John Bucher (SHU)
Ancient and Medieval Scripts
Sumerian Cuneiform
An account of barley rations issued monthly to adults and children written in cuneiform script on a clay tablet, circa 2350 BC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer#/media/File:Issue_of_barley_rations.JPG
The term cunieform refers to the act of writing into clay with a wedge-ended stick (cuneus). Syllables, represented by symbols and derived by pictographs (described below), were carved into these clay tablets as a means of communication through language. These could be read in any order, but complete ideas that were intended to be read as so were contained within rectangles, which is how our truism is represented above.
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There were numerous difficulties that arose when translating, such as the absence of any "j" syllable, "w" sound, "f" syllable, as well as any "ects" sounds, so "objects" and "reject" wouldnt fully work. As a result of this, the truism is pronounced as follows: ri ek (reject) a ke te ez (acquaintances) di ka (discard) ab ez (objects) za ge (forget) tu (truths).
Key Concepts and Terms
Pictogram - A pictorial symbol for an idea, word, or phrase, is a pictogram.
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Mesopotamia - Mesopotamia is Greek for the "place between two rivers", those two rivers being Euphrates and Tigris.
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Bulla - A bulla is a clay container for holding tokens. Reminiscent of a piggy bank in that it must be broken to access coins.
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Cylinder Seal - A cylinder seal is a cylindrical seal that was impressed into a bulla to show the person involved in that particular transaction. Cylinder Seal's were individual, differing from person to person.
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Ideogram - An ideogram is a written character symbolizing the idea of something without indicating the sounds used to say it. Ex: a no smoking sign.
Cuneiform - Cuneiform is the act of writing into clay with a stick (cueneus).
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Complex Tokens - Complex tokens are clay tokens with markings and a hole in their center so that they could be hung on a string. Each token represented a different commodity.
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Symbol - A symbol is an image that represents something without resembling it.
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Rebus - A rebus is a way of writing with pictographic homophones (. Ex: a picture of a can, followed by the letter "U", a picture of water, and a well, intended to be read as "Can you see well?".
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Phonogram - A phonogram is a glyph of a sound.
Syllable - A syllable is a unit of pronunciation that has one vowel sound that is often combined with various consonant sounds, forming the whole or a part of a word.
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Syllabary - A syllabary is a set of written characters representing syllables.
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Denise Schmandt-Besserat - Denise Schmandt-Besserat discovered that the oldest precursor of writing were tokens found in Sumeria.
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Code of Hammurabi - The Code of Hammurabi was a Babylonian law code from ancient Mesopotamia that contained 282 laws.
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Egyptian Hieroglyphs/Hieratic
Weighing of the heart of Anubis, deatil from the Book of the Dead of ANi. Egypt, c. 1275 BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_of_Ani#/media/File:Bookdead.jpg
Plates vi & vii of the Edwin Smith Papyrus at the Rare Book Room, New York Academy of Medicine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Smith_Papyrus
Hieroglyphs
Hieratic
Hieroglyphics were written in all different orientations and directions, but most commonly was the top-down direction. Above is our truism, "REJECT AQUANTANCES, DISCARD OBJECTS, FORGET TRUTHS" in hieroglyphics and hieratic. Since I readily had available a drawing pad and drawing software, I figured that it would be faster and more visually appealing and coherent with the site if I were to hand write the hieroglyphics and hiertatic myself and then just copy and paste each character when needed. I put my truism into the translators provided (http://www.discoveringegypt.com/hieroglyphic-typewriter.html and http://www.omniglot.com/writing/egyptian_hieratic.htm)
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Both hieratic and hieroglyphics were used and read by the Egyptians, with hieratic being more informal due to its simplification and quickness, and hieroglyphics being formal, such as being inside of coffins and tombs of royalty. Above, in hieratic, is the "Edwin Smith" medical textbook that was used on the battlefield as a means of quickly treating injuries.
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The hieratic was difficult because there weren't the vowel sounds for "u", "o", so in place of those I put the "A" sound. I also handwrote the hieratic myself to give it a more humanistic appearance.
Key Concepts and Terms
Historic - Historic refers to anything that includes writing.
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Palette of Narmer - The Palette of Narmer is the earliest surviving historic piece of artwork, dating back to 3100 BCE. It Depicts a ceremony reenacting a battle that unified upper and lower Egypyt. It was also a ceremonial palette used prepare and apply eye makeup.
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Hieroglyph - Hieroglyph is Greek for "sacred carvings".
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Glyph - A hieroglyphic character or symbol; a pictograph, is a glyph.
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Determinatives- A determinative is a character written next to a writing that puts it within a certain meaning and adds clarfication. It is not pronounced when reading.
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Manuscript - Anything written by hand is a manuscript.
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Hieratic - Hieratic is a form of cursive hieroglyphics. Written more quickly and with less detail. Tools used: rush pen, papyrus, ink, scribe's palette.
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Cursive - Cursive is writing with connected characters.
Hieratic - Hieratic was a form of cursive hieroglyphics, written more quickly and with less detail. Tools used were a rush pen, papyrus, ink, and a scribe's palette.
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Papyrus - Papyrus was a material used for writing and/or paitning on. The English word "paper" derives from this.
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Rubricate - To rubricate is to make a passage red for emphasis.
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Scribe - Scribes were exempt from taxes and joining the military, and were often sons of scribes.​
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Book of the Dead - The Book of the Dead was a book that was used for navigating through the underworld in order to arrive safely in the afterlife.
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Phonic - Anything phonic is of or relating to speech sounds.
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Demotic - Demotic is Late Egyptian writing that derived from northern forms of hieratic use in the Nile Delta.
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Stylus - A stylus is a writing tool with a sharp end for scratching letters into wax covered tablets and a flat end for erasing those marks.
Scroll - A scroll is rolled up papyrus held together by two sticks.
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Continuous Narrative - A continuous narrative is a narrative with no breaks/pauses.
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Rosetta Stone - The Rosetta Stone is a rock stele that showed the same text in three different languages, those being Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Archaic Greek. This served as a means of understanding and translating Egyptian hieroglyphs.
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Acrophony - An acrophony uses the first sound of an image represented rather than the whole syllable.
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Paleographer - Someone who reads and and studies old texts is a paleographer.
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Edwin Smith Papyrus - The Edwin Smith Papyrus was a Hieratic medical textbook describing methods fo closing wounds, bandaging, and more. This was inteded for use on the battlefield.
Phoenician Abjad
This writing style, read right to left and containing only consonant sounds (abjad), first appeared at around 1400 BCE and was used by the Canaanites. The abjad contained only 22 characters, and as such the truism above is shorter than the others shown on this site. The Phoenicians, whom lived next to the Canaanites, adapted this method and passed it on to the Greeks as a result through trade, and then eventually made its way to the Etruscans and Romans. Problems that arose were that there was no letter for "J", so all J's were replaced with the "K" consonant from the abjad.
Key Concepts and Terms
Abjad - The name for an alphabet or set of written characters with no vowel sounds and just consonant sounds is an abjad.
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Phonics - Phonics is a method of correlating sounds with letters in an alphabetic writing system.
Consonant - A consonant is a glyph that represents a sound that does not require a flow of air.
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Scripto Continua - Scripto Continua refers to writing with no breaks or pauses; continuous.
Sarcophagus of Eshunazar II, 5th Century BCE, Louvre Museum, Paris. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eshmunazar_II_sarcophagus
Greek (Athens) Monumental Alphabet
Kallias Decree (with text arranged in stoichedon), Greek, c. 440 BCE, Louvre Museum, Paris. http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/decree-kallias
Key Concepts and Terms
Ostracized - To be ostracized is to be exiled/pushed out of a culture.
Alphabet - An alphabet is a set of chraracters that conatin vowels and consonants.
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Vowel - A vowel is a glyph that represents a sound that comes from the lungs through the vocal chords unblocked.
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Kallias Decree - .The Kallias Decree is a public decree carved in marble that demands the return of loans so that the Athenians could finance proposed work on the embellishment of the Acropolis. It also spells out the penalites for failing to follow the order.
During the fifth century BCE, athens was a highly militarized society, and this shows in the Kallias Decree pictured above. All the characters are arranged with nearly equal space around each, so that there is a uniform arrangement. This arrangement is called stoichedeon, and it resembles military files, soldiers standing next to and in front of each other in equal length. The love of mathematics and order that the Greeks had at this time also is apparent. This fascination also took part in how they wrote, in this case, monoline, meaning "same line" (uniform stroke) in which each letter and it's components were equal in stroke and height.
The truism on the left was attemped to be written in stoichedon (would have helped if I did it on lined paper).
Stoichedon - Stoichedon translates to"Military files" and are Letters are read left to right and arranged in rows and columns.
Monoline - Monoline is the original form of sans serif writing. Each stroke of a glyph is uniform in size.
Mantiklos Apollo - The Mantiklos Apollo was a votive statue from early Greece that was left as a gift to the god Apollo at a temple. The letters inscribed record the voice of the statue who spoke to the god on behalf of Mantiklos when he wasn't present.
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Boustrephedon - Boustrephedon translates to "Ox-turning" and is a way of writing in which alternate lines go in opposite directions, and as such, are written in opposite directions.
Greek Manuscript Uncial
Codex Sinaiticus, 4th century CE, Greek Uncial on parchment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus
Uncial simply means "handwritten capital letters", as lower case letters weren't an established idea back in the times of the Greeks, and since everything was handwritten during these times, it can be said that all writing was uncial. Above is the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest known written bible. It is written in uncial, as well as on parchment, and indicates some sort of breaks between paragraphs/passages with the use of blank space. There are, however, no spaces or breaks between words or sentences, so scripto contnua is still at play here.
Key Concepts and Terms
Symposium - A symposium was a Greek drinking party in which naked slaves would provide entertainment, such as playing instruments and reading literature.
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Codex - Literally meaning, "Block of wood", a codex is a precursor to modern books that were made of several leaves and bound along one edge.
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Uncial - Uncial refers to handwritten capital letters.
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X-height - The x-height is the space between the baseline and mean line of a glyph.
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Manuscript - A manuscript refers to anything written by hand.
Parchment - Parchment is prepared animal skin that was used as a durable writing surface.
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Codex Sinaiticus - The Codex Sinaiticus is the oldest known bible, specifically the New Testament.
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Codify - Codify literally means "to put in a codex", but also to put into law.
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Majuscule - Majuscule refers to writing with capital letters.
Roman Square Monumental Capitals
Inscription from the base of the Column of Trajan, Rome, c. 113 AD, Roman monumental capitals. https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/175/427714161_922c1910fe_b.jpg
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Above is the inscription on the base of the Column of Trajan, a column built between two libraries that was possible through Trajan winning military battles and obtaining piles and piles of war spoils to fund it. .The column is specifically exceptional in that Renaissance-era typographers used the inscriptions to create certain aspects of their own type faces in the 15th and 16th centuries. Our modern day font, Times New Roman, is derivative of this inscription.
Key Concepts and Terms
"Graecia capta victorem cepit" - This phrase translates to "Captive Greece captured her uncultivated conqueror." In other words, the Romans loved all things Greek and adapted their traditions.
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Column of Trajan - The Column of Trajan is a column constructed from the war spoils Trajan gained through his military victories. The column features a 625 unfurled scroll with symbolic images, and a base featuring roman square capitals. Times New Roman derived from the text on the base.
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Humanist - A Humanist is a term describing someone who wants to revive the traditions of ancient Greece and Rome.
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Typographer - A typographer is someone who concerns themselves with the art and technique of arranging letterforms and other glyphs to make written language legible and appealing.
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Apollodorus of Damascus - Apollodorus of Damascus was an architect who hired workers to cut away 125 feet out of the Quirinal Hill in Rome, the same height as Trajan's column. This was to maintain the imperative axial symmetry of Trajan's forum.
Trajan himself is buried underneath the base of the column, and along the column are carved depictions of unrolled scrolls to symbolize Trajan's love for manuscripts and reading. In fact, the two libraries the column was originally between both held Trajan's wide collection of manuscripts.
Golden Section - The Golden Section is a rectangle whose side lengths are to the ratio 1:1.618
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Optical Refinements - Optical refinements are changes in the height, thickness, and/or space between shapes/text that fix optical distortions that occur when looking at them. Ex: Inscription on the column of Trajan
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Serif - Serif translates to Dutch for "stroke" and refers to the little "feet" added to the end of letter strokes.
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Calamus Pen - A calamus pen is a pen that allows for thick and thin strokes similar to a brush, and are obtained from a specific reed that grows along the banks of rivers in Mesopotamia and Egypt. In order for the pens to be hard enough to write, they must be put into horse manure for 4 years.
Roman Rustic Capitals
Graffiti from Pompeii, Italy, buried by volcanic ash in 79 CE. http://www.ancient.eu/image/962/
Roman rustic capitals are named so because they aren't geometrically sound and square-like/circular-like in regards to dimensions like the square capitals are, so they appear "rustic", worn down and with more variance. As such, Roman rustic capitals are more informal when compared to Roman square capitals. Similar to the Roman square capitals, they too share dots as an indication of breaks between words.
Key Concepts and Terms
Pompeii - Pompeii was an ancient Roman town that was mostly destroyed and buried under 4 to 6 meters of volcanic ash in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.
Grafitti - Grafitti refers to writings or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a surface in a public setting.
Old Roman Cursive ("Cursive Antigua")
Invitation from Claudia Severa to Sulpicia Lepidina, c. 100 CE, ink on wood (Tablet 291), from Vindolanda, Britain, Chesterholm Museum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindolanda_tablets#/media/File:Vindolanda_tablet_291.jpg
Cursive was found most often in areas occupied/reserved for military forces, such as camps and forts. It's a quicker, less detailed way of writing that were primarily meant for letters. This method of writing was the least informal when compared to rustic and square capitals. This writing was also found in Egypt at a military base, so it is hypothesized by researches that soldiers were scribal trained so they could communicate from far away (Egypt to Vindolanda, for example).
Key Concepts and Terms
Claudia Severa - Claudia Severa was the wife of a commander for a nearby fort who wrote a birthday invitation on a sliver of wood to her friend. This invitation is the earliest known Latin writing by a female.
Vindolanda - Vindolanda is a Roman fort just south of Hadrian's wall in northern England. In the 1970s, archaeologists found slivers of wood with handwriting there.
Insular Half Uncial
Eadfrith of Lindisfarne (presumed author), detail of the "Preface to the Book of John" (folio 211r) from the Lindisfarne Gospel, tempera on parchment codex, c. 715, British Librabry. http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=cotton_ms_nero_d_iv_f211r
The Lindisfarne gospels were exceptional for various reasons. The entirety of the completed gospels were believed to be written by a single man, Bishop Eadfrith from Lindisfarne. Also used was the first evidence of a lead point, a pencil. Intricate designs found on incipit pages (pictured above), as well as on carpet pages, were designed in part by a pencil, in which Eadfrith drew the design on the back of the page, and then inked in the design on the front of the page, as the design was seen through the parchment. Perhaps even more important, were the use of varying text elements and designs. We see use of word spacing in the incipit text, large serpent-like characters with fine patterns and abstract detail, as well as use of different letter style that echoed the appearance of runic glyphs and other characters. Because of this decorative and aesthetic approach that Eadfrith appeared to take when creating these pages, it is suggested that they weren't meant to be entirely legible, but rather a page that one would gawk at and bask in its detail and his skill.
Key Concepts and Terms
Gospel - A gospel account describing the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. There are 4 in total, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
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Monastery - A monastery is a building occupied by a community of monks living under religious vows.
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Insular - Insular refers to "islands", England and Ireland, and where the script may have developed.
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Lindisfarne - Lindisfarne is a place in Northern England right along the coast and on the border of Scotland.
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Eadfrith - Eadfrith was a bishop whom is believed to have created the Lindisfarne Gospel for two reasons: to augment the cult of Saint Cuthbert, and to bring stability and reconciliation among the various Christian factions throughout England.
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Abbreviation - An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word, and is Indicated in the Lindisfarne Gospel by a tilde.
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Suspension - A suspension refers to omitting a letter or letters from a word.
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Ligature - A ligature is an image created by combining two letters.
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Justified Text - Text is considered justified when both the left and right sides of a block of text have a straight edge.
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Header - A header is a line/block of text that appears at the top of each page.
Carpet Page - A carpet page is a page of mainly geometrical ornamentation typically placed at the beginning of each of the 4 gospels in gospel books.
Initial Page - An initial page is a page that precedes a book or pages of text.
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Explicit - Explicit means that something is stated clearly and in detail.
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Incipit - An incipit is a sentence that introduces/begins a passage of text, such as a book.
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Nomina Sacra - Nomina Sacra translates to "Divine names or titles".
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Half Uncial - Half uncial features mostly miniscule with majuscule letterforms for N, R, and D, as well as spacing between words.
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Diminuendo - Diminuendo is a technique of ordered hierarchy in which letters gradually become smaller with each line and the complexity of the backgrounds of letters become simpler.
Carolingian or "Caroline" Miniscule
The Harley Golden Gospels, folio 1r, Aachen, Carolingian Empire, c. 800 - 825, 365 x 250 mm (British Library Harley Ms 2788) http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/02/all-that-glisters-is-not-gold-the-harley-golden-gospels.html
Carolingian writing came about during Charlemagne's reign and was used widely throughout Europe due to his emphasis on reading in academia. This script is particularly significant in that it introduced lower case lettering (minuscule).
Key Concepts and Terms
Caroline - Caroline was a form of writing that used minuscule, and is where we get our lowercase letters.
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Minuscule - Miniscule refers to lowercase lettering and alphabet.
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Charlemagne - Charlemage was King of the Franks who later become king of Lombardy and the first holy Roman Emperor. He controlled all of Europe and emphasized reading.
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Constantine I - Constantine I was a Roman emperor from 306 to 337 AD who was the first emperor to legalize Christianity.
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Harley Golden Gospels - The Harley Golden Gospels is Carolingian manuscript that is highly decorated and showed depictions of humans.
Justinian I - Justinian I was the last emperor to unite Europe through military force and is depicted in a mosaic in the San Vitale.
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Alcuin of York - Alcuin of York was a master of Charlemagne's Palace School. He specialized in the instruction of rhetoric, logic, and astronomy.
Scriptoria - A scriptoria was a room that was mainly used as a space for copying manuscripts.
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Saint Jerome - Saint Jerome is important in that he started to translated and correct Latin version of the common Bible (the vulgate).
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Iconoclasm - An iconoclasm is a call for the destruction of figurative or representational images in religious art.
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Textura (aka textualis, Gothic, Blackletter and Old English)
Gerard Brils, Latin Bible Manuscript, Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England, created in Belgium in 1407 CE. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bible.malmesbury.arp.jpg
Textura, also referred to as "Old English" and "Blackletter", came about during the exponential increase of demand for books throughout Europe since the establishment of universities in 1075. The bold and condensed lettering served to take up as little space as possible, due to parchment (the writing surface) being an expensive material.
Key Concepts and Terms
Minims - Minims refer to the angular feet found in Textura.
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Textura - Textura translates to "Woven pattern", and is a writing style that had thick angular strokes and were compact in order to take up minimal space.
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Scholasticism - Scholasticism is a method of critical thinking that dominated teaching in European Universities from their origins to around 1700.
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Dialectical Reasoning - Dialectical reasoning is a method of finding the truth through listening to arguments from opposing sides of the argument and testing their claims.
Historiated Letter - An enlarged letter at the beginning of a paragraph or body of text that contains a picture is described as a historiated letter.
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Versal - A versal is an ornamental letter that begins a section of text.
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Inhabited Initial - An enlarged letter containing the picture of a human or animal and is for decorative use only is described as an inhabited initial.
Batarde (aka Bastarda and Gothic Bastarda)
“Carolle in the Garden of Sir Mirth” from Roman de la Rose, Bruges, c. 1490-1500, British Library Manuscript Harley 4425, folio 14v: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Carolle_in_the_Garden_-_Roman_de_la_Rose_(c.1490-1500),_f.14v_-_BL_Harley_MS_4425.jpg
Batarde was reserved mainly for secular texts , such as Roman de la Rose pictured above, and texts in local languages, such as Old French. The writing used more negative space than textura, used ascenders and descenders, and was overall more legible than textura. It's name literally means "low-born", but that doesn't mean the texts it were written in were of any lower quality.
Key Concepts and Terms
Burgundian Court - The Burgundian Court refers to territory ruled by the Dukes of Burgundy, low countries and parts of modern day France and Germany.
Bastarde - Bastarde translates to "low-born" and is used in secular texts and local languages. It featured ascenders and descenders that tapered to a point.
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Roman de la Rose - Roman de la Rose is a piece of secular literature that was a love poem written in the Old French language and by two authors. It served as a handbook of Medieval courtly love.