THE AGE OF LETTERS OR PICTOGRAPHS_The Circle of Knowledge: A Classified, Simplified, Visualized Book of Answers

Besides the metals, letters also, or at least pictorial writings such as

the old rock carvings of Upper Egypt, were introduced in the Prehistoric

Age, which comprises that transitional period dim memories of which

lingered on far into historic times. It was an age of popular myths,

folklore, demi-gods, heroes, traditions of real events, and even

philosophic theories on man and his surroundings, which supplied ready

to hand the copious materials afterwards worked up by the early poets,

founders of new religions, and later lawgivers.

So also in China the early historians still remembered the still earlier

“Age of the Three Rulers,” when people lived in caves, ate wild fruits

and uncooked food, drank the blood of animals, and wore the skins of

wild beasts (our Old Stone Age). Later they became less rude, learned to

obtain fire by friction, and built themselves habitations of wood and

foliage (our New Stone Age).

Of strictly historic times the most characteristic feature is the

general use of letters, most fruitful of human inventions, since by its

means everything worth preserving was perpetuated, and all useful

knowledge thus tended to become accumulative. Writing systems, as we

understand them, were not suddenly introduced, but gradually evolved

from pictures representing things and ideas to conventional signs or

symbols which first represent words, as in the Chinese script and our

ciphers, and then articulate sounds, as in our alphabet. Between the two

extremes--the pictograph and the letter--there are various intermediate

forms, such as the rebus and the full syllable, and these transitional

forms are largely preserved both in the Egyptian and Babylonian systems,

which thus help to show how the pure phonetic symbols were finally

reached. That was probably six thousand years ago, since we find various

ancient scripts widely diffused over the Greek Archipelago (Crete,

Cyprus, Asia Minor) in very early times. The hieroglyphic and cuneiform

systems whence they originated were very much older, since the rock

inscriptions of Upper Egypt are prior to all historic records, while the

Mesopotamian city of Nippur already possessed half-pictorial,

half-phonetic documents some six thousand years before the New Era.

[Illustration: This is an inscription in hieroglyphic writing found at

Meidum, Egypt. It records the life events of King Rahotep and his Queen

Nefert.]

[Illustration: Here is an Egyptian pictograph representing the Nubians

bearing gifts to the King of Egypt.]

=DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN RACE THROUGH THE AGES=

This chart falls within the =Cenozoic= (_sē´no-zō´ik_), or “Recent

life,” Period of the Earth and should be compared with it. Estimated Age

of the Cenozoic Period, 3,000,000 years.

+---------------------+------------------------------------+------------+

| =Geological Epochs | =Successive Upward Stages in |=Estimated |

| of the Earth= | the Development of Civilized Man= |Time and |

| | |Duration of|

| | |Periods= |

+----------+----------+----------+--------------------------+-----------+

| | |and prop- +--------------------------+-----------+

| | |and |vations--in fact, develops| |

| | | +--------------------------+-----------+

| | | |statt Period The earliest |1000 to 500|

| | | |evidence of this age was |B.C. |

| | | |Upper Austria, in a famous|1800 to |

| | | |Celtic burial-ground. The |1000 B.C. |

| | | +--------------------------+-----------+

| | | |Here flint is cast aside, |2000 to |

| | | |and gold as an ornament |1000 B.C. |

| | | |This was the stage reached|4000 to |

| | | |by the Aztecs and the |1800 B.C. |

| +----------+ +--------------------------+-----------+

| | | |stone. With the relics of |10,000 |

| | | |Neolithic man are found |B.C.) |

| | +----------+--------------------------+-----------+

| | | +--------------------------+-----------+

| | | |Eolithic |525,000 to |

| | | |Primitive man existed even|125,000 |

| | | |earlier than paleolithic |B.C. |

| | | |the necessary skill ex- |250,000 |

| | | |hibited in the flint |B.C.) |

| | | |skillful stage. Evidences |475,000 |

| | | |of this period have been |B.C.) |

+----------+----------+----------+--------------------------+-----------+

|mammals. +----------+-------------------------------------+-----------+

| |(_mī´ō- | | |

+----------+----------+-------------------------------------+-----------+

From the pictorial and plastic remains recovered from these two earliest

seats of the higher cultures it is now placed beyond doubt that all the

great divisions of the human family had at that time already been fully

developed. Even in the New Stone Age, the present European type had been

thoroughly established, as shown by the remains of the “Cro-Magnon

Race,” so called from the cave of that name in Perigord, France, where

the first specimens were discovered. In Egypt, where a well-developed

social and political organization may be traced back to the seventh

century B. C., Professor Petrie discovered in 1897 the portrait statue

of a prince of the fifth dynasty (3700 B. C.) showing regular Caucasic

features. Still older is the portrait of the Babylonian King Sargon

(3800 B. C.), also with handsome features which might be either Semitic

or even Aryan. Thus the Caucasic, that is, the highest human type, had

already been not only evolved but spread over a wide area (Europe,

Egypt, Mesopotamia) some thousands of years before the New Era. The

other chief types (Mongol, Negro, and even Negrito) are also clearly

portrayed on early Egyptian monuments, so that all the primary groups

had already reached maturity probably before the close of the Old Stone

Age.

[Illustration: Early picture writing of the Chippewa (Ojibwa) Indians.]

But these primary groups did not remain stationary in their several

original homes; on the contrary they have been subject to great and

continual fluctuations throughout historic times. Armed with a general

knowledge of letters and other cultural appliances, the higher races

soon took a foremost place in the general progress of mankind, and

gradually acquired a marked ascendency, not only over the less cultured

peoples, but to a great extent over the forces of nature herself. With

the development of navigation, and improved methods of locomotion,

inland seas, barren wastes, and mountain ranges ceased to present

insurmountable obstacles to their movements, which have never been

completely arrested, and are still going on.

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