Writing Flashcards
1
Q
Main Languages by 500 BC
A
- New Assyrian (Cuneiform)
- Egyptian (Hieroglyphic, Demotic)
- Old Persian (Cuneiform)
- New Babylonian (Cuneiform)
- Greek
- Aramaic
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
3
Q
End of Egyptian Hieroglyphs
A
-Last inscription at Philae
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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»_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
