3
3. The first civilisations
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1. In Mesopotamia, objects were first represented through
pictures (
pictograms
). Later these became more stylised.
2. They wrote on wet clay tablets with a reed stick. This type of
writing is called
cuneiform
, from the Latin meaning ‘wedge’
5
because the signs were wedge-shaped.
3. They used a series of pictograms to express their ideas
(
ideograms
). This is called
ideographic
writing.
4. First they wrote from top to bottom and later horizontally.
They baked the tablets in an oven to harden them.
5. The Egyptians used an ideographic writing system called
hieroglyphics,
which gave the words a magical quality. They wrote on
stones (in temples and burial structures), wooden tablets and papyrus (paper made from a plant which grows on the banks of the
Nile). For administrative documents and routine tasks, the Egyptians used a more simplistic form of writing (first
hieratic
and later
demotic
).
Hieroglyphics were deciphered by Jean-François Champollion in the 19th century thanks to the discovery of the
Rosetta Stone,
where the same text appears in hieroglyphics, demotic and Greek.
THE EMERGENCE OF WRITING
Remember
1.
Answer these questions.
a)
What did the regions where the first civilisations were
formed have in common?
b)
What were the main characteristics of the earliest
civilisations?
c)
Why was the flooding of the rivers important for these
civilisations?
d)
What effect did agricultural developments have on
trade and craftsmanship?
e)
Why were government officials needed? Explain the
political structure of these early civilisations.
f)
Why was the invention of writing so important? Which
period of history does it mark the end of?
Apply
2.
Imagine that you do not know how to write and
you have to record these products which have
arrived on a boat: five fish and three chickens.
❚
Record this information in drawings.
❚
Simplify the drawings as much as possible and
convert them into signs.
❚
Explain to your group what each sign means. Can
they understand what you have written? What is
this type of writing called?
3.
Go to the web page
Application for writing
names in Egyptian hieroglyphics
, convert your
name into hieroglyphics and then copy it into
your notebook.
