Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Many materials were used as writing instru- ments including bruised reeds pointed sticks brushes and copper stylus-like instruments. Paints and inks were developed from natural juices dyes soot and later from oak galls in Europe. Wooden and metal stylus instruments were used to scratch letters into wax or clay tab- lets. Clay tablets had to be baked in order to cre- ate a more permanent document. Wax was somewhat problematic as it could be smoothed over a bad thing if you were a king and had a deceitful secretary or one who didn’t agree with your latest decree. Other writing surfaces included parchment rice paper papyrus and even cloth. Cloth required treatment with either wax or certain plant juices which would prevent the ink from spreading. Pictographic forms of writing such as Egyp- tian hieroglyphics are among the oldest in human history. Dating as far back as 3000 B.C. hieroglyphics first conveyed ideas and later actual words. A glyph of a duck might have stood for a river wetlands hunting or the duck may have been eaten at the Queen’s banquet. Hieratic writing was developed as a shorthand form of hieroglyphics evolving from the more abstract glyph symbols into actual sounds and words. Modern shorthand systems such as Gregg trace their roots back to hieratic writing. Alphabets originated in the Middle East around 2000 B.C. Unlike hieroglyphics each letter or character in an alphabet was intended to represent a sound in the spoken language. As writing systems developed and changed many of the meanings of the ancient world were lost or became indecipherable. (LL)