MMW 11 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Social Stratification

• School: UCSD
• Department: Making of the Modern World
• Course: MMW 11
• Professor: Matthew Herbst

Document Summary

Writing is a technology that has aided human civilization and helped advance it. Sumeria/mesopotamia was the first area to develop writing (area of syria and. Writing in egypt occurs around the same time. Debate about whether egyptian writing was an independent thing or piggybacked off of. Trade network between mesopotamia and what is now pakistan and india. Cuneiform is found from the same time in both areas. Roman empire wiped out the writing system. Was later rediscovered due to the rosetta stone. People thought it was pictographic (after it was lost) for a very long time and was the reason why it was so hard to decipher. Used to mark important ceremonies and the names of gods. Eventually moved on to be used in everyday life (accounting, etc) The pronunciation of the word still held the same meaning as the pictograph on its own.