The Purpose of Writing: From Things to Thoughts in the Ancient World

Early Writing

The introduction to a discussion of early writing from an exhibit seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the summer of 2003.
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An introductory essay on the invention of writing from a linguistics course at Western Washington University.
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From Odyssey Online, an educational resource site for younger students and their teachers that draws on collections at Emory University, the University of Rochester, and the Dallas Museum of Art. This page provides an introduction to cuneiform and to the teaching of early pictographic writing.
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Writing in China

On the origins of Chinese writing, from a commercial Web site devoted to promoting foreign language study.
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An essay on the “Origins of Writing and Aesthetics in China,” by Irene Chipman Evelyn, from an Anthropology course site maintained by Utah State University.
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An essay by a student at the University of Toronto discussing Ezra Pound’s misunderstanding of the force of Chinese ideograms and its role in his appropriations of Chinese poetry.
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A good explanation of the diviners’ use of oracle bones in ancient China.
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An inscription on an oracle bone from the Shang Destiny, with a translation adapted from David N. Keightley, Sources of Shang History, from a Vassar faculty Web site.
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Different Writing Systems

Another page from Logoi.com, discussing the difference between pictographs and letters.
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From a commercial site, a series of lessons on hieroglyphics, demonstrating the flexibility of the ancient Egyptian writing system: signs that originated as ideograms also function as phonograms. Thus abstract ideas and emotions can be represented.
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A discussion of early Indus Valley writing from a Web site on ancient writing maintained by an interested engineer, Lawrence K. Lo.
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From the Interpreting Ancient Manuscripts Web, a site developed at Brown University and now maintained by Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, India. An illustrated description of papyrus, the first use of which seems to date from about 2600 B.C.
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Ashoka’s first rock edict at Girna and a translation of the inscription.
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The Greek Philosophers

“The Last Days of Socrates,” with annotations and illustrations to help students read TheApology and other dialogues, maintained by the Philosophy Department of Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa.
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From a Web site maintained by the National University of Singapore, a student’s succinct note, with hyperlinks, discussing the view of writing in the Phaedrus and the influential response of Jacques Derrida to Plato’s ideas.
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A news item from Washington State University about the unearthing of the remains of Aristotle’s Lyceum.
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A brief note that emphasizes the physicality of Aristotle’s teaching style: he and his students strolled the peripatos, or covered walks, inside the building, and thus became known as the Peripatetics.
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Sappho

Holt N. Parker, “Sappho Schoolmistress,” from Transactions of the AmericanPhilological Association 123 (1993), 309-51, made available by a course site maintained by Professor Marilyn A. Katz of Wesleyan University in Middletown, CN. This scholarly article reviews the myths that have grown up about Sappho, concluding that “Sappho’s society was a group of women tied by family, class, politics, and erotic love.”
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A dictionary of mythology explains the nature of Peitho, the goddess of Persuasion, and her relationship to Aphrodite. Sappho’s hymn to Aphrodite demonstrates the importance of this figure.
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An illustrated discussion of Peitho’s influence, with citations from Greek literature, including a reference to Sappho’s hymn. Theoi.com is a Web site from New Zealand with detailed information about, and images of, the ancient Greek gods.
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From Dionysius of Halicarnassus, On Literary Composition, trans. W. Rhys Roberts.
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Because it was quoted in this ancient critical text, Sappho’s Hymn to Aphrodite, unlike most of her poetry, has survived in its entirety.

A painting in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg by the French classicist Jacques-Louis David. This picture shows Sappho with a scroll on her lap. Cupid and a male lover, Phaon, stand on either side of her. According to legend, Phaon abandoned Sappho. Ovid makes this supposed love affair the subject of one of his Heroides, poems in the form of letters to absent lovers (see Texts and Contexts).
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The Latin Alphabet

The evolution of the Latin alphabet, showing its relation to Greek and Phoenician letters.
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Another, more detailed discussion of the development of the Latin alphabet, from a course site at University of Denver, Colorado.
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The Poetry of Catullus

A discussion of Catullus’s career by John Porter of the University of Saskatchewan.
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Reflections on Rhetorical Strategies

A discussion of the use of the figure of speech known as “chiasmus” in the writings of Confucius, from a commercial site maintained by a management consultant and psychologist named Dr. Mardy Grothe.
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A tribute to the late Walter J. Ong, S.J., describing his theories of primary and secondary orality, and the way they parallel the evolution of writing, from The Walter J. Ong Project at Saint Louis University, MO.
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