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Scribes
A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as secretarial and administrative duties such as the taking of dictation and keeping of business, judicial, and historical records for kings, nobles, temples, and cities. The profession of scribe first appears in Mesopotamia. Scribes contributed in fundamental ways to ancient and medieval cultures, including Egypt, China, India, Persia, the Roman Empire, and medieval Europe. Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam have important scribal traditions. Scribes have been essential in these cultures for the preservation of legal codes, religious texts, and artistic and didactic literature. In some cultures, social functions of the scribe and of the calligrapher overlap, but the emphasis in scribal writing is on exactitude, whereas calligraphy aims to express the aesthetic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Egyptian Literature
Ancient Egyptian literature was written with the Egyptian language from ancient Egypt's History of ancient Egypt, pharaonic period until the end of Egypt (Roman province), Roman domination. It represents the oldest Text corpus, corpus of Literature of Egypt, Egyptian literature. Along with Sumerian literature, it is considered the world's Ancient literature, earliest literature. Writing in ancient Egypt—both Egyptian hieroglyphs, hieroglyphic and hieratic—first appeared in the late 4th millennium BC during the late phase of predynastic Egypt. By the Old Kingdom (26th century BC to 22nd century BC), literary works included Ancient Egyptian funerary texts, funerary texts, epistles and letters, hymns and poems, and commemorative Autobiography, autobiographical texts recounting the careers of prominent administrative officials. It was not until the early Middle Kingdom of Egypt, Middle Kingdom (21st century BC to 17th century BC) that a narrative Egyptian literature was create ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parchment
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared Tanning (leather), untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves and goats. It has been used as a writing medium in West Asia and Europe for more than two millennia. By AD 400 most literature in these regions that was intended for preservation began to be transferred from papyrus to parchment. ''Vellum'' is a finer-quality parchment made from the skins of young animals such as lambs and young calves. The generic term ''animal membrane'' is sometimes used by libraries and museums that wish to avoid distinguishing between parchment and vellum. Parchment and vellum Today the term ''parchment'' is often used in non-technical contexts to refer to any animal skin, particularly goat, sheep or cow, that has been scraped or dried under tension. The term originally referred only to the skin of sheep and, occasionally, goats. The equivalent material made from calfskin, which was of finer quality, was known as ''vellum'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clay Tablets
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets ( Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age. Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with a stylus often made of reed (reed pen). Once written upon, many tablets were dried in the sun or air, remaining fragile. Later, these unfired clay tablets could be soaked in water and recycled into new clean tablets. Other tablets, once written, were either deliberately fired in hot kilns, or inadvertently fired when buildings were burnt down by accident or during conflict, making them hard and durable. Collections of these clay documents made up the first archives. They were at the root of the first libraries. Tens of thousands of written tablets, including many fragments, have been found in the Middle East. Most of the documents on tablets that survive from the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations were created for accounting purposes. Tablets ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calligrapher
Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious, and skillful manner". In East Asia and the Muslim world, Islamic world, where written forms allow for greater flexibility, Islamic calligraphy, calligraphy is regarded as a significant art form, and the form it takes may be affected by the meaning of the text or the individual words. Modern Western calligraphy ranges from functional inscriptions and designs to fine-art pieces where the legibility of letters varies. Classical calligraphy differs from type design and non-classical hand-lettering, though a calligrapher may practice both. CD-ROM Western calligraphy continues to flourish in the forms of wedding invitations and event invitations, font design and typography, original hand-lettered logo design, religious art ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illuminated Manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers and liturgical books such as psalters and courtly literature, the practice continued into secular texts from the 13th century onward and typically include proclamations, enrolled bills, laws, charters, inventories, and deeds. The earliest surviving illuminated manuscripts are a small number from late antiquity, and date from between 400 and 600 CE. Examples include the Vergilius Romanus, Vergilius Vaticanus, and the Rossano Gospels. The majority of extant manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many survive from the Renaissance. While Islamic manuscripts can also be called illuminated and use essentially the same techniques, comparable Far Eastern and Mesoamerican works are described as ''painted''. Most manuscripts, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Online Etymology Dictionary
Etymonline, or ''Online Etymology Dictionary'', sometimes abbreviated as OED (not to be confused with the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', which the site often cites), is a free online dictionary that describes the etymology, origins of English language, English words, written and compiled by Douglas R. Harper. Description Douglas R. Harper is an American Civil War historian and copy editor for LNP Media Group. He compiled the etymology dictionary to record the history and evolution of more than 50,000 words, including slang and technical terms. The core of its etymology information stems from ''The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology'' by Robert Barnhart, Ernest Klein's ''Comprehensive Etymology Dictionary of the English Language'', ''The Middle English Compendium'', ''The Oxford English Dictionary'', and the 1889–1902 ''Century Dictionary''. Harper also researches on digital archives. On the ''Etymonline'' homepage, Harper says that he considers himself "essentially and for the m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Islamic Manuscripts
Islamic manuscripts had a variety of functions ranging from Qur'anic recitation to scientific notation. These manuscripts were produced in many different ways depending on their use and period. Parchment (vellum) was a common way to produce manuscripts. Manuscript creators eventually transitioned to using paper in later centuries with the diffusion of paper-making in the Islamic empire. When Muslims encountered paper in Central Asia, its use and production spread to Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and North Africa during the 8th century. The Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation has estimated that 3 million Islamic manuscripts have survived. Other academics talk of 7 million surviving manuscripts out of 90 million manuscripts written between the 7th and 14th centuries. The estimates vary due to several challenges, such as limited access to manuscripts located in conflict zones or held in private libraries. Scripts The development of scripts in the Islamic empir, demonstrates the tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, ''Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'' or ''papyruses'') can also refer to a document written on sheets of such material, joined side by side and rolled up into a scroll, an early form of a book. Papyrus was first known to have been used in Egypt (at least as far back as the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty), as the papyrus plant was once abundant across the Nile Delta. It was also used History of the Mediterranean, throughout the Mediterranean region. Apart from writing material, ancient Egyptians employed papyrus in the construction of other Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, such as reed boats, mats, rope, sandals, and baskets. History Papyrus was first manufactured in Egypt as far back as the third millennium BCE.H. Idris Bell and T.C. Skeat, 1935"Papyrus and its uses"(British Museum pam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cuneiform
Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform scripts are marked by and named for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions (Latin: ) which form their Grapheme, signs. Cuneiform is the History of writing#Inventions of writing, earliest known writing system and was originally developed to write the Sumerian language of southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Over the course of its history, cuneiform was adapted to write a number of languages in addition to Sumerian. Akkadian language, Akkadian texts are attested from the 24th century BC onward and make up the bulk of the cuneiform record. Akkadian cuneiform was itself adapted to write the Hittite language in the early second millennium BC. The other languages with significant cuneiform Text corpus, corpora are Eblaite language, Eblaite, Elamit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has come to be understood to further include ''any'' written, typed, or word-processed copy of an author's work, as distinguished from the rendition as a printed version of the same. Before the arrival of prints, all documents and books were manuscripts. Manuscripts are not defined by their contents, which may combine writing with mathematical calculations, maps, music notation, explanatory figures, or illustrations. Terminology The word "manuscript" derives from the (from , hand and from , to write), and is first recorded in English in 1597. An earlier term in English that shares the meaning of a handwritten document is "hand-writ" (or "handwrit"), which is first attested around 1175 and is now rarely used. The study of the writing ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Near East
The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th century by modern Western geographers and was originally applied to the Ottoman Empire, but today has varying definitions within different academic circles. The term ''Near East'' was used in conjunction with the ''Middle East'' and the ''Far East'' (China and beyond), together known as the "three Easts"; it was a separate term from the ''Middle East'' during earlier times and official British usage. As of 2024, both terms are used interchangeably by politicians and news reporters to refer to the same region. ''Near East'' and ''Middle East'' are both Eurocentrism, Eurocentric terms. According to the National Geographic Society, the terms ''Near East'' and ''Middle East'' denote the same territories and are "generally accepted as comprisin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cuneiform
Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform scripts are marked by and named for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions (Latin: ) which form their Grapheme, signs. Cuneiform is the History of writing#Inventions of writing, earliest known writing system and was originally developed to write the Sumerian language of southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Over the course of its history, cuneiform was adapted to write a number of languages in addition to Sumerian. Akkadian language, Akkadian texts are attested from the 24th century BC onward and make up the bulk of the cuneiform record. Akkadian cuneiform was itself adapted to write the Hittite language in the early second millennium BC. The other languages with significant cuneiform Text corpus, corpora are Eblaite language, Eblaite, Elamit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
