Early Writing

                Around 3000 B.C., the first form of writing emerged. Cuneiform, as it is called, started by pressing blunt reeds into wet clay. Written left to right, Cuneiform allowed right handers to see what they were scribing, and it was comprised of basic illustrative forms. From 2613 B.C. to 2160 B.C., Hieroglyphics appeared as the Egyptian way of written communication. Hieroglyphics, or “sacred carvings”, were carved into stone or clay. They could be read as ideograms, pictures that tell an entire idea, or as phonograms, sounds that make a word. The next form of writing was Early Greek, which evolved in 5^th century B.C. Early Greek could be written left to right or right to left, but was printed in similar to Early Greek, was drawn into stone and was sanserif. Classical Roman Lapidary, 1^st century B.C., may have possibly had a sort of stamping system, because letters were carved from stone and painted on with a brush.  Roman Capitals, in 1^st century A.D., were an attempt at copying the carved out stones of Classical Roman Lapidary. They were scribed on vellum.  In 5^th century A.D., the Romans adapted the Greeks’ uncial letter and created the Roman Uncials, which was named because they were a “Roman inch in height”.  Following these Roman scripts, most systems of writing were written on forms of paper, such as Roman Half Uncials in the 5^th century, the Irish Half Uncials in the 8^th century, and the Carolingian Minuscule & Majuscule in the 9^th to 10^th century. After these, the father of modern day printing, Johann Gutenberg, created the printing press and written documentation was changed.

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