MATERIALS USED TO WRITE UPON BEFORE IIIK 

 INVENTION OF rRINTING.« 



l'..V Al.liKKT MaIRK. 



Jjilirariiiii <if the T'liircrKil ii of I'lnin. 



The subject treated here is not new; it is to be found, indeed, in 

 many works, or scattered in special reviews, in nionoii:rai)hs. and notes 

 upon the history of writing and upon the methods and materials used 

 for that purpose. But a synthetic presentation of this knowledge in 

 a definitive form has thus far not been attempted. It is at once 

 curious and instructive; connected, on the one hand, Avith the history 

 of the evolution of languages and of writing, and, on the other, with 

 a portion of human industry. It is, in a word, a contribution to the 

 sociological history of mankind. 



The patient research of linguists and the comparative study of the 

 most ancient styles of Avriting ha\e led to the enunciation of the idea 

 that certain signs or rudimentary drawings of a kind still used 

 l)y the uncivilized of our day were employed at the very origin of 

 writing — pictograi)hic Avriting. 



First let us have a definition of writing; the one Monsieur Philippe 

 Berger gives: '' It is the art of fixing the word by conventional signs. 

 traced l)V the hand, which are termed characters. Characters may 

 represent ideas or sounds. We term ideograi^hic Avriting such as is 



i used to give us the ideas directly ; phonetic writing, such as expresses 

 by characters the sounds of the word. Writing differs from design 

 in that it is inseparable fi-om language. If, in ideographic writing, 



[ the characters are pictures of certain ideas or certain objects, they 

 are recalled to the mind under the form which they assume in speech; 

 that is to say, through the medium of the word. All s^-stems of 

 Avriting which were in the beginning purely ideographic became, by 

 degrees, syllal)ic. The distinction between alphabetic and non- 

 alphabetic writing is the onl}' one which corresponds with historic 

 reality." '' 



" Traiisl.itt'd, liy iKMiiiissidu. from Revue Scientifique, Paris, August 13-20, 1904. 

 & Ilistoire de rOcriture dans rautiquitO. Taris, 1801. Introduct., pji. XIII, XV. 



639 



