The Media of Early Civilization: Part I
CMMU 3650: Mass Communication and Society
3. Media in Ancient Empires (H. Innis)
Papyrus Technology and Effects
Writing, Religion, & Power
Impact of Society Change on Culture
Clay and Cuneiform
Writing and Social Organization
Papyrus Technology and Social Change
The relationship between writing medium and social system
stone to papyrus (about 3000 B.C.)
monarchy to democratic organization
sacred to secular culture (increased hand writing)
Scribe a social class & writing a privileged profession
Papyrus (inscribed, 2680-2540 Or 2750-2625 B.C.)
made from a plant (Cyperus papyrus)
location: the Nile delta
process (p.23)
characteristics: light, in rolls, easy for transporting
Writing
brush, ink, from right to left, row/column, hieroglyphs
from resembling pictures to script (cursive forms, or abbreviating) and hieratic characters
Writing, Religion, & Power
Religion:
Osiris: king murdered by his brother Seth and reassembled by his wife Isis but became a mummified king; was called "lord of the underworld" "the god of the dead." Osiris integrated the power of Ra, Sun-god, and reflected the twofold influence of the Nile and the Sun: "Osiris, yesterday and death; Ra, tomorrow and life" (p.25)
Isis: a magician, Osiris' wife, and conceived her son Horus after her husband's death. She invented funerary rites communicated to Osiris.
Horus: the falcon-headed son of Osirisand Isis defeated his uncle Seth and became the king of Egypt.
Writing, Religion, & Power
Writing served religion (p.25)
Thoth, a vizier, sacred scribe, and administrator, and became the inventor of magic writing.
"Osiris became the center of a popular and priestly literature to instruct people in the divine rights and duties. Words were imbued with power"
"The names of gods were part of the essence of being, and the influence of the scribe was reflected in the deities."
family worship was promoted, and to write one's name with hieroglyphics was to draw one's material image
"Magical literature and popular tales preserved the traditions of the great gods of the universe"
Writing, Religion, & Power
The king as the incarnation of the king gods: Falcon; Horus-Seth; Ra; Ra-Harakhti; Osiris; Horus, son of Isis; and Amon-Ra.
Ritual enable the king to appoint a proxy to act as prophet
Power was delegated to professional priests who incarnated themselves in the king and then performed ritual ceremonies for the worship of gods
Amon-Ra (after 80 years succumbed to Syrian, established the New Theban Kingdom, 1580-1354, B.C.): reigned over all the gods of Egypt. monarchical centralization and religious centralization
Impact of Society Change on Culture and administration
The invasion and monarchical centralization
Religious centralization in Amon-Ra
Imperial expansion secured priests territorial property and increased priests' influence
mummification helped the advance of medicine and surgery
The city-states of Sumer
priest: the representative of god
king: the god of city
human ruler: a farmer tenant
writing: tallies & lists, documents (secular utilitarian interest)
Clay & Cuneiform
3300 B.C.: Sumerian clay tablets with writing (baked in fire), Uruk, Iraq
3100 B.C.: Cuneiform begin Mesopotamia
Clay as medium
Triangle stylus as tool for writing
partly syllabic and partly ideographic with polyphonic or multi-meaning
economic demand for a shift from pictograph to formal patterns, i.e. Signs and syllables
2900 B.C. The form of script and the use of signs had been fully developed (reduced from 1000 to 600)
2825 B.C. Logical arrangement word in the sentence, and writing direction had been established
Seals serving as personal identifications
Writing & Social Organization
Economic needs
uniformed writing
large number of scribes
abstraction of accounting
Training and school
subject emphasis on grammar and mathematics
connection with temples
conventionalization of writing
Organization
decentralization of cities
temple religious control
neglect of technological change and military strength
warfare & temporal potentates, prerogative, and deity
Questions
Terms: Papyrus, Cuneiform, Pictograph, Ideograph
What were the relationships between writing, religion, and power in ancient Egypt?
4. Civilization without Writing--The Incas and the Quipu (M. & R. Ascher)
Inca
Quipu: basics
medium for recording information
"a collection of cords with knots tied in them"; "made of cotton"; "dyed one or more colors"
used by Incas
Properties
Comparison with writing on Clay (Sumerian) and Papyrus (Egyptian)
Properties of Quipu
Directions:
horizontal: before and after
vertical:
above and below
levels
spaces between cords
Color coding and meanings
Quipu design
Quipumaker
tactile sensitivity
association with rhythm
color vocabulary
non-linear recording, 3-dimension
5. The Origins of Writing
The functions of writing
The origins of writing
The development of writing
Script, speech, & language
Modern hieroglyphs & universal language
The Functions of Writing
replacement of memory
learning without instruction
political propaganda
funerary inscription for urging immortality
predict the future, such as "oracle bones"
Seal: identity card or signature of a property marker
accountancy
The Origins of Writing
Social context: According to Sumerian tablets, the expert believes, writing developed "as direct consequence of the compelling demands of an expanding economy....To record transactions in a dependable, permanent form became essential"(p. 38), 4000 B.C. In the cities of Mesopotamia
The origins of writing
Pictograms: two dimensional signs that were resembling the shapes of the tokens
Hieroglyphs (the discovery of rebus principle): using picture to represent a consonantal sound, or phonetic value, such as bee+leaf=belief
The Development of Writing
The diffusion of writing idea
Mesopotamia cuneiform, 3100 B.C.
Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions, 3100 B.C.
Indus Valley script, Pakistan/India, 2500 B.C.
China's Oracle Bone inscriptions, 1200 B.C.
The debate: Independent vs. Borrower
Greeks (borrowed Phoenicians and adding)
Romans (taking Etruscan script)
Japanese (taking Chinese characters and +)
Turks (abandoning Arabic script in favor Latin抯)
Script, Speech, & Language
Script: "a system of graphic symbols that can be used to convey any and all thoughts" (J. DeFrancis)
Relationship b/w script (writing system) and speech (oral pronunciation)(p.43)
Phonetic notation
Semantic signs (ideograph, logography)
Difficulty of learning (the proportion of phonetic and semantic signs)
Modern Hieroglyphs & Universal Language
Modern use of Hieroglyphs
traffic signs
highway direction
airport
maps
weather forecast
trade mark, packing, & advertising
computer screen, menu, & keyboard
clothes labels & electronic goods
Universal language to be independent of spoken language but dependent upon concepts, such as mathematics and music