"implement. It has a hard tip which applies ink to a surface. Initially, pens were made by slicing a suitable nib point from the end of a thin, hollow natural material which could retain a small reservoir of ink by capillary action. However, these ink reservoirs were relatively small, requiring the pen to be periodically dipped back into an external inkwell for replenishing. Reed pens were used by the ancient Egyptians to write on papyrus. Quill pens were standard in Europe and the United States up through the 18th and 19th centuries, and are still used in various contexts, such"
"Papyrus Papyrus is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, ""Cyperus papyrus"", a wetland sedge. ""Papyrus"" (plural: ""papyri"") can also refer to a document written on sheets of such material, joined together side by side and rolled up into a scroll, an early form of a book. Papyrus is first known to have been used in Egypt (at least as far back as the First Dynasty), as the papyrus plant was once abundant across the Nile Delta. It was also used"
"making inscriptions on stone, the chief writing tool of ancient Egypt was the reed pen, a reed fashioned into a stem with a bruised, brush-like end. With pigments of carbon black and red ochre, the reed pen was used to write on scrolls of papyrus—a thin material made from beating together strips of pith from the ""Cyperus papyrus"" plant—as well as on small ceramic or limestone potsherds known as ostraca. It is thought that papyrus rolls were moderately expensive commercial items, since many are palimpsests, manuscripts that have had their original contents erased to make room for new written works."
"capable of decipherment only with the aid of a magnifying-glass. In Egypt the principal writing material was of quite a different sort. Wooden tablets are found pictured on the monuments; but the material which was in common use, even from very ancient times, was the papyrus. This reed, found chiefly in Lower Egypt, had various economic means for writing, the pith was taken out, and divided by a pointed instrument into the thin pieces of which it is composed; it was then flattened by pressure, and the strips glued together, other strips being placed at right angles to them, so"
"Egyptian hieroglyphs Egyptian hieroglyphs () were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt. It combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with a total of some 1,000 distinct characters. Cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts were derived from hieroglyphic writing. The use of hieroglyphic writing arose from proto-literate symbol systems in the Early Bronze Age, around the 32nd century BC (Naqada III), with the first decipherable sentence written in the Egyptian language dating to the Second Dynasty (28th century BC). Egyptian hieroglyphs developed into a mature writing system"
"the stems of Papyrus reed, a series of steps (humidification, pressing, drying, gluing, and cutting) produced media of variable quality, the best being used for sacred writing. In Ancient Egypt, papyrus was used as a medium for writing surfaces, maybe as early as from First Dynasty, but first evidence is from the account books of King Neferirkare Kakai of the Fifth Dynasty (about 2400 BC). A calamus, the stem of a reed sharpened to a point, or bird feathers were used for writing. The script of Egyptian scribes was called hieratic, or sacerdotal writing; it is not hieroglyphic, but a"
"the entire Egyptian Hieroglyphs block. Egyptian hieroglyphs Egyptian hieroglyphs () were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt. It combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with a total of some 1,000 distinct characters. Cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts were derived from hieroglyphic writing. The use of hieroglyphic writing arose from proto-literate symbol systems in the Early Bronze Age, around the 32nd century BC (Naqada III), with the first decipherable sentence written in the Egyptian language dating to the Second Dynasty (28th century BC). Egyptian hieroglyphs developed"
"Egypt during the dynastic period include astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Their geometry was a necessary outgrowth of surveying to preserve the layout and ownership of farmland, which was flooded annually by the Nile river. The 3,4,5 right triangle and other rules of thumb served to represent rectilinear structures, and the post and lintel architecture of Egypt. Egypt also was a center of alchemy research for much of the western world. The word ""paper"" comes from the Greek term for the ancient Egyptian writing material called papyrus, which was formed from beaten strips of papyrus plants. Papyrus was produced in Egypt"
"no longer in common use as writing instruments, but may be used by calligraphers and other artists: Ancient Egyptians had developed writing on papyrus scrolls when scribes used thin reed brushes or reed pens from the ""Juncus maritimus"" or sea rush. In his book ""A History of Writing"", Steven Roger Fischer suggests that on the basis of finds at Saqqara, the reed pen might well have been used for writing on parchment as long ago as the First Dynasty or about 3000 BC. Reed pens continued to be used until the Middle Ages, but were slowly replaced by quills from"
"with seals or signets. The common materials of writing were the tablet and the roll, the former probably having a Chaldean origin, the latter an Egyptian. The tablets of the Chaldeans are among the most remarkable of their remains. There are small pieces of clay, somewhat rudely shaped into a form resembling a pillow, and thickly inscribed with cuneiform characters. Similar use has been seen in hollow cylinders, or prisms of six or eight sides, formed of fine terra cotta, sometimes glazed, on which the characters were traced with a small stylus, in some specimens so minutely as to be"
"pages used in books from this period also pose their own concerns. There were three main materials used for the pages of books in this time period: papyrus, parchment or vellum, and paper (Alexander 35). Papyrus was the primary writing material of the ancient world, and was created by beating stalks of the papyrus reed together until the fibers in the plant formed a tight, almost woven structure. Because it did not provide a stable surface for paint, this sort of paper was very rarely used for illuminated manuscripts. As for the paper most people would recognize today, the first"
"This, along with the practice of tearing pieces off of larger papyrus documents to make smaller letters, suggests that there were seasonal shortages caused by the limited growing season of ""Cyperus papyrus"". It also explains the frequent use of ostraca and limestone flakes as writing media for shorter written works. In addition to stone, ceramic ostraca, and papyrus, writing media also included wood, ivory, and plaster. By the Roman Period of Egypt, the traditional Egyptian reed pen had been replaced by the chief writing tool of the Greco-Roman world: a shorter, thicker reed pen with a cut nib. Likewise, the"
"for taking notes. They had the advantage of being reusable: the wax could be melted, and reformed into a blank. The custom of binding several wax tablets together (Roman ""pugillares"") is a possible precursor of modern bound (codex) books. The etymology of the word ""codex"" (block of wood) also suggests that it may have developed from wooden wax tablets. Scrolls can be made from papyrus, a thick paper-like material made by weaving the stems of the papyrus plant, then pounding the woven sheet with a hammer-like tool until it is flattened. Papyrus was used for writing in Ancient Egypt, perhaps"
"by the ancient Mesopotamians in order to write in cuneiform. They were mostly made of reeds and had a slightly curved trapezoidal section. Egyptians (Middle Kingdom) and the Minoans of Crete (Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphic) made styluses in various materials: reeds that grew on the sides of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and in marshes and down to Egypt where the Egyptians used styluses from sliced reeds with sharp points; bone and metal styluses were also used. Cuneiform was entirely based on the ""wedge-shaped"" mark that the end of a cut reed made when pushed into a clay tablet;"
"throughout the Mediterranean region and in the Kingdom of Kush. Apart from a writing material, ancient Egyptians employed papyrus in the construction of other artifacts, such as reed boats, mats, rope, sandals, and baskets. Papyrus was first manufactured in Egypt as far back as the fourth millennium BCE. The earliest archaeological evidence of papyrus was excavated in 2012 and 2013 at Wadi al-Jarf, an ancient Egyptian harbor located on the Red Sea coast. These documents date from c. 2560–2550 BCE (end of the reign of Khufu). The papyrus rolls describe the last years of building the Great Pyramid of Giza."
"the decline of the culture of ancient Rome. Papyrus became difficult to obtain due to lack of contact with Egypt, and parchment, which had been used for centuries, became the main writing material. Parchment is a material made from processed animal skin and used—mainly in the past—for writing on. Parchment is most commonly made of calfskin, sheepskin, or goatskin. It was historically used for writing documents, notes, or the pages of a book. Parchment is limed, scraped and dried under tension. It is not tanned, and is thus different from leather. This makes it more suitable for writing on, but"
"that a roll of any length might be manufactured. Writing seems to have become more widespread with the invention of papyrus in Egypt. That this material was in use in Egypt from a very early period is evidenced by still existing papyrus of the earliest Theban dynasties. As the papyrus, being in great demand, and exported to all parts of the world, became very costly, other materials were often used instead of it, among which is mentioned leather, a few leather mills of an early period having been found in the tombs. Parchment, using sheepskins left after the wool was"
"in hieroglyphs. The native name for Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is """" (""writing of the gods' words""). However, in antiquity, most texts were written on perishable papyrus in hieratic and (later) demotic, which are now lost. There was also a form of cursive hieroglyphs, used for religious documents on papyrus, such as the ""Book of the Dead"" of the Twentieth Dynasty; it was simpler to write than the hieroglyphs in stone inscriptions, but it was not as cursive as hieratic and lacked the wide use of ligatures. Additionally, there was a variety of stone-cut hieratic, known as ""lapidary hieratic"". In the"
"such, they are written in hieratic script on flat pieces of stone or broken pottery, which served as a convenient and cheap writing surface. The artisans and villagers who lived in Deir el-Medinah made use of this plentiful source of writing material to write down prescriptions, letters, and even semi-official documents such as lists noting the days and reasons for a particular worker's absence. Because of the resilience of the material used to write them, as well as the dry and warm climate of Egypt, many of the ostraca have been preserved in good condition for many centuries. However, due"
"Demotic (Egyptian) Demotic (from ""dēmotikós"", ""popular"") is the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic used in the Nile Delta, and the stage of the Egyptian language written in this script, following Late Egyptian and preceding Coptic. The term was first used by the Greek historian Herodotus to distinguish it from hieratic and hieroglyphic scripts. By convention, the word ""Demotic"" is capitalized in order to distinguish it from demotic Greek. The Demotic script was referred to by the Egyptians as "" ""document writing"", which the second-century scholar Clement of Alexandria called ""letter-writing"", while early Western scholars, notably Thomas"
"Cursive hieroglyphs Cursive hieroglyphs, or hieroglyphic book hand, are a form of Egyptian hieroglyphs commonly used for handwritten religious documents, such as the Book of the Dead. This style of writing was typically written with ink and a reed brush on papyrus, wood, or leather. It was particularly common during the Ramesside Period, and many famous documents, such as the Papyrus of Ani, utilize it. It was also employed on wood for religious literature such as the Coffin Texts. Cursive hieroglyphs should not be confused with the truly cursive form of hieroglyphs known as hieratic. Hieratic has a large number"
"employed to write /ā/, ""he"" for /ō/, ""yod"" for /ī/, and ""vav"" for /ū/. Aramaic writing and language supplanted Babylonian cuneiform and Akkadian language, even in their homeland in Mesopotamia. The wide diffusion of Aramaic letters led to its writing being used not only in monumental inscriptions, but also on papyrus and potsherds. Aramaic papyri have been found in large numbers in Egypt, especially at Elephantine—among them are official and private documents of the Jewish military settlement in 5 BC. In the Aramaic papyri and potsherds, words are separated usually by a small gap, as in modern writing. At the"
"typical ancient Chinese writing materials were bronzewares, animal bones, and bamboo slips or wooden boards. By the beginning of the Han dynasty, the chief writing materials were clay tablets, silk cloth, hemp's paper, and rolled scrolls made from bamboo strips sewn together with hempen string; these were passed through drilled holes and secured with clay stamps. The oldest known Chinese piece of hard, hempen wrapping paper dates to the 2nd century BC.The standard papermaking process was invented by Cai Lun (AD 50–121) in 105. The oldest known surviving piece of paper with writing on it was found in the ruins"
"original Egyptian pigments were discarded in favor of Greek lead-based inks. The adoption of Greco-Roman writing tools influenced Egyptian handwriting, as hieratic signs became more spaced, had rounder flourishes, and greater angular precision. Underground Egyptian tombs built in the desert provide possibly the most protective environment for the preservation of papyrus documents. For example, there are many well-preserved ""Book of the Dead"" funerary papyri placed in tombs to act as afterlife guides for the souls of the deceased tomb occupants. However, it was only customary during the late Middle Kingdom and first half of the New Kingdom to place non-religious"
"thin the ink to a proper consistency for writing. In order to apply the ink to the scrolls, its writers used reed pens. The Dead Sea scrolls were written on parchment made of processed animal hide known as vellum (approximately 85.5 – 90.5% of the scrolls), papyrus (estimated at 8.0 – 13.0% of the scrolls), and sheets of bronze composed of about 99.0% copper and 1.0% tin (approximately 1.5% of the scrolls). For those scrolls written on animal hides, scholars with the Israeli Antiquities Authority, by use of DNA testing for assembly purposes, believe that there may be a hierarchy"
"first taught to students, knowledge of hieroglyphs being limited to a small minority who were given additional training. In fact, it is often possible to detect errors in hieroglyphic texts that came about due to a misunderstanding of an original hieratic text. Most often, hieratic script was written in ink with a reed brush on papyrus, wood, stone or pottery ostraca. Thousands of limestone ostraca have been found at the site of Deir al-Madinah, revealing an intimate picture of the lives of common Egyptian workmen. Besides papyrus, stone, ceramic shards, and wood, there are hieratic texts on leather rolls, though"
"writing tablet used in Roman Britain, which were imported and made from non-native wood. The tablets are 0.25–3 mm thick with a typical size being (the size of a modern postcard). They were scored down the middle and folded to form diptychs with ink writing on the inner faces, the ink being carbon, gum arabic and water. Nearly 500 tablets were excavated in the 1970s and 1980s. First discovered in March 1973, the tablets were initially thought to be wood shavings until one of the excavators found two stuck together and peeled them apart to discover writing on the inside."
"Clay tablet In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets (Akkadian ""ṭuppu(m)"" ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age. Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with a stylus often made of reed (reed pen). Once written upon, many tablets were dried in the sun or air, remaining fragile. Later, these unfired clay tablets could be soaked in water and recycled into new clean tablets. Other tablets, once written, were fired in hot kilns (or inadvertently, when buildings were burnt down by accident or"
"as in Egypt, the small city-states of Sumer depended on the rivers and so, the cycles of agricultural production were organized around them. The rivers also provided communications materials. In Egypt, the Nile's papyrus became a medium for writing while in Mesopotamia, the rivers yielded the alluvial sediments the Sumerians used to fashion the clay tablets on which they inscribed their wedge-shaped, cuneiform script. Their earliest writing recorded agricultural accounts and economic transactions. Innis points out that the tablets were not well suited to pictographic writing because making straight lines ""tended to pull up the clay."" Therefore Sumerian scribes used"
"by the philosopher Wang Chong (27–100 CE). The most common writing mediums found in archaeological digs from ancient sites predating the Han period are shells and bones as well as bronzewares. In the beginning of the Han period, the chief writing mediums were bamboo (Chinese: 竹簡) and clay tablets, silk cloth, and rolled scrolls made of strips of bamboo sewn together with hempen string passed through drilled holes (册) and secured with clay stamps. The written characters on these narrow flat strips of bamboo were arranged into vertical columns. While maps drawn in ink on flat silk cloths have been"
"Hieratic Hieratic (; ) is a cursive writing system used for Ancient Egyptian, and the principal script used to write that language from its development in the 3rd millennium BCE until the rise of Demotic in the mid 1st millennium BCE. It was primarily written in ink with a reed pen on papyrus. In the second century, the term ""hieratic"" was first used by Clement of Alexandria. It derives from the Greek for ""priestly writing"" (), as at that time, hieratic was used only for religious texts and literature, as had been the case for the previous eight and a"
"periods, one for writing and the other for printing. ""In the writing period we can note the importance of various media such as the clay tablet of Mesopotamia, the papyrus roll in the Egyptian and in the Graeco-Roman world, parchment codex in the late Graeco-Roman world and the early Middle Ages, and paper after its introduction in the Western world from China."" Innis notes that he will concentrate on paper as a medium in the printing period along with the introduction of paper-making machinery at the beginning of the 19th century and the use of wood pulp in the manufacture"
"Hieroglyph A hieroglyph (Greek for ""sacred writing"") was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called ""hieroglyphs"". In Neoplatonism, especially during the Renaissance, a ""hieroglyph"" was an artistic representation of an esoteric idea, which Neoplatonists believed actual Egyptian hieroglyphs to be. The word ""hieroglyphics"" refer to a hieroglyphic script. Only those privileged with an extensive education (i.e. the Pharaoh, nobility and priests) were able to read and write hieroglyphs; others used simpler 'joined-up' versions: demotic and hieratic script. One of the two"