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As early as 3100 BCE, a detailed writing system appeared which allowed humans to record stories and life events in a permanent descriptive manner. This method, called Hieroglyphics, consisted of a series of simplified picture signs which represent objects, ideas, and eventually sound forms. It surpassed the communicative abilities of primitive art by allowing societies to create clear, precise, and uniquely retrievable records. By minimizing the reliance upon catechesis, or story telling, hieroglyphics has effectively contributed to our historical account of early civilizations and our understanding of how humanity was shaped.

The earliest known writing system appears to have been invented by the inhabitants of Uruk, one of the first great Mesopotamian cities. A series of pictographic symbols were carved into soft clay tablets and allowed to harden in the sun or fire kiln. The symbols represented rudimentary concrete objects, as well as concepts. Thus, a hand might represent both its superficial meaning of hand as well as the concepts of holding, grasping, or even creating (Cunningham & Reich 23).

As the system began to radiate into neighboring societies, it became even more expressive. Eventually, Sumerian pictorial signs “evolved into a series of wedge-shaped marks that were pressed in clay with a split reed” (Haviland 14). This cuneiform writing had an advantage as a quick and economical means of recording. However, the most fecund and expressive body of hieroglyphics - that utilized by the Egyptian civilization, maintained most of its pictographic roots. To accommodate an increasing demand for accuracy and specificity, Egyptian scribes began associating the objective meanings of ideograms with sounds [Fig. 1]. This adaptation led to phonetic scripts which satisfied the necessity for recording personal and place names. The French historian, Jean-Francois Champollion was the first to decode Egyptian hieroglyphics according to their sound values (Edwards).

While the general structure of hieroglyphic scripts was exemplified by the Egyptians, other systems also emerged elsewhere on the globe. Around the first century, the peoples of meso-America began using a pictographic writing system to keep pace with their increasingly complex society. Some early Mayan scripts are merely ideograms with superficial meanings, but the form evolved over the next seven centuries into a phonetic form, thereby including rules for syntax and grammar. Although inscriptions with phonetic qualities overtook the earlier forms in Central America, “many ideograms were retained, partly from conservatism but also as unspoken determinatives that followed words to reinforce their meaning or to help distinguish them from similar-sounding words of quite different meaning” (O’Connor).

The efficiency with which the primitive form could communicate was increasingly improved over time. Although the Egyptians continued using their ancestral system of symbols longer than any other group, the advancements in other forms of the writing eventually made pictographic recording and their meanings obsolete. An excerpt from an encyclopedic reference explains, “Because even simplified hieroglyphics are time-consuming to write out, most hieroglyphic systems developed highly simplified, or cursive, forms of the signs…” (O’Connor) The cuneiform writing mentioned previously is an example of how simplification edged the system into a more linear form. In fact, most written forms today are rooted in the early hieroglyphic style, although it is fascinating to note that the form seems to have appeared independently in both the Old and New World.

In conclusion, one can appreciate the creative momentum which was initiated as the first scribes began carving a series of translatable representations of their environment into wet clay. Essentially, hieroglyphics materialized out of a human need to preserve and accumulate knowledge. As simple societies became complex civilizations, the system was propelled beyond mere ideograms. Phonetic systems were born as symbols acquired sound qualities which were grouped together to form any spoken word. Thus, hieroglyphics effectively secured the continued growth of humanity by both preserving a record of our development and ushering in the art of literature.

Works Cited:

Cunningham, Lawrence, and John Reich. Culture and Values: A Survey of Western

Humanities. 2nd Ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Janovich, 1982.

Edwards, T. E. “Champollion, Jean Francois.” Software Toolworks Multimedia

Encyclopedia. CD-ROM. Grolier Electronic Publishing. 1992.

Haviland, William A. Cultural Anthropology. 6th Ed. Washington: Holt Rinehart

Winston, 1990.

O’Connor, David. “Hieroglyphics.” Software Toolworks Multimedia

Encyclopedia. CD-ROM. Grolier Electronic Publishing. 1992.