646 MATERIALS TO WRITE UPON BEFORE INVENTION OF PRINTING. 



ROCKS CUT INTO TABLES OR BUILDING STONES. 



It requires no great effort to find inscriptions of this kind. As 

 civilization developed, man began to prepare with care the material 

 upon which he wished to write or carve. Throughout the Orient, 

 from Egypt to India, monuments constructed of dressed stones are 

 covered with carvings or j)ictures, explained and commented upon by 

 inscriptions (fig. 17). The Greeks and the Eomans employed stone 

 tables for the purpose of engraving laws, public and commemorative 

 records. The funeral cippi and stelse of nearly all nations are cov- 

 ered with inscriptions, and likewise the coffins of stone and wood. 



Are not our modern cemeteries like an immutable obituary, or, 

 better still, like a huge biographical dictionary? 



Inscriptions upon stones of all kinds — marble, sandstone, granite, 

 slate — are so frequently met Avith around us that it seems superfluous 

 to cite examples. 



Fig. 17. Brick from 

 Erech. (Perrotand 

 Chepie, Histoire de 

 TArt. Paris.) 



hieroglyphic 



The baked earths deserve sj^ecial mention on account of their 

 pre])aration and their antiquity. In ancient times the Persians, 

 Medes, and Assyrians were about the only nations that customarily 

 made use of clay, either dried or baked, for writing upon (fig. 18)", 

 inscriptions of this kind are known Avhich date back to more than 

 four thousand years before Christ. These countries were so poor in 

 rocks that all their structures Avere built of brick. 



Ceramics were still in their infancy when designs and symbolic 

 signs were employed for decoration. Everyone is familiar with the 

 geomcti'ical designs, the crossed, dotted, or concent I'ic Hues which 

 oriuinicut i)rehist(>ric pottery.'' Tlie c-eramics discovered at Hissarlik 

 and Mycena* present strange decorations; one finds colored and 

 concave designs, swastikas, and inscriptions in archaic characters 



« Sehell (V.) O. P. Notes d'^pigraphie et d'areheologie assyriennes. Reprint 

 from : Reeueil de travaux i-olatifs a la pliilolotrie pt A rarolii'oloi^ie osyptienne 

 et assyrieune, 4°, t. XXII. 



& Consult the collection: Mat<riau.\ pour I'liistoire [iriniitive de I'huninie. 



