ANTIQUITY OF INK.
THE INVENTION OF THE ART OF WRITING--TO WHOM
IT BELONGS--ITS UTILIZATION BY NATIONS AND
INDIVIDUALS--WHEN IT IS FIRST MENTIONED IN THE
BIBLE--CITATIONS FROM THE ENCYCLOPaeDIA BRITANNICA
AND SMITHS DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE--SOME
REMARKS BY HUMPHREYS OF THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS
OF HANDWRITING--COMMENTS BY PLATO AND
THE COLLOQUY BETWEEN KING THAMUS AND THOTH,
THE EGYPTIAN GOD OF THE LIBERAL ARTS--FIRST
APPEARANCE OF INK WRITTEN ROLLS--DESTRUCTION
OF THE TEMPLES WHICH CONTAINED THEM--COMMENTS
OF THE HISTORIAN ROLLINS--DESTRUCTION
OF THE MOST ANCIENT CHINESE INK WRITTEN MSS.
THERE is a difference of opinion as to what nation
belongs the honor of the invention of the art of
handwriting. Sir Isaac Newton observes:
"There is the utmost uncertainty in the chronology
of ancient kingdoms, arising from the vanity
of each claiming the greatest antiquity, while those
pretensions were favoured by their having no exact
account of time."
Its antiquity has been exhaustively treated by many
writers; the best known are Massey, 1763, The Origin
and Progress of Letters;" Astle, 1803, "The Origin
and Progress of Writing;" Silvestre, "Universal
Palaeography," Paris, 1839-41 ; and Humphreys, 1855,
"The Origin and Progress of the Art of Writing."
They, with others, have sought to record the origin
and gradual development of the art of writing from
the Egyptian Hieroglyphics of 4000 B. C.; the Chinese
Figurative, 3000 B. C. ; Indian Alphabetic, 2000 or
more B. C. ; the Babylonian or Cuneiform, 2000
years B. C.; and the Phoenician in which they include
the Hebrew or Samaritan Alphabet, 2000 or more
B. C., down to the writings of the new or Western
world of the Christian era.
The data presented and the arguments set forth,
deserve profound respect, and though we find some
favoring the Egyptians, or the Phoenicians, the Chaldeans,
the Syrians, the Indians, the Persians or the
Arabians, it is best to accept the concensus of their
opinion, which seems to divide between the Phoenicians
and the Egyptians as being the inventors of the
foremost of all the arts. "For, in Phoenicia, had
lived Taaut or Thoth the first Hermes, its inventor,
and who later carried his art into Egypt where they
first wrote in pictures, some 2200 years B. C."
The art appears to have been first exercised in
Greece and the West about 1500 or 1800 B. C., and
like all arts, it was doubtless slow and progressive.
The Greeks refer the invention of written letters to
Cadmus, merely because he introduced them from
Phoenicia, then only sixteen in number. To these,
four more were added by Simonides. Evander brought
letters into Latium from Greece, the Latin letters being
at first nearly the same form as the Greek. The Romans
employed a device of scattering green sand upon tables,
for the teaching of arithmetic and writing, and in India
a "sand box" consisting of a surface of sand laid on a
board the finger being utilized to trace forms, was the
method followed by the natives to teach their children.
It is said that such methods still obtain even in this
age, in some rural districts of England.
After the invention of writing well-informed nations
and individuals kept scribes or chroniclers to record in
writing, historical and other events, mingled with claims
of antiquity based on popular legends.
These individuals were not always held in the highest
esteem. Among the Hebrews it was considered an
honorable vocation, while the Greeks for a long time
treated its practitioners as outcasts. It was an accomplishment
possessed by the few even down to the fifteenth
century of the Christian era. The rulers of
the different countries were deficient in the art and
depended on others to write their documents and letters
to which they appended their monogram or the
sign of the Cross against their names as an attestation.
So late as A. D. 1516 an order was made in London to
examine all persons who could write in order to discover
the authorship of a seditious document.
The art of writing is not mentioned in the Bible
prior to the time of Moses, although as before stated,
in Egypt and the countries adjacent thereto it was not
only known but practiced.
Its first mention recorded in Scripture will be found
in Exodus xvii. v. 14; "And the Lord said unto
Moses, Write this, for a memorial, in a book; and
rehearse it in the ear of Joshua; for I will utterly put
out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven."
This command was given immediately after the defeat
of the Amalekites near Horeb, and before the arrival
of the Israelites at Mount Sinai.
It is observable, that there is not the least hint to
induce us to believe that writing was then newly invented;
on the contrary, we may conclude, that Moses
understood what was meant by writing in a book;
otherwise God would have instructed him, as he had
done Noah in building the Ark; for he would not have
been commanded to write in a book, if he had been
ignorant of the art of writing; but Moses expressed
no difficulty of comprehension when he received this
command. We also find that Moses wrote all the
works and all the judgments of the Lord, contained
in the twenty-first and the two succeeding chapters of
the book of Exodus, before the two written tables of
stone were even so much as promised. The delivery
of the tables is not mentioned till the eighteenth verse
of the thirty-first chapter, after God had made an
end of communing with him upon the mount, though
the ten commandments were promulgated immediately
after his third descent.
Moses makes frequent mention of ancient books of
the Hebrews, but describes none, except the two tables
on which God wrote the ten commandments. These
he tells us, were of polished stone, engraven on both
sides and as Calmet remarks: "it is probable that
Moses would not have observed to us these two particulars
so often as he does, were it not to distinguish
them from other books, which were made of tables,
not of stone, but of wood and curiously engraven, but
on one side only."
It cannot be said that Moses uses any language
which can be construed to mean the employment of
rolls of papyrus, or barks of trees, much less of parchment.
We have therefore reason to believe that by
the term book, he always means table-books, made of
small thin boards or plates.
The edicts, as well as the letters of kings, were written
upon tablets and sent to the various provinces,
sealed with their signets. Scripture plainly alludes
to the custom of sealing up letters, edicts and the tablets
on which the prophets wrote their visions.
The practice of writing upon rolls made of the barks
of trees is very ancient. It is alluded to in the Book
of Job: "Oh! that mine adversary had written a book;
surely I would take it upon my shoulders, and bind
it as a crown to me." (Old version.) The new one
runs: "And that I had the indictment which mine
adversary hath written!" The rolls, or volumes,
generally speaking, were written upon one side only.
This is intimated by Ezekiel who observes that he
saw one of in extraordinary form written on both
sides: "And when I looked, behold, an Hand was sent
unto me, and lo! a roll of a book was therein; and he
spread it before me, and it was written within and
without."
To have been able to write on dry tablets of wood
or barks of trees with the reed or brush, the then only
ink-writing instruments in vogue would have necessitated
the employment of lampblack suspended in a
vehicle of thick gum, or in the form of a paint. Both
of these maybe termed pigmentary inks. The use of
thin inks would have caused spreading or blotting and
thus rendered the writing illegible.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica generalizes its remarks
on this subject:--
"The earliest writings were purely monumental
and accordingly those materials were chosen which
were supposed to last the longest. The same idea
of perpetuity which in architecture finds its most
striking exposition in the pyramids was repeated,
in the case of literary records, in the two columns
mentioned by Josephus, the one of stone and the
other of brick, on which the children of Seth wrote
their inventions and astronomical discoveries; in
the pillars in Crete on which, according to Porphyry,
the ceremonies of the Corybantes were inscribed;
in the leaden tablets containinlu the works of Hesiod,
deposited in the temple of the Muses, in Boeotia;
in the ten commandments on stone delivered by
Moses; and in the laws of Solon, inscribed on planks
of wood. The notion of a literary production surviving
the destruction of the materials on which it
was first written--the 'momentum, aere perennius'
of Horace's ambition--was unknown before the discovery
of substances for systematic transcription.
"Tablets of ivory or metal were in common use
among the Greeks and Romans. When made of
wood--sometimes of citron, but usually of beech or
fir--their inner sides were coated with wax, on
which the letters were traced with a pointed pen or
stiletto (stylus), one end of which was used for
erasure. It was with his stylus that Caesar stabbed
Casca in the arm when attacked by his murderers.
Wax tablets of this kind continued in partial use in
Europe during the middle ages; the oldest extant
specimen, now in the museum at Florence, belongs
to the year 1301."
Later the Hebrew Scriptures were written in ink or
paint upon the skins of ceremonially clean animals or
even birds. These were rolled upon sticks and fastened
with a cord, the ends of which were sealed when
security was an object. They were written in columns,
and usually upon one side, only. The writing was
from right to left; the upper margin was three fingers
broad, the lower one four fingers; a breadth of two
fingers separated the columns. The columns ran across
the width of the sheet, the rolled ends of which were
held vertically in the respective hands. When one
column was read, another was exposed to view by unrolling
it from the end in the left hand, while the
former was hidden from view by rolling up the end
grasped by the right band. The pen was a reed, the
ink black, carried in a bottle suspended from the girdle.
The Samaritan Pentateuch is very ancient, as is
proved by the criticisms of Talmudic writers. A copy
of it was acquired in 1616 by Pietro della Valle, one
of the first discoverers of the cuneiform inscriptions.
It was thus introduced to the notice of Europe. It is
claimed by the Samaritans of Nablus that their copy
was written by Abisha, the great-grandson of Aaron,
in the thirteenth year of the settlement of the land of
Canaan by the children of Israel. The copies of it
brought to Europe are all written in black ink on vellum
or "cotton" paper, and vary from 12mo to
folio. The scroll used by the Samaritans is written in
gold letters. (See Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible,"
vol. III, pp. 1106-1118.) Its claims to great antiquity
are not admitted by scholars.
The enumeration of some of the modes of writing
may be interesting:
The Mexican writing is in vertical columns, beginning
at the bottom.
The Chinese and Japanese write in vertical columns,
beginning at the top and passing from left to right.
The Egyptian hieroglyphics are written invertical
columns or horizontal lines according to the shape and
position of the tablet. It is said that with the horizontal
writing the direction is indifferent, but that the
figures of men and animals face the beginning of the
line. With figures, the units stand on the left.
The Egyptians also wrote from right to left in the
hieratic and demotic and enchorial styles. The Palasgians
did the same, and were followed by the Etruscans.
In the demotic character, Dr. Brugsch remarks
that though the general direction of the writing was
usually from right to left, yet the individual letters were
formed from left to right, as is evident from the unfinished
ends of horizontal letters when the ink failed
in the pen.
In writing numbers in the hieratic and enchorial
the units were placed to the left. The Arabs write
from right to left, but received their numerals from
India, whence they call them "Hindee," and there the
arrangement of their numerals is like our own, units
to the right.
The following noteworthy passage is taken from
Humphreys' work "On the Origin and Progress of the
Art of Writing:"
"Nearly all the principal methods of ancient
writing may be divided into square capitals, rounded
capitals, and cursive letters; the square capitals
being termed simply capitals, the rounded capitals
uncials, and the small letters, or such as had
changed their form during the creation of a running
hand, minuscule. Capitals are, strictly speaking,
such letters as retain the earliest settled form of
an alphabet; being generally of such angular
shapes as could conveniently be carved on wood or
stone, or engraved in metal, to be stamped on
coins. The earliest Latin MSS. known are written
entirely in capitals like inscriptions in metal or
marble.
* * * * *
The uncial letters, as they are termed, appear
to have arisen as writing on papyrus or vellum became
common, when many of the straight lines of
the capitals, in that kind of writing, gradually acquired
a curved form, to facilitate their more rapid
execution. However this may be, from the sixth
to the eighth, or even 10th century, these uncials
or partly rounded capitals prevail.
"The modern minuscule, differing from the ancient
cursive character, appears to have arisen in
the following manner: During the 6th and 7th
centuries, a kind of transition style prevailed in
Italy and some other parts of Europe, the letters
composing which have been termed semi-uncials,
which, in a further transition, became more like
those of the old Roman cursive. This manner,
when definitely formed, became what is now termed
the minuscule manner; it began to prevail over
uncials in a certain class of MSS. about the 8th
century, and towards the 10th its general use was,
with few exceptions, established. It is said to
have been occasionally used as early as the 5th
century; but I am unable to cite an authentic existing
monument. The Psalter of Alfred the Great,
written in the 9th century, is in a small Roman
cursive hand, which has induced Casley to consider
it the work of some Italian ecclesiastic."
The learned who have made a life study of the history
of the most ancient manuscripts, mention them
specifically in great number and of different countries,
which would seem to indicate that the art of handwriting
had made great strides in the very olden
times; many nations had adopted it, and B. C. 650 "it
had spread itself over the (then known) greater part
of the civilized world."
We can well believe this to be true in reading about
the ancient libraries, notwithstanding that some rulers
had sought to prohibit its exercise.
Plato, who lived B. C. 350, expresses his views of
the importance of writing in his imaginary colloquy
between Thamus, king of Egypt, and Thoth, the god
of the liberal arts of the Egyptians; he acquaints us:
"That the discourse turned upon letters. Thoth
maintained the value of Writing, as capable of making
the People wiser, increasing the powers of
Memory; to this the king dissented, and expressed
his opinion that by the exercise of this Art the multitude
would appear to be knowing of those things
of which they were really ignorant, possessing only
an idea of Wisdom, instead of Wisdom itself."
Pythagoras, B. C. 532, we are informed by Astle:
"Went into Egypt where he resided twenty-two
years; he was initiated into the sacerdotal order,
and, from his spirit of inquiry, he has been justly
said to have acquired a great deal of Egyptian
learning, which he afterwards introduced into Italy.
The Pythagorean schools which he established in
Italy when writing was taught, were destroyed
when the Platonic or new philosophy prevailed over
the former. Polybius (lib. ii. p. 175) and Jamblichus
(in vita Pythag.) mention many circumstances,
relative to these facts, quoted from authors now
lost; as doth Porphyry, in his life of Pythagoras."
For the hundred years or more following, however,
the dissemination of learning and the transcription of
events was not to be denied. We find ink-written
volumes (rolls) relating to diverse subjects being loaned
to one another; correspondence by letter to and from
distant lands of frequent occurrence, and the art of
handwriting regularly taught in the schools of learning.
Its progress was to be interrupted by the wars
of the Persians. Mr. Astle in calling attention to
events which have contributed to deprive us of the
literary treasures of antiquity thus refers to them:
"A very fatal blow was given to literature, by
the destruction of the Phoenician temples, and of
the Egyptian colleges, when those kingdoms, and
the countries adjacent, were conquered by the Persians,
about three hundred and fifty years before
Christ. Ochus, the Persian general, ravaged these
countries without mercy, and forty thousand Sidonians
burnt themselves with their families and riches
in their own houses. The conqueror then drove
Nectanebus out of Egypt, and committed the like
ravages in that country; afterwards he marched
into Judea, where he took Jericho, and sent a great
number of Jews into captivity. The Persians had
a great dislike to the religion of the Phoenicians and
the Egyptians; this was one reason for destroying
their books, of which Eusebius (De Preparat.
Evang.) says, they had a great number."
These losses, apparently, did not interfere with the
progress of the art in more western countries. Professor
Rollin in his "Ancient History," 1823, remarks:
"Ptolemy Soter, King of Egypt B. C. 285, had
been careful to improve himself in public literature,
as was evident by his compiling the life of
Alexander, which was greatly esteemed by the ancients,
but is now entirely lost. In order to encourage
the cultivation of the sciences, which he
much admired, he founded an academy at Alexandria,
called the Museum, where a society of learned
men devoted themselves to philosophic studies, and
the improvement of all other sciences, almost in the
same manner as those of London and Paris. For
this purpose, he began by giving them a library,
which was prodigiously increased by his successors.
"His son Philadelphus left a hundred thousand
volumes in it at the time of his death, and the succeeding
princes of that race enlarged it still more, till at
last it consisted of seven hundred thousand volumes.
"This library was formed by the following
method: All the Greek and other books that were
brought into Egypt were seized, and sent to the
Museum, where they were transcribed by persons
employed for that purpose. The copies were then
delivered to the proprietors, and the originals were
deposited in the library.
"As the Museum was at first in that quarter of
the city which was called Bruchion, and near the
royal palace, the library was founded in the same
place, and it soon drew vast numbers thither; but
when it was so much augmented, as to contain four
hundred thousand volumes, they began to deposit
the additional books in the Serapion. This last
library was a supplement to the former, for which
reason it received the appellation of its Daughter,
and in process of time had in it three hundred thousand
volumes.
"In Caesar's war with the inhabitants of Alexandria,
a fire, occasioned by those hostilities, consumed
the library of Bruchion, with its four hundred
thousand volumes. Seneca seems to me to be
out of humour, when, speaking of the conflagration,
he bestows his censures both on the library itself,
and the eulogium made on it by Livy, who styles
it an illustrious monument of the opulence of the
Egyptian kings, and of their judicious attention to
the improvement of the sciences. Seneca, instead
of allowing it to be such, would have it considered
only as a work resulting from the pride and vanity
of those monarchs, who had amassed such a number
of books, not for their own use, but merely for
pomp and ostentation. This reflection, however,
seems to discover very little sagacity; for is it not
evident beyond contradiction, that none but kings
are capable of founding these magnificent libraries,
which become a necessary treasure to the learned,
and do infinite honour to those states in which they
are established?
"The library of Serapion, did not sustain any
damage, and it was undoubtedly there that Cleopatra
deposited those two hundred thousand volumes
from that of Pergamus, which was presented
to her by Antony. This addition, with other enlargements
that were made from time to time, rendered
the new library of Alexandria more numerous
and considerable than the first; and though it
was ransacked more than once, during the troubles
and revolutions which happened in the Roman empire,
it always retrieved its losses, and recovered
its number of volumes. In this condition it subsisted
for many ages, displaying its treasures to the
learned and curious, till the seventh century, when
it suffered the same fate with its parent, and was
burnt by the Saracens, when they took that city in
the year of our Lord 642. The manner by which
this misfortune happened is too singular to be passed
over in silence.
"John, surnamed the Grammarian, a famous
follower of Aristotle, happened to be at Alexandria,
when the city was taken; and as he was much esteemed
by Amri Ebnol As, the general of the Saracen
troops, he entreated that commander to bestow
upon him the Alexandrian library. Amri replied,
that it was not in his power to grant such a request;
but that he would write to the Khalif, or emperor
of the Saracens, for his orders on that head, without
which he could not presume to dispose of the
library. He accordingly wrote to Omar, the then
Khalif, whose answer was, that if those books contained
the same doctrine with the Koran, they could
not be of any use, because the Koran was sufficient
in itself, and comprehended all necessary truths;
but if they contained any particulars contrary to
that book, they ought to be destroyed. In consequence
to this answer, they were all condemned to
the flames, without any further examination; and,
for that purpose, were distributed among the public
baths; where, for the space of six months, they
were used for fuel instead of wood. We may from
hence form a just idea of the prodigious number of
books contained in that library; and thus was this
inestimable treasure of learning destroyed!
The Museum of Bruchion was not burnt with
the library which was attached to it. Strabo acquaints
us, in his description of it, that it was a
very large structure near the palace, and fronting
the port; and that it was surrounded with a portico,
in which the philosophers walked. He adds, that
the members of this society were governed by a
president, whose station was so honourable and important,
that, in the time of the Ptolemies, he was
always chosen by the king himself, and afterwards
by the Roman emperor; and that they had a hall
where the whole society ate together at the expense
of the public, by whom they were supported in a
very plentiful manner."
Among the other events contributing to the deplorable
losses which mankind has sustained in this respect,
a sad one was when the most ancient ink writings of the
Chinese were ordered to be destroyed by their emperor
Chee-Whange-Tee, in the third century before
Christ, with the avowed purpose that everything
should begin anew as from his reign. The small portion
of them which escaped destruction were recovered
and preserved by his successors.