Assignment 16 Research and Inspiration

Cave Paintings | 35,000 years ago  

-  common themes found in cave paintings- bison, horses, deer, human hands

-  speleology- scientific study of caves and other karst features, their make-up, structure, physical properties, history, life forms, and the processes by which they form and change over time 

 

Cuneiform and the Sumerians | 3,000 BC  

-  Cuneiform, the worlds first written language was created in the region of Sumer

-  Cuneiform was created to keep track of business transactions

Hieroglyphics and the Egyptians | 3,000 BC 

-  in the sixth century BC, the Persians, Greeks, and Romans invaded Egypt

-  The term Hieroglyphic derived from 2 greek words, hiero meaning sacred and glyphic meaning graving/writing

-  scribe- could read and write instructions on the walls and papyrus for rituals which were performed to please the Gods and Godesses

-  Jean Francois Champollion, deciphered the Rosetta Stone

 

The Phoenician Alphabet | 1050 BC 

-  Phoenician alphabet is based on principle that one sign represents one spoken sound

-  made it very successful = its simplicity allowed it to be used in multiple languages, and it also allowed common people to learn how to write.

 

The Greek Alphabet | 800 BC 

-  several of the consonants were adapted as vowels, additional letters were added