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The Cradle of Civilization - 3500-300 BC

One of the most ancient forms of writing comes from the Sumerians. These people of Mesopotamia used a writing system called Cuneiform. Cuneiform writing is most commonly found inscribed in clay tablets, due to the abundance of clay in the marshy areas of Mesopotamia. The word Cuneiform comes from the Latin word cuneus, meaning "wedge". This name is characteristically correct since the impressions into soft clay were made with a wedge shaped stylus. Three types of marks were made in the clay tablets. The marks consisted of wedge shapes, thin straight lines, and deep round impressions. These were made with three types of stylus, a reed that was carved into a wedge shape at the end, a triangular reed with a sharp pointed end, and a reed with a blunt round end to make the deep round impressions. This writing technique further developed into an art for those who learned and used it everyday. Below are samples of cuneiform writing:

The Code of Hammurabi

> > Click here for the Mesopotamian Timeline

Egyptian Hieroglyps - 3100 BC-394 AD
The Egyptian Hieroglyphs is among the old writing system in the world. Unlike its contemporary cuneiform Sumerian, Egyptian Hieroglyph's origin is much more obscure. There is no identifiable precursor It was once thought that the origin of Egyptian Hieroglyphs are religious and historical, but recent developments could point to an economical impetus for this script as well as push back the time depth of this writing system.
The Egyptian writing system is complex but relatively straightforward. The inventory of signs is divided into three major categories, namely (1) logograms, signs that write out morphemes; (2) phonograms, signs that represent one or more sounds); and (3) determinatives, signs that denote neither morpheme nor sound but help with the meaning of a group of signs that precede them. > More here

Fun Corner ::. Write Like an Egyptian

The Asian Contribution

Origins in China Source: http://www.printersmark.com/Pages/Hist1.html

By the end of the 2nd century AD, the Chinese seem to have discovered printing. They already had available the three elements necessary for printing: (1) paper, (2) ink, and (3) surfaces carved in relief bearing texts.

The Wood Block

At first, the text was written in ink on a sheet of fine paper; then the written side of the sheet was applied to the smooth surface of a block of wood, coated with a rice paste that retained the ink of the text; third, an engraver cut away the uninked areas so that the text stood out in relief and in reverse. To make a print, the wood block was then inked with a paintbrush. A sheet of paper was spread onto the inked surface, and the back of the sheet rubbed with a brush. Only one side of the sheet could be printed in this manner.

The oldest known printed works made by this wood block technique are from Japan (about 764-770) of Buddhist incantations ordered by Empress Shotoku and from China in 868 The first known book, the Diamond Sutra beginning in 932, a collection of Chinese classics in 130 volumes, was made at the initiative of Fong Tao, a Chinese minister.

Invention of movable type (11th century)

Around 1041-48 a Chinese alchemist named Pi Sheng appears to have conceived of movable type made of an amalgam of clay and glue hardened by baking. He composed texts by placing the types side by side on an iron plate coated with a mixture of resin, wax, and paper ash. Gently heating this plate and then letting the plate cool solidified the type. Once the impression had been made, the type could be detached by reheating the plate. It would thus appear that Pi Sheng had found an overall solution to the many problems of typography: the manufacture, the assembling, and the recovery of reusable type.

Paper Source: http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/Museum/tsailun.html

Tsai, Lun, is the inventor of paper. He lived and served as an official at the Chinese Imperial Court at the Han Dynasty in China at about 1800 years ago. In or about the year 105 A.D., he presented Emperor Han Ho Ti with samples of paper. Chinese records do mention and credit Tsai, Lun with the invention of paper. His name is well known in China. In China, before Tsai, Lun, books were made of bamboo, which were heavy and clumsy. Some books were made of silks, which were very expensive. In the West at that time, books were made of sheepskin or calfskin. Tsai, Lun improved the technology of making paper from sesame fiber. He used recycleable meterials such as bamboo, tree skin and shabby cloth to make paper. The technique of papermaking was kept as a secret for five centuries in China. In 751, some Chinese papermakers were captured by Arabs, and later paper was produced in the Middle East. The arts of papermaking gradually spread and in the twelfth century the Europeans learned the arts from the Arabs. Paper became the most common writing material in the West. Today, paper is the most commonly used materials in human life, not just as a medium of communication. Tsai, Lun's contribution to civilization is priceless!

On the left is shown Frontispiece (detail), showing the Buddha preaching to his aged disciple Subhuti.

This scroll was found in 1907 by the archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein in a walled-up cave at the 'Caves of the Thousand Buddhas', near Dunhuang, in North-West China. It was one of a small number of printed items among many thousands of manuscripts, comprising a library which must have been sealed up in about AD 1000. Although not the earliest example of blockprinting, it is the earliest which bears an actual date. The colophon, at the inner end, reads: `Reverently [caused to be] made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 13th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong [i.e. 11th May, AD 868]'.
Source: http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/diamond.html