The Importance of Writing in the Development of Ancient Egyptian Civilization - Essay Example

The importance of writing in the development of ancient Egyptian civilization Introduction When any modern day person considers the ancient Egyptian civilization a number of obvious factors come to mind – pyramids, strange gods, their belief in the afterlife and hieroglyphics. This essay will consider how this last item, writing, was pivotal in the development of the whole Egyptian life style during this long lasting period – from around 3000 B.C.E. to 300 B.C.E. when Greeks began to take over. The paper will consider the various ways in which the ability to record things in writing contributed to the political, economic and social- cultural life of the ancient Egyptians. Early Egyptian Writing. Egypt was first settled by hunter gatherers, but over time these became settled farmers and urban dwellers. As such they were protected by local, and later, national leaders. The development of writing was key to this development into a sophisticated society from a beginning in many, separate , autonomous communities. It would have been a very gradual change over thousands of years, sometimes referred to as the Neolithic Revolution1, but eventually Egypt would become a nation under one leader with a central administration. The earliest Egyptian writing so far discovered has been dated as coming from 5,300 years ago i.e. around 3,290 B.C.E, in the reign of King Scorpion who ruled just before the first Dynasty was established. 2Like much writing today, and like many early Sumerian records, these clay tablets record fairly mundane things - taxes – tithes of oil and linen paid to the king. The pictures were accompanied by numbers – a metric system capable of recording numbers up to one million.3 The wealth that later built the mighty temples and pyramids came to a large extent from taxation and donations to the many temples. 4 The early writing actually consists of drawings – each being a symbol for the various chiefs , cites etc. From these the more familiar and stylized hieroglyphics would later develop. This is not an alphabet as we have in so many modern languages. It is however a logically arranged system of communication well suited to the place and culture which developed it. The hieroglyphics were logosyllabic i.e. a symbol was used to represent a syllable or a word.5 The same signs would be used for words with identical consonants, but differed in their vowels. Another language of the region – Hebrew omitted vowels altogether, so we can see a relationship, at least in ideas, between the two. Greenberg quotes Kent Weeks , a distinguished student of Egyptology , who said of these writings ‘This would be one of the greatest discoveries in the history of writing and ancient Egyptian culture.’ – the reason being that these writings may predate the cuneiform of Mesopotamia, previously thought to be the earliest known writing. They indicate how organized society was, even at this very early date, which even pre-dates the patriarchs such as Abraham. 6 Yet when first re-discovered in the 18th century the writings were considered to be merely mystical and symbolic rather than often being much more pragmatic. It was Thomas Young who first revealed the phonetic nature of the written language. He first published an alphabet in 1814. This was later found to be correct in the main. 7 How the Egyptians Used Writing The basic answer is of course to communicate. Clay was cumbersome and so papyrus was utilized – writing paper made from Nile reeds. This was the main writing material , though of course stone and rock were also for information that was considered to more permanent This use of papyrus was an example of how need drove creativity and invention. . As the empire became established it soon covered a massive area along the shores of the Nile river, rather bigger than the modern day country. It also had neighbours and trading partners – all trade requires communication, even if it is just small tags to identify goods or ownership, and neighbouring states mean negotiations. Then there is of course the religion – concentrated on temple worship, each temple with its individual priests and scribes. There were prayers to be read and rituals to be enacted The scribes were important not just to the rich. They watched the heavens in order to predict events, including the times of the Nile floods. They also recorded the heights and extent of the floods – so important to every farmer, but also important to the government who used this information to calculate tithes and other economic facts. Politics also requires writing - the recording of laws, agreements and treaties with surrounding countries , as of course threats made and tributes demanded and received. . At some point in the 3rd millennium B.C.E. the kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt were united under one pharaoh.. From this time on all power became centralized under one God/King. His messengers and officials would have traveled far and wide in order to communicate effectively - giving orders, receiving messages, negotiating and of course collecting taxes – and the scribes would have accompanied them as well as drawing up the documents they carried. . 8To be a scribe would have been a position of importance. They could do things that others could not. It was a profession handed down from father to son. The work of these scribes was to record all kinds of things - from everyday transactions to the deaths of kings. Theirs was a difficult task as there were many hundreds of hieroglyphics to be remembered and used – carved in stone, painted, or written on linen and papyrus, and even on broken pots. They recorded in detail and with accuracy. Officials would have been able to look back at earlier records - see for instance how much tax had been collected from a region in a particular year, or a decree from the king passed in an earlier reign. They of course recorded the things that were important to them – and often that would be concerned with the afterlife. So prayers were recorded. 9 The afterlife was a place where they felt their bodies must be preserved. This meant that burial was important, and so the rituals involved were recorded. For instance, because Egyptians divided the world into four segments, the Book of the Dead has prayers to be repeated four times10. Early mummies were simply wrapped and buried in the sand, but gradually more elaborate memorials became the norm. They were more than memorials though. It was believed that they were essential for the preservation of a person into the afterlife. Although religious practice centred on the kings, these tombs were not just for kings and princes, but also for others rich enough to afford such luxuries. Shiffman claims that they were trying to recreate the universe within the temples and tombs.11 And so the building of ever more elaborate pyramids developed. And each of these would of course require the work of scribes – not just to record the name of the incumbent, but also to record details of their earthly life as well, in the case of royalty, as their journey to the afterlife with depictions of them in the presence of the gods. Much of the interior walls were covered with pictures, but these were accompanied by writing – so the work of the scribes reached out even into the after life, and such was the durability of their craft they have also, in many cases, reached forward into time. Conclusion Writing then formed the basis of agricultural development out of which the later Egyptian civilization developed. It was used for the evaluation and recording of government revenue. Economic activities such as counting, measuring, taxing and calculating were advanced through the writing of the scribes. The social- cultural development of society was promoted by such as things as naming, the development of a distinct Egyptian language, religious practices and the social class divisions, including emphasis upon the power and religious significance of the sovereign. . Egypt eventually fell to foreign invaders. These were people who used a new language, a new way of recording – first Greek and then Latin. In 391 C.E. the Christian Byzantine emperor Theodosius ordered that all pagan temples in his vast empire be closed. For the next 1500 years the language of the ancient Egyptians was unknown. Then Rosetta stone was discovered.12 The stone, dating from 196B.C.E., records a decree issued by a priestly council affirming the royal cult of Emperor Ptolomy V. It is important because the decree is written in three different ways – in hieroglyphics – as the priests would have done, but also in demotic i.e. everyday Egyptian, but also in Greek which could easily be translated. The Greek was used as a key to the hieroglyphics and so , as each new discovery is made, more and more about Egyptian life is discovered – simply because they recorded it - whether as the name on a tomb, a prayer , a law or a tax record. All add to our knowledge of this very important ancient people. 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