Chapter 1 Flashcards
Substrate
A surface, as a writing surface
Pictograph
An elementary picture or sketch representing the thing depicted
Petroglyph
A carved or scratched sign or simple figure on rock
Ideograph
A symbol that represents an idea or concept
Mesopotamia
- “the land between rivers”
- known as the cradle of civilization
- Early humans stopped their nomadic wanderings to establish a village society between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
(these flow from the mountains of what is now eastern Turkey across Iraq and into the Persian Gulf)
Sumerians
Those who settled in the lower part of the Fertile Crescent before 3000 BC
Ziggurat
A multistory brick temple compound constructed as a series of recessed levels becoming smaller toward the top of the shrine.
Cuneiform
- Latin for “wedge-shaped”
- A method of writing in which a triangular-tipped stylus was pushed into the clay and formed a series of wedge-shaped strokes rather than a continuous line drawings.
Rebus Writing
Pictures and/or pictographs representing words and syllables with the same or similar sound as the object depicted
Phonogram
A graphic symbol that represents sounds
Scribe
the profession of those individuals who could read and write in early cultures (such as Sumeria and Egypt)
Edubba
a writing school or “tablet house” where youths in early Mesopotamia selected to become scribes began their schooling
Stele
an inscribed or carved stone or slab used for commemorative purposes
Cylinder Seal
- A method of sealing documents and proving their authenticity.
- Prized as ornaments, status symbols, and unique “trademarks” for the owner.
- By rolling the seal across a damp clay tablet to create a raised impression of the depressed design
Hieroglyphics
- Greek for “sacred carving,” after the Egyptian for “the god’s words”
- Picture-writing system
- Earliest known from about 3100 BC and retained for almost three and a half millennia.
Rosetta Stone
- August 1799, Napoleon’s troops were digging a foundation for an addition to the fortification in the Egyptian town of Rosetta, which they were occupying.
- They unearthed a black slab bearing an inscription in two languages and three scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphics, Egyptian demotic script, and Greek.
Determinatives
Signs, such as hieroglyphics, that determine how the preceding glyph should be interpreted
Obelisk
A tall, geometric, totemlike Egyptian monument
Cartouche
A bracketlike plaque containing the glyphs of the important names
Ankh
- A hieroglyph of a cross surmounted by a loop
- Modest origins as the symbol for a sandal strap
- Due to phonetic similarity, it gained meaning as a symbol for life and immortality
- Was widely used as a sacred emblem throughout the land
Papyrus
- Developed in Egypt
- Made from Cyperus Papyrusplant, which grew along the Nile in shallow marshes and pools.
- Paperlike substrate, used for manuscripts, major step forward in Egyptian visual communications.
Verso
The bottom surface of a papyrus sheet in which fibers run vertically
Recto
the upper surface of a papyrus sheet in which the fibers run horizontally
Hieratic Script
- From the Greek for “Priestly”
- Simplified hieroglyphic book hand
- Developed by priests in Egypt for religious writing
- Earliest hieratic script differed from hieroglyphics only in that the use if a rush pen, instead of a pointed brush, produced more abstract characters with a terse, angular quality.
Demotic Script
- From the Greek for “popular”
- an abstract script in ancient Egypt that supplemented hieroglyph
- Came into secular use for commercial and legal writing by the year 400 BCE
Papyrus Manuscripts
- came into use as funerary texts around 1580 bce in Egypt
- Citizens of limited means could afford simple papyri to accompany them on the journey into the afterlife
Pyramid text
- Beginning with the pyramid of Unas (c. 2345 bce)
- Hieroglyphic writing that civered the wals and passages of the pyramid
- Including myths, hymns, and prayers relating to the godlike pharaoh’s life in the afterword
Coffin texts
- Funerary Texts
- Often illustrated with pictures of possessions for use in the afterlife
- Covered all surfaces of a wooden coffin and/or stone sarcophagus
The Book of the Dead
- a third phase in the evolution of funerary texts
- Was written in first-person by the deceased
- placed in the tomb to help it’s occupant, the deceased, triumph over the dangers of the underworld
- the artist who illustrated the Book of the Dead papyri were called upon to foretell what would occur after each subject died and entered the afterlife
Hammurabi
- Reigned in Sumeria from 1792-1750 bce
- Established social order and justice through the Code of Hammurabi, a stele containing 282 laws that spelled out crimes and their punishments
Thomas Young
- 1792-1750 bce
- Proved that the direction in which the glyphs of animals and people faced was the direction hieroglyphics should be read
- and that the cartouche for Ptolemy occurred several times on the Rosetta Stone
Jean-Francois Champollion
- 1790-1832
- did the major deciphering of the Rosetta Stone Hieroglyphs.
- Realized that some of the signs were alphabetic, some were syllabic, and some were determinatives
