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Med Past > Writing > Flashcards

Writing Flashcards

1
Q

Main Languages by 500 BC

A
  • New Assyrian (Cuneiform)
  • Egyptian (Hieroglyphic, Demotic)
  • Old Persian (Cuneiform)
  • New Babylonian (Cuneiform)
  • Greek
  • Aramaic
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2
Q

Start of Egyptian Hieroglyphs

A

-Set of Ivory tags with pictograms found in Abydos Tomb U-j from 3100 BC, denoting names of tomb owners

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3
Q

End of Egyptian Hieroglyphs

A

-Last inscription at Philae

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4
Q

Linear A

A
  • LMIA-B c.1700-1500 BC
  • First proper Greek writing
  • Some signs have been identified but it remains undecipherable - characters can be classified but we don’t know what the language is
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5
Q

Linear B

A
  • LMII-LMIIIB, 1450-1190
  • Language is Greek, so can be deciphered
  • Found both on Crete and on the mainland but likely originated in Crete
  • Written on unbaked clay which turns back into mud so does not survive - only baked/surviving examples are from fires/destruction
  • Used for administrative purposes
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6
Q

Phaistos Disk

A
  • Fired clay disk from Minoan palace of Phaistos on the island of Crete around the Middle/Late Minoan Bronze Age, early 2nd millennium
  • Still unsure if it’s genuine
  • Still untranslated as corpus too small
  • Cretan hieroglyphs
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7
Q

Hieroglyphs

A
  • Alphabetic signs
  • Egyptian writing only one in the near east which is on Papyrus (from 25th c BC), although started on stone, rather than clay
  • Bilateral and trilateral signs - multiple letters such as nfr or pr or nb
  • Symbols include water, twisted flacks, two reeds, owl, horned viper, ankh/sandal strap, hare, crane, eye, axe, owl
  • Can be written left to right or right to left so can be symmetrical with a central character in the middle - know what way to read it by looking at which way the living creatures are facing - you read into the beaks/muzzles etc
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8
Q

Demotic Egyptian

A
  • 5th c BC
  • Developed after hieratic, after hieroglyphic
  • Essentially replaces hieratic
  • ’ a bunch of agitated commas’
  • No longer as recognizable as the pictures they originally were, much more simplied
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9
Q

Cuneiform

A
  • Means ‘wedge shaped writing’ - effectively pictograms at first but develops in characters
  • Written on unbaked clay tablets with a stylus
  • Diplomatic language of the whole near east by late 14th c BC
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10
Q

Materials

A
  • Division of the Ancient world is papyrus vs clay tablets
  • Papyrus and ink in Egypt
  • Clay tablets and stylus - typically unbaked. If they are found baked this may indicate a fire or sacking of a city in Mesopotamia
  • Baked clay tablets sent in unbaked clay envelopes
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11
Q

Protocuneiform to Cuneiform

A
  • Recognisable pictures of things drawn upright
  • Began being drawn on their side around 3000BC for no apparent reason
  • Become more and more abstract from the 3rd millennium
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12
Q

Royal Five-Fold Titulary

A
  • Way in which Kings full names are written - in ovals known as cartouches.
  • Horus, Nebti, Golden Falcon, Prenomen, Nomen (latter is name given at birth)
  • Falcon, Vulture and Cobra, Falcon, Ant and something above Stela, Duck and Aten above Stela
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13
Q

htp-di-nsw

A
  • Offering formulae found in tombs and temples - funerary contexts
  • Includes names and epithets of god, Prayer, and titles and name of worshipper e.g. Anubis being worshipped by Amenhotep
  • Sort of a magical spell for obtaining food in the afterlife
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14
Q

Hieratic Script

A
  • 20th c BC, mid way between hieroglyphic and demotic
  • Vaguely recognizable as the symbols they were originally - still a little pictographic, but simplified - moves further away as time passes
  • Originally written in columns, but later written right to left, without the symmetry of hieroglyphs
  • Now written on papyrus and ostraka (a flake of limestone or rarely pot sherds) - also used by artists
  • Vowels are not writtend
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15
Q

Coptic Script

A
  • Beyond our period
  • Once Christianity comes in, hieratic, demotic and hieroglyphic scripts all disappear due to link between these scripts and paganism
  • Replaced by coptic - essentially the greek alphabet with a few demotic characters added in for sounds which you don’t find in greek script
  • Greek has vowels, so now Egyptians use vowels- previously these were not written
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16
Q

Literary Genres

A
  • Inscriptions for the Gods
  • Texts of Burial
  • Biographies
  • Historical Inscriptions
  • Chronicles
  • Administrative Documents
  • Expedition Records
  • Philosophy
  • Human Relationships
  • Stories
  • Magical-Medical texts
  • Law Codes (but none from Egypt exist)
  • Diplomatic Correspondence
17
Q

Types of cuneiform sign

A

• logograms/ideograms (signs denoting whole word: same sign can mean something different in Sumerian and Akkadian)
• syllograms (signs denoting a syllable: may vary in reading depending on context; may be several signs
for the same syllable, with use dependent on context)
• phonetic complements (syllogram used to remove ambiguity in reading of a logogram)
• determinatives (signs placed before or after logograms to show the class of thing referred to)

18
Q

Descent of the Cunieform Script

A

Sumerian Cuneiform&raquo_space; Old Akkadian

  • SC split into 4 branches
  • Elamite, Babylonian, Assyrian and Hittite
  • Used in all of the med except the Aegean and Egypt
19
Q

Amarna Letters

A
  • Diplomatic correspondence form most of the East Med world
  • Some incoming texts are baked clay encased in an envelope of unbaked clay, sometimes with the same text on the outside so you can tell they haven’t been tampered with
  • Written in Akkadian cuneiform, the diplomatic language
  • Typically asking for/giving daughters and gold - but Egyptians typically don’t give their daughters, but they do have gold, so get Babylonian daughters
  • 382 total tablets over 30 years, from around 1388-1332 BC, in the reigns of Amenhotep III Akenhaten and Tutankhamun in the 18th dynasty
20
Q

Egypto-Hittite Treaty

A
  • 1250 BC
  • Exists on a wall in the temple of Karnak, and on clay tablets in Hati - both sides copies survive
  • Had been at war for the best part of a century but signed a treaty as it seemed neither side was going to win, but other power centers e.g. Mesopotamia were growing, so they should collaborate
21
Q

Cretan hieroglyphs

A
  • No trace of any kind of literacy until the 15th c BC
  • MMI-III, early 2nd Millennium
    e. g. Phaistos Disk
  • Most simply seal impressions that are pictographic - some significance, maybe to do with ownership?
22
Q

Proto-Sinaitic script

A
  • 1800 BC
  • Small carvings which are basically Egyptian with hieroglyphs, but also this proto-sinaitic script
  • Adapting hieroglyphs into an alphabetic script
  • Attempts by semetic speaking populations inspired to try and create a language
23
Q

Ugaritic alphabetic cuneiform

A
  • 1200 BC

- Attempts to create a purely alphabetic version of cuneiform

24
Q

Proto-Semitic

A
  • Descended into Canaanite, Phoenician and Early Hebrew
  • These Descented into Greek and Aramaic
  • Greek descends into Latin, Irish, German, Runic, Roman, Cyrillic, Modern Greek, Armenian and Georgian
  • Aramaic descends into Hebrew, Syrian, Mongolian, Arabic
25
Q

Aramaic

A 
Lingua franca of:
• Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC)
• Neo-Babylonian Empire (605–539 BC)
• Persian Empire (539 323 BC),
• Parthian Empire (247 BC–AD 224)
• Hellenistic & Roman Palestine
• Sasanian Empire (224–651)
- Replaced Akkadian as the diplomatic language
-Written on papyri
26
Q

Cup of Nestor

A
  • Earliest recognizable Greek texts – c.740–720 BC
  • Inscriptions on vases/cups/pottery
  • Developed hugely after Dark Ages - likely some evidence of this transition that has not been found/has been lost during the dark ages
27
Q

Protocuneiform

A
  • From Uruk IV period, 3300-3100 BC in Sumer, Mesopotamia
  • Began as very simplistic pictograms, detailing grain production, types, quantities and purpose
  • Developed over time into a more refined cuneiform
  • Written on an unbaked clay tablet using a stylus
28
Q

Proto/Earliest Hieroglyphs

A
  • Set of Ivory tags with pictograms found in Abydos Tomb U-j from 3100 BC - published the earliest c14 date in an attempt to make it seem like they had found the earliest writing in the world
  • Most likely give the names of owners or donors of the tombs
  • Nowhere near the level of sophistication Mesopotamian cuneiform has already reached by this point
29
Q

Narmer Palette

A
  • 3000 BC, Hierakonpolis
  • Palettes likely used for grinding eye makeup, but often with elaborate and detailed designs
  • Seems to commemorate the unification of upper and lower Egypt by King Narmer - text limited other than labels on people
30
Q

Monumental Sumerian

A
  • 26th c BC - everything written on its side
  • Words blocked into separate boxes/ compartments
  • Still pictographic - not fully cuneiform yet
31
Q

Law Code of Hammurabi

A
  • 18th c BC, written in Old Babylonian

- No similar law codes exist from Egypt

Med Past (11 decks)

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