ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE PARIS EXPOSITION IN 1889. 669 



PICTOGrRAPHIC WRITING. 



No discovery or invention had so great an effect upon the develop- 

 ment of human civilization as that of writing. The invention of writing 

 was the debut of history. Writing made history possible. Although 

 we have no knowledge of the actual beginning of writing, we may 

 suppose it to have been by picture writing. This certainly was the 

 earliest of which we know. It was called pictography, aud gave but 

 little more than the rudiments of the idea intended to be recorded. 

 The pictographic inscriptions found on the most ancient monuments of 

 the stone age have a marked resemblance to those we find to-day 

 among savages who live in a corresponding state of civilization. It 

 employed usually a mixture of images borrowed from animal life, aud 

 of figures which were after a fashion geometric. 



Pictographic writing seems to have spread over almost the entire sur- 

 face of the globe. Pictographs are to be found iu almost every couu- 

 try. There was no single system of pictography. Each nation or tribe, 

 even each family or person, may have established a code for itself or may 

 have followed no code. They may have been governed in making pic- 

 tographs more by fantasy or caprice than anything else. Pictographs 

 have been found of the highest antiquity in Asia and in Europe, while 

 they are still employed in Africa, Oceanica, and among the North 

 American Indians. The works of Col. Garrick Mallery iu the Bureau 

 of Ethnology are standards for the latter. 



Fig. 1 of PI. clxii represents the engraving of the covering stone of 

 a small dolmen at Baker Hill in Eosshire, Scotland, from Mr. Simpson. 

 This represents the cup marking of nearly every kind, some of which 

 have been found in almost every part of the globe. 



Fig. 2 of PI. clxii, is an engraving on one of the granite supports of the 

 dolmen of Petit-Mont at Arzon, Morbihan. Two human feet are repre- 

 sented and many undulated lines. Some of those which are continuous 

 have been taken to be serpents, but there is no more reason for this 

 than is shown by the lines themselves. There are two open U's, which 

 is a common sign in that country. Another, equally common, is the 

 crook just below the U's. They are sometimes with the crook turned 

 to the right, sometimes to the left, and are occasionally arranged in 

 groups, one following the other. They resemble a figure 7, sometimes 

 placed right and sometimes reversed. 



Fig. 3 of PI. clxii is an engraved support of the dolmen of Gavr'Inis, 

 Morbihan. This dolmen was under a tumulus. It consisted of a rec- 

 tangular chamber with a long covered entry- way extending nearly to 

 the periphery of the tumulus. It is of granite slabs, which were nearly 

 all engraved similar to the one shown, though not intended to be copies 

 or exact imitations. 



These are all one twenty-fifth natural size, 



