a selection of fourteen posters 
 from those issued by the United States Government 
 during the last two years. The Roman capitals and small 
 letters — lower case — still predominate, as in all lines 
 of printing. They are of the stronger, old-style variety 
 with heavy serifs. The next popular type was the plain 
 Gothic letter, condensed or extended, and with bars thick 
 or narrow, to give — according as desired — importance 
 or subordination to the reading matter; the widths being 
 conditioned upon the color selected for these letters. 
 Some of the Gothic letters have slight spurs instead of 
 the customary square corners; but the general tendency 
 was toward rugged strength in the letters, rather than for 
 over refinement. Italic letters were rarely used, as their 
 slant militates against the symmetry that seems to be 
 called for in the lettering of a poster. 
 
 In the selection of types of letters the modern poster 
 artist lays under contribution all the best work of the 
 masters of the past, whose art has endured by reason 
 of its beauty or grace, its strength or decorative quality, 
 and which will lend itself by its appropriateness to the 
 purposes of the poster. In the poster the art of writing 
 seems to reach the acme of its possibilities of develop- 
 ment in its service to man. Its purpose of conveying in- 
 formation is the same as in all ages, but the designer of 
 to-day has the art of all the ages to draw upon; and 
 never was his work more intelligently or artistically exe- 
 cuted. 
 
 The ages of development that separate the effort of 
 
THE AGE OF PRINTING 489 
 
 the poor scribe of the Monuments Blau, who also com- 
 bined pictorial and written appeal in his slate-stone 
 message, and the brilliant posters of our war-time bill- 
 boards, have been filled with the sincere labor and aspira- 
 tions toward higher ideals of humble workers, striving to 
 improve the transmitted forms of the Art Preservative, 
 to pass them on to succeeding generations for still further 
 improvement. These letters which have come down to us 
 in this rich Inheritance of the ages are as talents to be 
 improved, to be put to Interest, not to be laid away as 
 received. It Is for us, as with our forebears, to improve 
 the shape of these letters in our books, our monuments 
 • or In use for public display, until we achieve the highest 
 Ideal attainable in the art of writing. 
 
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE ART OF 
 WRITING 
 
 ' , AMERICAN INDIANS 
 
 A. NORTH AMERICA 
 
 Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge. Henry R. Schoolcraft, LL.D. i86o. 
 Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans. William H. Holmes. Bureau of 
 
 American Ethnology. i88o-'8i. Also many other works by the same 
 
 author. 
 Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians. James Mooney. Bu. Am. Ethn., 
 
 Vol. XVII, i89s-'96. 
 Considerations of the Art of Picture Writing and the System of Mnemonic 
 
 Symbols of the N. American Indians. Henry R. Schoolcraft, 1844. 
 Essays of an Americanist. Daniel G. Brinton. 1890. 
 The Graphic Art of the Eskimos. William J. Hoffman. Smithsonian In- 
 stitution Report. 1895. Also other works by the same author. 
 Historical and Mythological Traditions of the Algonquins. E. G. Squire. 
 
 Indian Miscellany. Edited by W. W. Beach. 
 The Indian Sign Language. Oapt. W. P. Clark. 1885. 
 The Indian Tribes of the United States. Francis S. Drake. 
 The Lenape Stone. Henry C. Mercer. 
 Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Conditions of the N. 
 
 American Indians. Geo. Catlin, 2 Vols., 1841. 
 Library of Aboriginal American Literature. Daniel G. Brinton. 1885. 
 
 Also other works by the same author. 
 The Menomini Indians. Walter J. Hoffman. Bu. of Am. Ethn. 1892-93. 
 
 Pt. I. 
 The Midewiwin of the Ojibwa. W. J. Hoffman. Bu. of Am. Ethn., 
 
 Vol. VII, i885-'86. 
 
 Mythology of the N. American Indians. Major J. W. Powell. First An- 
 nual Report, Bu. of Am. Ethn. 1879-80. 
 
 Origin and Traditional History of the Wyandotts. Peter Clarke. 
 
 Picture Writing of the N. American Indians. Garrick Mallery. Bu. of 
 Am Ethn. 1888-89. Also by the same author: Report of the 
 
 . Smithsonian Institution. i88o^'8r. Pictographs of the N. American 
 Indians. Bu. of Am. Ethn. i882-'83. (The Report of 1888-89 is 
 
 the most complete.) . , ,^ „ i7- » 
 
 Sign-Language among the N. American Indians. Garrick Mallery. First 
 
 Annual Report. Bu. of Am. Ethn. i879-'8o. 
 Twenty Years among the Hostile Indians. J. Lee Humfreville, U. S. A. 
 The Walam Olum, Its Origin and Authenticity. Library of Aboriginal 
 
 American Literature. Daniel G. Brinton. 1 882-1 890. 
 
 491 
 
492 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 B. AZTEC AND MAYA 
 
 Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices. Cyrus Thomas. Bu. of Am. Ethn. 
 Vol. VI. 1884-85. Also by the same author in these publications: 
 Central American Hieroglyphic Writing (1903) ; Day Symbols of the 
 Maya Year (Vol. XVI, 1894.-95) ; Maya Calendar Systems (1900- 
 'oi). ' ij 
 
 Antiquities of Mexico. Edward K. Kingsborough. 9 vols. 1831-48. 
 
 The Aztecs. A. Van Doren Honeyman. 1905. 
 
 Essays of An Americanist. Daniel G. Brinton. 1890. 
 
 An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs. Sylvanus G. 
 Morley. Bulletin 57, Smithsonian Institution. 1915. 
 
 Mexican Picture Writings. Alex, von Humboldt. 
 
 Nombres Geograficos de Mexico. Antonio Penafiel. 1885. . 
 
 A Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics. Daniel G. Brinton. 
 
 BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 
 
 Archaic Forms of Babylonian Characters. Theophilus G. Pinches. Also 
 other works by the same author. 
 
 Assyrian Discoveries. George Smith. i873-'74. 
 
 Assyrische Lesestuecke, etc. Friedrich Delitzsch. Leipsic, 1900. Also 
 other works by the same author. 
 
 The Code of Hammurabi. Robt. Francis Harper. 1904. 
 
 Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum. 
 
 Decouvertes en Chald^e. Ernest De Sarzec. 
 
 Delegation en Perse. J. De Morgan, Delegue General. 1902. 
 
 Die Entstehung des altesten Schriftsystems. Friedrich Delitzsch. 
 
 Discoveries among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. Austen H. Layard. 
 1883. 
 
 Early Babylonian History. Rev. Hugo Radau. 1900. 
 
 Easy Lessons in the Cuneiform Inscriptions. Legnard W. King. 
 
 Elements D'Epigraphie Assyrienne. Les ficritures Cuneiformes. M. Joa- 
 chim Menan. 
 
 Exploration in Bible Lands. Herman V. Hilprecht. 1903. 
 
 Grammar of the Assyrian Language. A. H. Sayce. , 
 
 A History of Sumer and Akkad. Leonard W. King. London. 1916. 
 
 Light on the Old Testament from Babel. Albert T. Clay. 1907. 
 
 The Monuments Blau. (A) The Monument Blau. Dr. William Hayes 
 Ward. Jo. Am. Oriental Soc. Oct., 1885. (B) Some Notes on the 
 Blau Monuments. Dr. George A. Barton. Jo. Am. Oriental Soc. 
 1901. 
 
 Les Deux plus anciennes Inscriptions proto-cuneiformes connues. (De- 
 scription of the "Monuments Blau," with a translation and illustra- 
 tions.) Thureau-Dangin. Revue Semitique. 1896. 
 
 A New Boundary Stone of Nebuchadrezzar I. Wm. J. Hinke. The 
 Babj'lonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania. Vol. IV. 
 . 1907. 
 
 Nineveh and Babylon. A. H. Layard. 1853. 
 
 Notes on an Archaic Inscription published by Father Schiel. Also on the 
 Hoffman tablet. Dr. Geo. A, Barton, 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 493 
 
 ^abylonian Inscriptions chiefly from Nippur. Herman V. Hilprecht. 
 
 Babylonian Expedition of the Univ. of Pennsylvania. Vol. i, Pt. z. 
 
 the Hieroglyphic or Picture Origin of the Characters of the Assyrian 
 
 Syllabary. Rev. William Houghton. Soc. of Biblical Archaeology. 
 . Vol. VI. i877-'79. 
 Origin and Importance of the Gunu Signs. Charles F. Kent. Am. Jo. of 
 
 Semitic Language and Literature. Vol. XIII. 
 Recherches sur I'origine de I'ecriture cuneiforme. Thureau-Dangin. 1898. 
 Recent Thoughts on the Origin of the Cuneiform Writing. Ira M. Price. 
 
 Am. Jo. Semitic Lang, and Lit. Vol. XV. 
 The Sculptures and Inscriptions of Darius the Great at Behistun. L. W. 
 
 King and R. C. Thompson. . 
 Sur rOrigine des Inscriptions Cuneiformes. Jules Oppert. Athenaeum 
 
 Frangaise. Oct. 20, 1854. 
 Tableau Compare des ficritures Babylonienne et Assyrienne Archaiques et 
 
 Modernes. A. Armiand et L. Mechineau. 1887. 
 The Tell-el-Amarna Letters. Hugo Winkler. 
 
 CHINA 
 
 L'Antiquite de L'Histoire de la Civilisation Chinoises. M. G. Pauthier. 
 Journal Asiatique. April-May, 1868. 
 
 Beginnings of Writing in and around Tibet. Terrien de Lacouperie. Jo. 
 Royal Asiatic Soc. Vol. XVIL 1885. .. 
 
 The Development of Chinese Writing. L. C. Hopkins. 
 
 Dictionary of the Chinese Language. R. Morrison. 
 
 An Explanation of the Elementary Characters of the Chinese. Joseph 
 Hager. London, i8oi. 
 
 The Evolution of Chinese Writing. Prof. George Owen. Oxford, 1910. 
 
 Introduction to the Study of the Chinese Characters. Joseph Edkins. Lon- 
 don, 1876. 
 
 The Middle Kingdom. S. Wells, Williams. 1851. 
 
 The Nichols Mo-so Manuscript. Berthold Laufer, Ph.D. Field Mus. of 
 Natural History, Chicago, 111. 
 
 Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language. S. Wells Williams. 1874. 
 
 CRETE AND CYPRUS 
 
 Anthropology and the Classics. Arthur J. Evans. 
 
 Cretan Pictographs and Pre-Phoenician Script. A. J. Evans. 1895. 
 
 Cyprus. Its Ancient Cities, Tombs and Temples. George Louis Palma 
 Di Cesnola. 1877. ^ • . i 
 
 The Cypriote Inscriptions of the Di Cesnola Collection. Jo. Am. Oriental 
 Soc. Vol. X. 1875. . ..... 
 
 A Descriptive Atlas of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriote Antiquities in 
 the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nev? York City. G. L. P. Di Ces- 
 nola, L.L.D. . « T f 
 
 Law Code of the Kretan Gortyna. A^lgustus C. Merriam. Am. Jo. 01 
 Archaeology. Vol 1, 1885. 
 
 The Palaces of Crete and their Builders. Angelo Mosso. 1907- 
 
494 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The Palace of Knossos in Its Egyptian Relations. A. J. Evans. Egypt 
 
 Exploration Fund. 1899-1900. 
 The Palace of Minos. A. J. Evans. Smithsonian Inst. Report, 1901. 
 Scripta Minoa. A. J. Evans. 1909. 
 
 EGYPT 
 
 Archaeological Survey of Egypt. The Hieroglyphics. F. LI. Griffith. 
 
 Egypt Expl. Fund. Vol. VI. 
 The Book of the Dead. E. A. Wallis Budge. 
 
 Cleopatra's Needle. The London Obelisk. Rev. James King, M.A. 
 Denknnaler aus Aegypten. Karl R. Lepsius. 1845. 
 A Dictionary of the Egyptian Language. Edward Y. McCauley. Trans. 
 
 Am. Phil. Soc, Oct., 1882. 
 Dictionnaire Egyptien en ficriture Hieroglyphique. J. F. Champollion, 
 
 Le Jeune. Paris, 1841. 
 Egyptian Obelisks. Henry H. Gorringer. 
 First Steps in Egyptian. E. A. Wallis Budge. 
 Grammaire Egyptienne. Champollion, Le Jeune, Paris, 1836. 
 A History of Egypt. James H. Breasted. 1905. 
 History of Egypt under the Pharaohs. Brugseh-Bey. 
 Histoire de L'Art Egyptien. Prisse D'Avennes. 
 Inscriptions of the Nile Monuments. Garrett Chatfield Pier. 
 Life in Ancient Egypt. Adolf Erman. 
 Life in Ancient Egypt. Gaston Camille Maspero. 1892. 
 The Monuments of Egypt. Francis L. Hawks, L.L.D. 
 The Monumental History of Egypt. William Osbourn. 2 vols. 
 Pharaohs, Fellehs and Explorers. Amelia B. Edwards. 1892. 
 Ten Years Digging in Egypt. William M. Flinders Petrie. 
 A Thousand Miles -up the Nile. Amelia B. Edwards. 
 The Tombs of Abydos. Wm. M. Flinders Petrie. Egypt Exploration 
 
 Fund. 
 
 GENERAL 
 
 Alphabets. Edward F. Strange. 1907. 
 
 The Alphabet. An Account of the Origin and Development of Letters. 
 Isaac Taylor, L.L.D. 2 vols. London, 1883. 
 
 Ancient Handwritings. William Saunders. 
 
 Anthropology. Edward B. Tylor. The International Scientific Series. 
 
 Apergue de I'Origine des Diverse ficritures de Ancien Monde. Heinrich 
 Julius von Kleproth. 
 
 Beginnings of Writing. William J. Hoffman. 
 
 The Calendar of the Prayer Book Illustrated. Joseph Parker & Co., Ox- 
 ford, Eng. 
 
 Cavernes du Perigord. M. Edw. Lartet et H. Christz. 
 
 Dawn of Civilization. Gaston Camille Maspero. 
 
 The Dawn of History. C. F. Keary. 
 
 Early History of Mankind. Edward B. Tylor. 
 
 Early Man in Britain. Boyd Dawkins. 
 
 ficritures Figuratives. De Rosny. Paris, 1870. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 495 
 
 The Engraved Pictures of the Grotto of La Mouthe, Dordogne, France. 
 Th p""^""'^" Institution Report, 1901. 
 
 e European Diffusion of Pictography in Its Bearings on the Origin of 
 ocript. A. J. Evans. 
 Evolution in Art. A. C. Haddon. 
 
 Merk."' ^' *' Kessleloch near Thayngen (Switzerland). Conrad 
 
 The Five Great Monarchies. George Rawlinson. (4 vols.) 
 The Formation of the Alphabet. Wm. M, Flinders Petrie. Geographical 
 Journal, 1912. 
 
 Illustrirte Geschichte der Schrift. Karl Faulman. Leipsic, 1880. ' (Pro- 
 fusely illustrated.) . f , ^ 
 Herodotus. George Rawlinson. (4 vols ) 
 The Hieroglyphs of Easter Island. J. Park Harrison. 
 Hieroglyphic Inscriptions of Easter Island. Wra. J. Thompson. Smith- 
 sonian Inst. Report, 1889. 
 History of Antiquity. Maximilian W. Dunker. London, 1881. 
 History of Mankind. Friedrich Ratzel. London, i896-'98. 
 Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de L'Orient Classique. G. C. Maspero. 
 Histoire de L'ficriture dans L'Antique. Philippe Berger. Paris, 1891! 
 L'lle de Paques (Easter Island) et ses Monuments Graphiqu'es. C. de 
 
 Harlez. Louvain, 1896. 
 Man, Past and Present. Augustus H. Keane. 1899. 
 Manuscripts, Inscriptions and Muniments. Being the History of the Art 
 
 of Writing. Henry Smith Williams. 4 vols. 
 Materials used to Write upon before the Invention of Printing. Albert 
 
 Maire. Smithsonian Institution Report. 1904. 
 The Mediterranean Signary. Wm. M. F. Petrie. Illustrated in intro- 
 duction to the Royal Tombs of Abydos. Egypt Exploration Fund. 
 Pt. I. 1900. 
 Men of the Old Stone Age. Henry Fairfield Osborn. 1914. 
 The Native Races of S. Africa. . George W. Stow. 
 A New Pacific Script. J. Macmillan Brown. (Article 43, Man, Vol. 
 
 XIV, 1914.) 
 Origin and Progress of Writing. Thomas Astle. 
 
 The Origin and Progress of the Art of Writing. Henry Noel Humphreys. 
 Pantagraphia. Edmund Fry. London, 1799. (Illustrations of all alpha- 
 bets.) 
 Peintures et Gravures Murales des Cavernes Paleolithlques. Emile Car- 
 
 thailhac et I'abbe Henri Breuil. 
 Prehistoric Art. Thomas Wilson. Smithsonian Inst; Report, 1900. Also 
 
 Smithsonian Report, 1896. 
 Primitive Pictographs. A. J. Evans. Jo. of Hellenic Studies, 1894. 
 Recent Theories of the Origin of the Alphabet. Dr. John P. Peters. Jo. 
 
 Am. Oriental Soc. Vol. XXII. 1902. 
 Science of Language. A. H. Sayce. 
 The Story of the Alphabet. Edward Clodd. 
 The Story of Primitive Man. Edward Clodd. 
 Universal Palaeography. J. B. Silvestre. 
 
496 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 GREECE 
 
 Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum. 
 
 Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum. 
 
 Denkmaler des Klassischen Altertums. A. Baumeister. 1889. 
 
 Dictionnaire des Antiquities Grecques et Romaines. 
 
 Graeciae Septentrionalis. 
 
 Greek Coins and their Parent Cities. John Ward. 
 
 Griechsichke Epigraphik. Dr. William Larfeld. 
 
 Handbuch der griechischen Epigraphik. Dr. William Larfeld. 
 
 An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy. E. S. Roberts. 1905. 
 
 Journal of Helenic Studies. 
 
 Origin of the Greek Alphabet. Dr. William N. Bates. "Old Penn " 
 
 (Univ. of Pennsylvania), March, 1916. 
 Sammlung der Griechischen Dialekt Inschriften. Dr. Hermann Collitz. 
 
 HITTITE HIEROGLYPHICS 
 
 Altaic Hieroglyphs and Hittite Inscriptions. Col. C. R. Conder. 
 
 The Ancient Hittites. Dr. Leopold Messerschmidt. Smithsonian Inst. Re- 
 port, 1903. 
 
 The Empire of the Hittites. William Wright. 
 
 Explorations in Bible Lands. Herman V. Hilprecht. 
 
 The Hittites. The Story of a Forgotten Empire. A. H. Sayce, L.L.D. 
 London, 1890. 
 
 The Hittites and their Language. Col. C. R. Conder, London, 1898. 
 
 The So-called Hittites and their Inscriptions. D. P. Jenson. 
 
 LYCIA, LYDIA AND ASIA MINOR 
 
 An Account of Discoveries in Lydia. Charles Fellows. 
 
 History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia; and History of Art 
 in Sardinia, Judea, Syria and Asia Minor. George Perrot and 
 Charles Chipiez. 
 
 Lydian Inscriptions from Sardes. Albert Thumb. Am. Jo. of Archaeol- 
 ogy. Vol. XV, 1911. 
 
 MIDDLE AGES 
 
 Art of Illuminating. Tymns and Watt. i86o. 
 
 Book of Kells. Sir Edward Sullivan. 
 
 Celtic Illuminative Art. In the Gospel Books of Durrow, Lindisfarne and 
 
 Kells. Rev. Stanford F. H. Robinson, M.A. 
 Celtic Ornaments from the Book of Kells. T. K. Abbott. 
 The Court Hand. Illustrated. Hilary Jenkinson. 
 The Development of the Book Hand. Williams. 
 English Court Hand. 1066-1500. Charles Johnson and Hilary Jenkinson, 
 
 Oxford, 1915. 
 Facsimiles of Autographs in the British Museum. George F. Warner. 
 Facsimiles of National Manuscripts. England. Sir Henry James. 4 vols. 
 
 i865-'68. 
 Facsimiles of National Manuscripts (Scotland). Sir Henry James. 3 vols. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 497 
 
 Paleography and the Practical Study of the Court Hand. Hilary Jenkin- 
 son, F.S.A. Cambridge, England, 191 5. 
 
 i'aliEographical Album of Facsimiles of Writings of all Nations and 
 P"'ods. J. B. Silvestre. 4 vols. 1841. 
 
 Ihe Pala;ographical Society, London. Facsimiles of Manuscripts and In- 
 scriptions. Edited by E. A. Bond and E. M. Thompson. 5 vols. 
 
 PHCENICIA 
 L'AIphabet Phenicien. Frangois Lenormant. 
 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum. 1881. 
 Handbuch der Nordsemitisch. Mark Lidzbarski. 
 Memoire sur I'origine fegyptienne de I'alphabet Phenicien. M. Jacques de 
 
 Rouge. Paris, 1874. 
 The Story of Phoenicia. George Rawlinson. 
 A Text Book of N. Semitic Inscriptions. Rev. G. A. Cooke. 
 
 PRINTING 
 
 The Art of the Book. Charles Holme, Editor. 1914. 
 
 Early Venetian Printing. Ferd. Ongania. 
 
 A History of the Art of Printing. H. Noel Humphreys. London, 1868. 
 
 The Invention of Printing. Theodore L. De Vinne, 1878. 
 
 The Invention of Typography and History of Printing. Nos. 49 to 54. 
 
 Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices. 
 The Practice of Typography. Theodore L. De Vinne. 
 The Venetian Printing Press. Horatia F. Brown. 
 
 ROME AND ETRURIA 
 
 The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria. George Dennis. 
 Corpus Inscriptionum Italicarum. Fabretti. 
 Denkmaler des Klassiken Altertums. A. Baumeister. 
 Etruscan Researches. Isaac Taylor. 1874. 
 The Italic Alphabets. Isaac Taylor. 
 
 THE RUNES 
 
 The Old Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England. Dr. 
 George Stephens, F.S.A. 1884. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abecedaria, 375, 376 
 Abu-Simbel inscription, 359 
 Aerology or acrophony, 59, 139, 
 215 
 
 Adjedatigs, Indian grave posts, 89, 
 
 90 
 Akkad, 230 
 
 Alcuin of York, 416, 417 
 Alphabetic writing, 57 
 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 418, 419 
 Anglo-Saxon half uncial, 411 
 Anglo-Saxon minuscule, 412 to 424 
 Arabic alphabet, 305 
 Arabic numerals, 5 
 Aramean alphabets, 303, 304 
 Arbitrary signs used in writing and 
 
 printing, 12, 13, 14 
 Astronomical signs, 10, n, 12 
 Attic inscriptions, 345, 346, 347 
 Aztec writing, 124 to 130 
 
 Babylonian boundary stones, 9 
 
 Bamberg Bible, 464 
 
 Bards. Their rhythmical narration 
 
 of traditions, 19, 20 
 Behistun inscription, 227, 228, 264, 
 
 265, 266 
 Birch bark used for writing, 70 
 Block-books, 456, 457, 458 
 Boeotian writing, 362 
 Book of Armagh, 409 
 Book of the Dead, Egypt, 200, 201 
 Book of Kells, 409, 410 
 Bushmen cave paintings, 44 to 48 
 
 Cadmus, 338 
 
 Capitalization in writing, 426, 427, 
 
 428 
 Cardandan, Yunnan, China, 31, 179 
 Caroline Islands script, 151, 152 
 Caroline minuscule, 417, 423 
 Caslon, William, 483, 484 
 Cave men, 41, 42, 43, 103, 104 
 
 Caxton, William, 477, 478, 479 
 Census roll of Indians at Mille Lac, 
 
 80 
 Census roll of Red Cloud, 78, 79, 8i 
 Ceremonial songs of the Ojibwa 
 
 and Dakota Indians, 84 to 88 
 Chalcidian writing, 365 
 Champollion. Translation of the 
 
 Egyptian hieroglyphs, 188 
 Chancery hand, 435 
 Charter hand, 434 , 
 Cheyenne Indian's letter to his son, 
 
 83 
 Chinese radical or indicative signs, 
 
 165 to 171 
 Chippewa Indian's petition to the 
 
 U. S. Government, 81, 82 
 Classic Greek writing, 366, 367 
 Clogg almanacs, 36, 37 
 Codices, Mexican, 131, 132, 133 
 Corinthian Greek alphabet, 353, 
 
 354, 355 
 Cortes, 112, 113 
 
 Coster, Lourens Janzoon, 460, 461 
 Court hand, 426, 427 
 Coverdale Bible, 480, 48t 
 Cranmer's or the Great Bible, 482 
 Cretan writing, 315 to 323, 348, 349 
 Cursive writing, 402, 403, 404, 408 
 Cypriote Inscriptions, 325 to 328 
 
 Darius, 33, 263, 264, 265 
 
 Day, John, early English printer, 
 
 482, 483 
 Demotic writing of the Egyptians, 
 
 221 
 de Rouge, Emmanuel, 312 
 Determinative signs in Egyptian 
 
 writing, 22, 53 
 Dighton Rock inscription, 63, 64 
 Domesday Book, 421, 422, 423 
 Donatus. One of the earliest 
 
 printed books, 461 
 
 499 
 
500 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Durer, Albert, 468, 469 
 Durham Book, 410 
 
 Easter Island hieroglyphic writing, 
 
 146 to 150 
 Egyptian alphabet, 307, 208, Z09 
 Enshagkushanna's tablet inscription, 
 
 348 
 Entemena's tablet inscription, 253 
 Eshmunazar's inscription, 298, 299 
 Eskimo pictographic inscriptions, 
 
 loi, loz, 103, 106, 107, 108 
 Etruscans, 373 
 
 Etruscan writing, 381, 383, 383 
 Euboean Greek writing, 361 
 Evans, Arthur J., 104, 315 
 
 Father Schiel's tablet inscription, 
 
 238 
 Frank's Casket, 445, 446, 447, 448 
 Fust, Johann, 459, 460 
 
 German Gothic capitals, 434 
 Gesture signs and symbols, 159 
 Gortyna inscription, 349, 350, 351 
 Gothic uncials, 433 
 Grafton, Richard, 482 
 Greek alphabets. Eastern and West- 
 ern, 368 
 Grotefend, Dr. Georg Friedrich, 
 
 227 
 Gudea, Priest-king of Lagash, 347 
 Gutenberg, Johann, 459, 460 
 
 Hamah inscriptions, 369 
 Hammurabi's great cylinder, 260, 
 
 361 
 Hand writing (script), 434 to 443 
 Hawaiian "Revenue Book," 35 
 Hebrew alphabet, 305 
 Herculaneum manuscripts, 394 
 Herodotus, 33, 277, 278, 337, 338 
 Hieratic wrting of the Egyptians, 
 
 318, 319 
 Hieroglyphic writing, 35 
 Hittite bowl from Babylon, 383, 283 
 Hittite inscriptions, 129, 269, 378, 
 
 379, 281 
 
 Hoffman, William J., 31, 32, 85, 88, 
 
 loi, 106 
 Hoifman tablet, 242, 243 
 Homeric epics, 4, 21 
 Humboldt Mexican manuscripts, 
 
 137, 138, 139 
 
 Ideographic writing, 51, 52 
 
 Ikonomatic writing, 133 
 
 Index signs, 33 
 
 Indian autographs, 37 
 
 Inscription Rock, Lake Superior, 
 
 Canada, 68 
 Ionian Greek alphabet, 357 to 360, 
 
 366, 367 
 Irish half-uncial, 410 
 Ipsarabul inscription, 359 
 
 Japanese writing, 161 
 Jenson, Nicolas, 475 
 
 Kadesh, 373, 374 
 Karabel, Pass of, 378 
 Kheta Sira, 275 
 Kiowa calendar counts, 76 
 Knossos inscriptions, 315 
 Knotted cords, 4, 32, 33 
 Korea, Movable types used in 1337, 
 455 
 
 Lacouperie, Terrien de. Theory of 
 a Babylonian origin for the Chi- 
 nese written characters, 183 
 
 Lapp troll drums, 104, 105 
 
 Latin inscriptions, 384, 385 
 
 Lenape Stone, 95 
 
 Leni-Lenape Indians, 91 
 
 Letters of Indulgence. The earliest 
 printed documents, 462 
 
 Libraries destroyed, 397, 398 
 
 Linear Babylonian script, 335, et seq. 
 
 Locrian inscription, 364, 365 
 
 Lo-lo writing, 183 
 
 Ijombardic minuscule, 414, 415 
 
 Lone Dog's Winter Count, 73, 74 
 
 Lycian inscriptions and alphabet, 
 
 332, 335 
 
 Lydian inscriptions and alphabet, 
 
 333, 334. 335 
 
INDEX 
 
 501 
 
 Mallery, Garrick, 75, 81 
 
 Manutius, Aldus, 475, 476 
 
 Marco Polo, 31, 179 
 
 Materials used in writing, 14, 15 
 
 Mazarin Bible, 462, 463 
 
 Medas of the Ojibwa and Dakota 
 
 Indians, 84 to 88 
 Mediterranean signary, 313, 329, 
 
 330 
 Memory jogs and tallies, 28 
 Mesha, King of Moab, 290, 291 
 Metal types, 466 
 Metonymy, 160 
 Mexican codices, 131 to 135 
 Mexican picture writing, 114 to 121 
 Mimicry, 54, 55 
 Minnesingers of Germany, 20 
 Mnemonic devices, 30, 31, 32 
 Moabite Stone, 290, 291, 292, 293 
 Modern-face type, 484 
 Monastic script, 433 
 Monuments Blau, 240, 241 
 Mo-so hieroglyphic writing, 179 to 
 
 '182 
 Movable types, 459 
 
 Nebuchadrezzar, 231 
 
 Negation signs, Egyptian and Maya, 
 
 22, 23 
 Nibelungen Lied, zo 
 Nichols Mo-so Manuscript, 179 to 
 
 183 
 Notched sticks, 4, 31, 32 
 
 Obelisks in various cities, 187, 195 
 
 to 199 
 Occleve, Thomas. Poem de Regi- 
 
 mine Principium, 426, 427 
 Oghams, 449 
 
 Ojibwa medicine songs, 84 to 88 
 Old-face type, 483 
 Oral tradition, 18, 19, 20 
 Our-Nina tablet, 245 
 Ownership marks, 28 
 
 Palenque inscriptions, 142, 143 
 Paloni Indians, 32 
 pannartz, Conrad, 471, 472 
 Papyrus of Hu-nefer, 20i to 205 
 
 Papyrus Prisse, 218, 219 
 
 Parchment, 393 
 
 Pelasgians, 373, 374 
 
 Pelasgian writing, 375, 3761 3^1 , 
 
 Penn Treaty belt, 98, 99 
 
 Petrie, William Flinders, 313, 329. 
 
 330 
 Petroglyphs in N. America, 61 to 67 
 Phoenician alphabet, 305 
 Phonetic writing, 2, 54, 55 
 Pictographic symbols of the Nw 
 
 American Indians, iii 
 Pictographic writing, 51 
 Pictographic writing of the N. 
 
 American Indians, 71, 72, 73 
 Piers Plowman, 424, 425 
 Pima Indians' calendar count, 76, 
 
 77. 78 
 Poster lettering, 486, 487 
 Printing in China, Korea and 
 
 Japan, 455 
 Psalter of Fust and Schoffer, 464, 
 
 Punctuation marks, 417^ V/'/ V/f 
 
 Queen Elizabeth's handwriting, 438, 
 
 439 
 Quipus, 34, 35 
 
 Rafinsque, Samuel R. Schmaltz, 91 
 Rameses II, 273 to 276 
 Rawlinson, Sir Henry, 227, 228 
 Rebus-writing, 124 to 130, 217 
 Red Cloud's census, 79 
 Reindeer Men, 41, 42, 43, 104 
 Renaissance alphabet, 477 
 Renaissance of learning, 453 
 Roman alphabet, 388, 389, 390 
 Roman inscriptions, 385, 386, 387 
 Roman numerals, 5 
 Rosetta Stone, 188, 193, i94> i95 
 Runes, 443 to 448 
 Russian alphabet, 451 
 Rustic Roman capital, 400, 401 
 
 Sanscrit Vedas, 19 
 Sargon I, inscription, 258 
 Schoffer, Peter, 459, 46° 
 Sidonian inscriptions, 297, 298, 299 
 
502 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Sign-language of the North Ameri- 
 can Indians, 21, 22 
 Siloam inscription, 300, 301 
 Slavonic alphabets, 450 
 Speyer, John of, 473, 474 
 Square Roman capitals, 394, 398, 
 
 399 
 Stages in the evolution of writing, 
 
 50 to 53 
 Sumerians, 230 
 Svfeynheim, Conrad, 471, 472 
 
 Tabnith's inscription, 297 
 Tally sticks, 38 
 Tarkondemos, Boss of, 283 
 Thera, inscriptions, 339 to 342 
 Thot. The inventor of writing in 
 
 Egypt, 39 
 Tonga Islands. Awe shown by the 
 
 savages for the art of writing, 29, 
 
 30 
 Totem poles, 23, 25 
 Totem signs, 23 to z6 
 Trope, 160 
 
 Tyndale, William, 454 
 Types used by the first printers, 466, 
 467 
 
 Uncial letters, 404 to 408 
 
 Vedas. The oral transmission of 
 traditions, 19 
 
 Walam Olum of the Lenape Indi- 
 ans, 31, 91 to 94 
 
 Wampum belts, 96 to lOo 
 
 Wax tablets, 397 
 
 Wingenund's inscription, 71, 72 
 
 Winter Counts of the Dakota Indi- 
 ans, 73 to 76 
 
 Xylographic printing, 456 
 
 Young's translation of the Egyptian 
 hieroglyphics, 193 
 
 Zodiacal signs, 7, 8, 9, 10 
 Zuni Indians. Use of Knotted 
 cords, 32 
 
 PPINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMBKIOA