Marks, representations, norms and writing

Is this a pen?

Discussion 1

Is this a Pipe?

This painting was created by René Magritte. It is called the Treachery of Images. The writing in French underneath means This is not a pipe.

The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture "This is a pipe", I'd have been lying!

— René Magritte

Discussion 2

What does this sign mean?

–Why does it mean that? Why is the arrow pointing? Can’t you imagine it pointing the other way? Why does this sign mean that turning left has been prohibited? Why couldn’t it mean that turning left is obligatory?

The first step

Human beings have been leaving their mark for millions of years. Humans and early-humans have been leaving their impressions on objects - e.g. footprints in sand, scratches on wood - for millions of years.

Some researchers think that these humanoid footprints, found on the Greek island of Crete, are over 6 million years old.

These fossilised human footprints were found at the White Sands National Park in New Mexico. According to a scientific report, the impressions indicate that early humans were walking across North America around 23,000 years ago.

Leaving a mark

The next stage is to make impressions intentionally - i.e. make marks on purpose - e.g. notches on wood to count days. These marks have an order to them. They are made following rules.

Some people describe the Lebombo bone as the oldest known mathematical artefact. It is a tally stick with 29 distinct notches that were, scientists think, deliberately cut into a baboon’s fibula. It was discovered within the Border Cave in the Lebombo Mountains of Eswatini. The Lebombo bone resembles a calendar stick still used in Namibia.

A striking resemblance

About 64,000 years ago, humans began spitting pigment onto the walls of caves. The oldest examples of this activity appear to be to create hand stencils like the ones you can see at the bottom of this photo from the Cave of El Castillo:

But later the drawings became figurative - that is they clearly resemble forms from real life. There is a buffalo in the photo above. Or the following depiction of a group of rhinoceros was completed in the Chauvet Cave 30,000 to 32,000 years ago.

Driven to abstraction

By about 3400 BCE, more abstract pictures appear. These drawings move away from resemblance and become more symbolic. Think about the following progression:

A drawing of a particular thing - e.g. an archaeologist draws a picture of a specific skeleton that she has found.

2. A drawing of a type of thing - e.g. a teacher draws a picture of a skeleton to teach the class about bones

3. A drawing that is a symbol of something because it looks like something that relates to that thing - e.g. the skull and crossbones symbol on dangerous chemicals

Here are some designs found on labels or tokens from Abydos in Egypt. They are thought to be early forms of writing insofar as archaeologists think they are symbolic.

Here is a limestone pendant plaque from Uruk (in Modern day Iraq) dated to around 3200 BC. The symbols on this plaque seem to mean ‘EN’ meaning master.

Making records

Look at this clay tablet. It was made around 3100-3000 BC in ancient Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq).

It is thought to be a record of beer rations that were given out to workers. Each symbol on here has a particular meaning. The symbol for beer is an upright jar with a pointed base and it appears three times on this tablet. What other symbols can you see? Can you find a human head?

Here writing is used to help someone remember things, to keep accounts. Much of the first writing was accounting. But think about the number of other uses that writing has…

Sounding it out

The writing system of ancient Mesopotamia was logographic - it used images that represented words. Many writing systems today are logographic - Chinese characters, for example, work this way.

Our alphabet, however, is phonetic (or rather it was originally)

The letter ‘A’, for example, developed from a picture of an Ox. In the Proto-Sinaitic and Phoenician version this began to represent a sound which was a bit like our sound ‘a’. This was because the word for Ox was ‘alp.

The second letter of the alphabet, ‘B’ is derived from a picture of a house. The word for which was Bet.

This writing system was called the ‘alp-bet, and later in ancient Greek the alpha-beta, which is where it gets its name for us - alphabet.

(It’s worth mentioning that, especially in English, our alphabet, many letters don’t even represent sounds anymore. e.g. ‘gh’ can sound like ‘f’ in words like enough.)

Look at the diagram below. You can trace the origins of our modern letters right back to their Ancient Egyptian roots.

Tasks

What is the difference between the ancient footprints and the marks on the Lebombo bone?
What's the difference between the marks on the Lebombo bone and the cave drawings of animals?
What's the difference between the cave drawings of animals and the drawing of a head on the ancient Mesopotamian accounting tablet?
What's the difference between the drawing of a head on the ancient Mesopotamian accounting tablet and the letter 'R'?
Write your name using the original Ancient Hieroglyphs.

#logic

Page updated

Report abuse