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Writing Media
A writing material, also called a writing medium, is a surface that can be written on with suitable instruments, or used for symbolic or representational drawings. Building materials on which writings or drawings are produced are not included. The gross characterization of writing materials is by the material constituting the writing surface (for example, paper) and the number, size, usage, and storage configuration of multiple surfaces (for example, paper sheets) into a single object. Early media Because drawing preceded writing, the first remains of writing materials are the stone walls of the caves on which cave paintings were drawn. Another precursor was tally sticks used to record the count of objects. Writing seems to have become more widespread with the invention of papyrus in Egypt. Parchment, using sheepskins left after the wool was removed for cloth, was sometimes cheaper than papyrus, which had to be imported from outside of Egypt. To save money on expensive papyr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Writing Instruments
A writing implement or writing instrument is an object used to produce writing. Writing consists of different figures, lines, and or forms. Most of these items can be also used for other functions such as painting, drawing and technical drawing, but writing instruments generally have the ordinary requirement to create a smooth, controllable wikt:line, line. Another writing implement employed by a smaller population is the stylus used in conjunction with the Slate and stylus, slate for punching out the dots in Braille. Autonomous An autonomous writing implement is one that cannot "run out"—the only way to render it useless is to destroy it. Without pigment The oldest known examples were created by incising a flat surface with a rigid tool rather than applying pigment with a secondary object, e.g., Chinese jiaguwen carved into turtle shells. However, this may simply represent the relative durability of such artifacts rather than truly representing the evolution of techniques, as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ebla
Ebla (Sumerian language, Sumerian: ''eb₂-la'', , modern: , Tell Mardikh) was one of the earliest kingdoms in Syria. Its remains constitute a Tell (archaeology), tell located about southwest of Aleppo near the village of Mardikh. Ebla was an important center throughout the and in the first half of the Its discovery proved the Levant was a center of ancient, centralized civilization equal to Ancient Egypt, Egypt and Mesopotamia and ruled out the view that the latter two were the only important centers in the Ancient Near East, Near East during the Early Bronze Age. The first Eblaite kingdom has been described as the first recorded world power. Starting as a small settlement in the Early Bronze Age ( ), Ebla developed into a trading empire and later into an expansionist power that imposed its hegemony over much of northern and eastern Syria. Ebla was destroyed during the It was then rebuilt and was mentioned in the records of the Third Dynasty of Ur. The second Ebla w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palm Leaf Manuscript
Palm-leaf manuscripts are manuscripts made out of dried palm leaves. Palm leaves were used as writing materials in the Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia dating back to the 5th century BCE. Their use began in South Asia and spread to other regions, as texts on dried and smoke-treated palm leaves of the Palmyra palm, Palmyra or Ola leaf, talipot palm. Their use continued until the 19th century when printing presses replaced hand-written manuscripts. One of the oldest surviving palm leaf manuscripts of a complete treatise is a Sanskrit Shaivism text from the 9th century, discovered in Nepal, and now preserved at the Cambridge University Library.Pārameśvaratantra (MS Add.1049.1) with images , Puṣkarapārameśvaratantra, University of Cambridge (2015) The Spitzer Manuscript is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birch Bark
Birch bark or birchbark is the bark of several Eurasian and North American birch trees of the genus ''Betula''. For all practical purposes, birch bark's main layers are the outer dense layer, white on the outside, and the inner porous layer (cambium). For vast majority of crafts, the outer bark is used. In many languages it has a separate name. For example, in Russian "birch bark" is "beryozovaya kora", while the outer birch bark is "beryosta". The strong and water-resistant cardboard-like outer bark can be easily cut, bent, and sewn, which has made it a valuable building, crafting, and writing material, since pre-historic times. Today, birch bark remains a popular type of wood for various handicrafts and arts. Birch bark also contains substances of medicinal and chemical interest. Some of those products (such as betulin) also have fungicidal properties that help preserve bark artifacts, as well as food preserved in bark containers. Collection and storage Removing birch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vedas Palm Leaf Manuscript, Tamil Grantha Script, Sanskrit, Tamil Nadu
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas ( or ; ), sometimes collectively called the Veda, are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. There are four Vedas: the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and the Atharvaveda. Each Veda has four subdivisions – the Samhitas (mantras and benedictions), the Brahmanas (commentaries on and explanation of rituals, ceremonies and sacrifices – Yajñas), the Aranyakas (text on rituals, ceremonies, sacrifices and symbolic-sacrifices), and the Upanishads (texts discussing meditation, philosophy and spiritual knowledge).Gavin Flood (1996), ''An Introduction to Hinduism'', Cambridge University Press, , pp. 35–39A Bhattacharya (2006), ''Hindu Dharma: Introduction to Scriptures and Theology'', , pp. 8–14; George M. Willi ... [...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] |
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] |
Ostracism
Ostracism (, ''ostrakismos'') was an Athenian democratic procedure in which any citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the citizen, ostracism was often used preemptively. It was used as a way of neutralizing someone thought to be a threat to the state or a potential tyrant, though in many cases popular opinion often informed the expulsion. The word " ostracism" continues to be used for various forms of shunning. Procedure The term "ostracism" is derived from the pottery shards that were used as voting tokens, called '' ostraka'' (singular: ''ostrakon'' ) in Greek. Broken pottery, abundant and virtually free, served as a kind of scrap paper (in contrast to papyrus, which was imported from Egypt as a high-quality writing surface, and too costly to be disposable). Each year the Athenians were asked in the assembly whether they wished to hold an ostracism. The question was put in the sixt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ostraka
An ostracon (Greek: ''ostrakon'', plural ''ostraka'') is a piece of pottery, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In an archaeological or epigraphical context, ''ostraca'' refer to sherds or even small pieces of stone that have writing scratched into them. Usually these are considered to have been broken off before the writing was added; ancient people used the cheap, plentiful, and durable broken pieces of pottery around them as a convenient medium to write on for a wide variety of purposes, mostly very short inscriptions, but in some cases very long. Ostracism In Classical Athens, when the decision at hand was to banish or exile a certain member of society, citizen peers would cast their vote by writing the name of the person on the shard of pottery; the vote was counted and, if unfavorable, the person was exiled for a period of ten years from the city, thus giving rise to the term ''ostracism''. Broken pottery shards were also used for anal hygiene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wax Tablet
A wax tablet is a tablet (other), tablet made of wood and covered with a layer of wax, often linked loosely to a cover tablet, as a "double-leaved" diptych. It was used as a reusable and portable writing surface in classical antiquity, antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages. Cicero's letters make passing reference to the use of ''cerae'', and some examples of wax-tablets have been preserved in waterlogged deposits in the Roman Britain, Roman fort at Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall. Medieval wax tablet books are on display in several European museums. Writing on the wax surface was performed with a pointed instrument, a stylus. A straight-edged spatula-like implement (often placed on the opposite end of the stylus tip) would be used as an eraser. The modern expression of ''"a clean Slate (writing), slate"'' equates to the Latin expression ''"tabula rasa"''. Wax tablets were used for a variety of purposes, from taking down students' or secretaries' notes to recording bus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stele
A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stelas ( ). is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in the ancient world as a monument. The surface of the stele often has text, ornamentation, or both. These may be inscribed, carved in relief, or painted. Stelae were created for many reasons. Grave stelae were used for funerary or commemorative purposes. Stelae as slabs of stone would also be used as ancient Greek and Roman government notices or as boundary markers to mark borders or property lines. Stelae were occasionally erected as memorials to battles. For example, along with other memorials, there are more than half-a-dozen steles erected on the battlefield of Waterloo at the locations of notable actions by participants in battle. A traditional Wester ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley, it is the state's first land-grant university and is the founding campus of the University of California system. Berkeley has an enrollment of more than 45,000 students. The university is organized around fifteen schools of study on the same campus, including the UC Berkeley College of Chemistry, College of Chemistry, the UC Berkeley College of Engineering, College of Engineering, UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science, College of Letters and Science, and the Haas School of Business. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was originally founded as par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
