The transition from graphic art to writing
in Egypt and Mesopotamia.

4a – From rock art to writing : the evolution of graphic representation in Egypt :

    A - Simplification and dissemination of images :

     Petroglyphs and cave paintings perfectly describe the environment and lifestyle of the populations. They even manage to express the emotions of the artists. However, this form of graphic art is too imprecise to convey the knowledge acquired by these populations. At best, the images give us an idea of the local environment, the transition from hunter-gatherer to herder, and the evolution of weapons.
Furthermore, as these images cannot be moved, they remain a source of local information.
In order to achieve writing, a new stage in the evolution of graphic design was necessary..

    Thus, in the Neolithic period (-6000 years), the development of agriculture and livestock farming, marked by the sedentarisation of peoples, gave rise to new needs. The emergence of pottery marked a double turning point :

    - First, containers protected harvested grains from animals and bad weather. Then, the development of trade made their use indispensable.
The first ceramics were simple to manufacture : des coils of clay were stacked to form a container.
Appearing around 8000 BC, the use of these containers became widespread around 6000 BC.


    - At the same time, communication through graphic design began to evolve. Pottery became a medium for images, whose small size favoured simple designs, an essential transition to the advent of writing.

    This is how we find the lines we discovered on the rock walls.


    Le graphisme va peu à peu s’aérer et acquérir sa qualité artistique, tout en conservant sa qualité d’information.


    The shapes traced with lines are filled in.


    The images become more detailed. They evoke reality and take on a narrative aspect.



    We will see this transition through these mobile media in the series of transformations that will lead to writing in Egypt and Mesopotamia.

    B – The transition from images to writing in Egypt :

    The history of writing, from images to graphic symbols, unfolded over thousands of years and differed from region to region : while Egypt and the Middle East gradually assimilated external influences, China retained its ancestral system.

    We will now explore the history of this evolution in Egypt, which will allow us to describe all the stages from representation through images to symbolic coding.

             a - Egyptian prehistory :

    During this prehistoric period, five graphic systems succeeded one another.
1 - rock engravings and paintings,
2 - engravings and paintings on vases,
3 - seals,
4 - incisions on containers,
5 - ink stains.

            1 - The first graphic system – rock engravings :

    These are found on desert rocks (the oldest, in the Aswan region, date back to the Upper Palaeolithic period, around 18 millennia BCE).
Until the end of the 4th millennium BCE, the engraved scenes mainly depict hunting, warfare and funeral rites.
Each scene captures, like a snapshot, the most representative aspect of an event. Even today, they express the experiences of the people of that distant era.

    As the precursors of the first Egyptian ideograms, it is likely that each of these petroglyphs already corresponded to a word in the spoken language of these peoples.
For example, engraved depictions of ibises and storks (late 4th millennium) have been discovered in the cliffs of the village of Al-Khawy, south of Luxor.


    All these images already attest to the evolution of human abilities to communicate life experiences.
In wadi Abu Subeira (Aswan region), the numerous engravings studied reveal a wealth of information about these herding and hunting peoples.


    There is also a group scene where each person is depicted going about their daily activities.


    Animals, which were essential to local life, are described in detail.


     The proximity of the Nile also influences human activities.



    Later, during the Pharaonic period (-3150), the same routes continued to be dotted with engravings. But they had changed. Instead, there were hieroglyphic inscriptions recounting other activities: military expeditions, trade, or mining.
The proliferation of hieroglyphics reveals the enrichment of spoken vocabulary.




            2 - The second graphic system :

    This consists of various scenes depicted on ceramic vessels (between 3900 and 3350 BC).
Thus, in Egypt, as elsewhere, we see the evolution of graphic design on transportable media.
Until 3700 BC, c-ware (ceramics decorated with white hatching) predominated.


    On d-ware (decorated ceramics), the arrangement of the decorations follows other rules of composition.

Jar decorated with a large boat - Louvre AF 6851 - 4th millennium BC Ancient Egypt - Neolithic - Nagada II...

Ancient Egyptian vase.

    Although schematic, the images are always representative of the lives of these populations : scenes of navigation, animal sequences and rites of regeneration.
Vases were primarily utilitarian, but they provided a mobile medium that promoted both trade and the development of writing.


    Vases painted with complex scenes quickly disappeared, about a century before the advent of writing.
However, before disappearing, these early graphic systems provided syntactic rules for writing. Thus, certain rules used on painted vases can be found in hieroglyphic grammar.


     For example, on d-ware as in hieroglyphics, the plural is expressed by the triple repetition of a sign.

            3 - The third graphic system :

    This corresponds to potmarks, marks incised on the outer wall of clay jars before firing.
Potmarks consist of a single sign or a combination of several signs, some of which would later become hieroglyphs.
These marks appeared in Egypt at the beginning of the Neolithic period, became more widespread from 3200 BC onwards, and then disappeared three centuries later.

    Potmarks are thought to have had an accounting role, as they are always found on jars containing foodstuffs.
They were also used for administrative or identification purposes in tombs.

    

            4 - The fourth graphic system :

    Seals first appeared in Mesopotamia. They were then introduced to Egypt at the end of the 4th millennium and were used for 1,000 years as receipts for the transfer of goods travelling long distances.


    Small in size and made of stone or ivory, they were used to make an impression on a clay tablet or jar stopper.


            5 - The fifth graphic system :

    This consists of ink marks decorating jars, most of which were found in tombs, the oldest (-3250) in tomb U-j at Umm el-Qaab (Abydos). This system of annotations remains poorly understood.



    As in rock art, the general evolution of these graphics began with engravings before colours appeared.



             b – Egyptian writing in the first phase :
This period can be divided into :
     - Archaic Egyptian,
     - Old Egyptian
     - Middle Egyptian

            1 - Archaic Egyptian :

    This language was used during the Predynastic Period, the last period of Egyptian prehistory (-4700 -3150).


    The earliest known inscriptions date from 3400 BC. They are found mainly in funerary and administrative contexts. During this period, graphic systems succeeded one another and the first hieroglyphs appeared.

At the end of Egyptian protohistory (Thinite period, around 3000 BC), animals were perceived as beings more powerful than humans.


    This is undoubtedly why the first kings of ancient Egypt had animal names, such as the Scorpion King, whose mark was found in the tomb of U-j (the necropolis of Umm el-Qa'ab in Abydos mentioned above).

    However, these graphic systems are not considered to be writing because they do not yet transcribe the sounds of language and can only be understood within a shared cultural context.
Nevertheless, these systems are considered to be attempts at communication: some were not developed further, while others became sophisticated and effective means of communication.

Although these systems certainly lack the precision of language, they can be seen as the beginnings of writing.


    Towards the end of the 1st Dynasty (between 3000 and 2675 BCE), the Egyptians changed the way they recorded their world : kings abandoned animal names and animal forms became humanised.


    However, even though these hybrid deities only appeared at the end of the Second Dynasty, they are reminiscent of older representations.


    Capable of defeating the aurochs and carrying it on his shoulders, man thus asserted his strength. But at the end of Egyptian protohistory, he became aware of his weakness. It was within his extended community and protected by humanised gods that he regained his self-confidence.

    Through his new representation of the gods, man showed that he had also become aware of the two aspects of his personality : reason and instinct in its various forms.



    As for the spirits of nature that had settled in the temples (in french), they now found their place in the scriptures.
During this phase, these early hieroglyphs had no proven linguistic function.

            2 - Old Egyptian :


    Ancient Egyptian is the language spoken during the Old Kingdom (-2700 to -2200) and the First Intermediate Period (-2181 to -2040). Written with hieroglyphs, it underwent several evolutions: phonological, grammatical, and lexical.

- The first hieroglyphs :
    Although graphic symbols used to convey information existed long before hieroglyphs, it was not until the end of the 4th millennium BCE that the emergence of a true writing system is attested.

    The tomb of Umm el-Qa'ab has yielded a large number of inscriptions dating back to the 4th millennium BC. This is the period when hieroglyphic writing first appeared, on bone and ivory labels or on pottery, each bearing between one and three hieroglyphic signs.
Most of these signs are incised, while others are drawn in black ink.

Label for an oil jar.

Jar with one of the oldest hieroglyphic inscriptions.

        These early hieroglyphs are figurative : even without knowing how to read them, one can recognise the object represented.




    In its early days, hieroglyphic writing was limited to areas where the aesthetics and magical value of words were important: offering formulas on funerary steles or coffins, religious texts, and official inscriptions.
    These short inscriptions refer to a ruler, a battle, or a quantity. It was around 2700 BCE, during the reign of King Djoser, that constructed sentences began to develop, found mainly in the religious texts of the pyramids.
Gradually, hieroglyphic writing became more complex to allow for the transcription of spoken language: it gradually incorporated phonograms, determinatives and an alphabet.
It was used until Roman times, for over three thousand years.

Pictograms are signs that designate what they represent. They are generally used in contexts where language is a barrier that limits communication.

There are two types of pictograms: logograms and ideograms.
    Logograms name the object.

    They are accompanied by small non-figurative lines to indicate that they are not used for their phonetic meaning.

    - A vertical line indicates that it is the object or ideogram.
    - Three lines indicate the plural.

    Ideograms are images that indicate an idea or action. They convey their meaning without needing to be pronounced.
They can refer to objects (such as the sun) or abstract concepts (light).


     They can also refer to an action, in this case walking.


    Phonograms :
    Writing began as a representation of beings and things, but symbols could not have designated spoken language if, at the same time, humanity had not managed to isolate sounds in language, assign a graphic symbol to each one, and then organise them using grammar.

    Thus, the most important innovation in the development of writing was the acquisition of phonetics (-3100 BC), i.e. the ability to recognise different sounds in vocal expressions and to decide on symbols to transcribe them, as is the case in music.

    But before that, images had to evolve and become simpler.
Hundreds of labels found in the tomb U-j give us clues about this evolution.
A petroglyph of a stork mentioned earlier can be found on one of the labels, marking this miniaturisation and the transition from a fixed medium to a mobile medium.

    With the advent of phonetics, images transcribed the sounds of language by isolating the syllables of words.

        Thus, the stork, which is called ‘Ba’, and the seat, which is pronounced ‘Set’, are grouped together on a label indicating the name of an ancient city in northern Egypt: Basset.




    Phonograms can represent one, two, or three consonants, as vowels are not recognised.




    Déterminatives :

    Images and symbols can accurately describe an object or living being, but not an action in progress. This became possible thanks to determinatives, which appeared two centuries later. These complementary signs are not pronounced ; they clarify the meaning of words (object, animal, deity, action, etc.).


    Thus, the image of the hare, which also indicates the sound ‘wn’, takes on a different meaning depending on the sign added.




    The orientation of the text :
The difficulty of developing hieroglyphic writing necessitated another attempt at organisation, which resulted in linear hieroglyphs.


    The simplified hieroglyphs were arranged in either vertical or horizontal lines..

        The direction of reading was indicated by the direction in which the animals or characters depicted were looking. If their heads were facing to the right, the text was read from right to left, and vice versa.



            3 - Middle Egyptian :

    While retaining their figurative appearance, linear hieroglyphs were a step forward, but as they still required a certain amount of skill and were ill-suited to writing administrative documents, a further simplification was needed: hieratic.

- Hieratic :

    This script appeared during the Middle Egyptian period, starting in the Middle Kingdom (2033–1786 BC).
Unlike previous developments, hieratic characters obeyed certain rules : they were now drawn in horizontal lines and read from right to left.



    Hieratic characters no longer represent objects; they are composed solely of abstract signs.




             c – Egyptian writing in the second phase :
- Neo-Egyptian : (-1500 to -700)

    Its grammatical structure is more analytical and uses auxiliaries. Articles define the gender of nouns.
An evolution in spelling reflects pronunciation.
Writing developed in the form of religious narratives (The Trial of Horus and Seth) or historical narratives, as well as tales with a mythological background (The Two Brothers).


    Neo-Egyptian, in addition to marking a new stage in the evolution of the Egyptian language, provided a wealth of historical documentation.

- Demotic :

    Faced with the sheer volume of texts to be written, scribes gradually developed a new, increasingly simplified form of writing : Demotic (from the Greek ‘demos’, meaning ‘popular’), which was reserved for administrative texts. This form of writing, with its ligatured characters, developed from the 7th century BCE onwards and was used until the 5th century CE. Hieratic was then reserved for religious texts.


    Images were completely abandoned in favour of signs whose letters, linked together, allowed for ever faster writing.


- Coptic :

    This is the final evolution of the Egyptian language.
Coptic uses both the Greek alphabet and seven characters from Demotic to indicate sounds unknown to the Greek language.


    In this alphabet, alongside easily recognisable Greek characters, it is possible to trace the origin of characters borrowed from Egyptian writing.


    Most of the words used come from the Egyptian language, with some borrowings from Greek.
Under Greek influence, the direction of writing was reversed from left to right.

    Attested as early as the 2nd century during the Roman occupation, and still spoken by peasants in Upper Egypt in the 17th century, this language remains today the liturgical language of the Coptic Church.
























C - The transition from images to writing in Mesopotamia : (in french)


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