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Writing/Print History

MIT2000

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Origins of Writing: Sumeria

1. 3200BCE Mesopotamia

2. Accountancy: 1. economy

outstripping memory

3. Pictographic Script

Account of grain, bread, 3200BCE

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Sumerian

1. Rebus principle

2. Pictographic symbol used for phonetic value

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Sumerian/Cuneiform/Clay

1. Abstract Concepts1. Rel./legal/medical texts

2. Objects AND ideas

2. Cuneiform1. Pictography to formal

patterns

2. Ideographic and syllabic symbols

3. non-alphabetic

1400BCE

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Sumerian/Cuneiform/Clay

1. Cylinders on clay

1. personal stamps

2. Baked Clay Tablets

3. Trade/Commerce

4. Time-biased medium

1400BCE

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Spread of Writing

3200 BCE Sumeria 3000BCE Egypt– Hieroglyphics (hieratic/demotic scripts)

2500BCE Indus Valley (India/Pakistan)1200BCE China600BCE Central America (Mayans)Pictographic/schematic scripts

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Writing: Alphabetic

Phoenicians– 1500 BCE– 22 letters

Hebrew, Latin, Arabic, Cyrillic, Bengali– Indo-European

(Romance, Germanic, Slavic, Indonesian)

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Phonetic/Pictographic/Schematic

Greek Alphabet/Writing

1. Adapt Phoenician alphabet (vowels)1. 1000-200BCE

2. Easier to read/write

3. Precise meanings

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Ancient Greece (500-100 BCE)

1. Craft to Democratic Literacy

2. Devalue memorization

3. New statements/ novel ideas

4. Eric Havelock:1. “pre-philosophical, pre-

literary, pre-scientific”

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Writing (Ancient Greece)

1. Objectify texts

2. Disembodiment

3. Abstraction deductive logic,

rational philosophy, abstract science

Literacy/Orality: Greek Ideal

Innis

-Oral Tradition

-Alphabetic Literacy

-brake on knowledge monopolies

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Writing/Limitations

1. Scarcity/expense writing material

1. stone, clay, papyrus, parchment

2. “Calligraphy as enemy of literacy”

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Scribal Culture

1. Scriptoria1. Dark/Middle Ages

600-1400 AD

2. Book Production

3. Hand copying

4. Parchment

5. Dictation

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Scribal Culture

1. Hybrid:1. writing/orality

2. Holy Scripture

3. “Name of the Rose” (1986)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU-bTRWt5QU

Lay Stationers (1200s-)

Oral Society (Middle Ages)

1. Legal proceedings

2. Aura of Spoken Word

1. Letters read aloud

2. Spoken Prayers

3. Logographic & Phonographic

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Printing Press (1450s)

1. Johann Gutenberg (ca. 1400- 1468)

2. Wooden Hand press

3. Moveable Type

4. Paper (rag-based)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksLaBnZVRnM

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Gutenberg Bible (1455)

42-Line Biblehttp://www.newad

vent.org/images/05286aax.jpg

Print Runs (200-1000 copies)

Bibles/rel. poetry

Impact of Printing

1. Reduce costs; speed production

2. Greater quantity/ dissemination

3. Latin to Vernacular

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Impact of Printing

1. Piety/Pornography2. Reformation,

1517-16481. Martin Luther2. Printed pamphlets

3. Press: “God’s highest gift of grace”

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Impact of Printing (Eisenstein)

1. Hearing Public1. Communal

1. binding

2. Local embrace

3. Direct participation

4. Pulpit News

5. Religious(?)

1. Reading Public1. Atomistic

1. fragmenting

2. Distant embrace

3. Vicarious partic.1. Imagined

Communities

4. Printed news

5. Secular(?)

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Space-Biased Media (Innis)

1. Dialectic1. liberty & monopolies of knowledge

2. Printing Press

2. Desirable Balance: 1. time/space

2. centrifugal/centripetal

3. democratic society

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Continued Orality

1. Typography 1. “conveyed to the ear, not the eye”

2. Book learning: oral/literate hybrid1. Pervasive illiteracy2. minstrel shows, ballads, poetry readings3. village reader4. sermons5. lectures6. coffee houses, salons

8 MILE (2002)

1. Hip Hop

2. “The Dozens”

3. Orality

4. Liveness

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