Egypt
Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Reviewed by Roger Wright)
- New Book: The Shape Of Script
SAR The Shape of Script. How and Why Writing Systems Change Edited by Stephen D. Houston This book builds on earlier projects about the origins and extinctions of script traditions throughout the world in an effort to address the fundamental questions...
- New Book: Everyday Writing In The Graeco-roman East
University of California Press Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East Roger S. Bagnall December 2010 Most of the everyday writing from the ancient world—that is, informal writing not intended for a long life or wide public distribution—has perished....
- The Rise, Zenith And Fall Of Writing Systems
Antiquity The rise, zenith and fall of writing systems Gordon Whittaker STEPHEN HOUSTON (ed.). The first writing: script invention as history and process. xviii+418 pages, 123 illustrations, 2 tables. First paperback edition 2008 (first published in...
- New Book: The Disappearance Of Writing Systems
Equinox Books The Disappearance of Writing Systems: Perspectives on Literacy and Communication Edited by: John Baines, John Bennet, Stephen Houston Description This volume gathers papers from the first conference ever to be held on the disappearance of...
- Origins Of Early Writing
Origins of Early Writing Systems It is a really slow news day so this is thrown in for anyone interested in the origins of early writing systems. The Proceedings from the conference Origins of Early Writing Systems have been posted online. But as surprising...
Egypt
Book Review: Arqueología de la palabra
Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Reviewed by Roger Wright)
Ana Rodríguez Mayorgas, Arqueología de la palabra: oralidad y escritura en el mundo antiguo. Barcelona: Edicions Bellaterra, 2010.
Ana Rodríguez Mayorgas works at the Instituto de Historiografía Julio Caro Baroja in Madrid, having also spent time at the University of California in Berkeley. Hitherto she has written on orality and literacy in Rome, but in this useful book she extends her vision to all the previous civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean as well. She is one of those who see no great divide between what we call prehistory and history. The main perspective developed in this account is that writing and orality were not opposed to each other in ancient civilizations, but complementary. There is certainly a distinction to be made between primary orality (in societies where no writing exists at all) and secondary orality (where the two modes coexist, as now), but in Ana Rodríguez's view society has not necessarily changed greatly with the initial advent of the latter. It is has often been thought and said that writing was developed as an aid to memory, although Plato accused writing of sabotaging the art of memory. Jack Goody, who developed the idea that the advent of writing into a society changed human psychology irreversibly even for those who could not write, but, as Ana Rodríguez points out this work can hardly be taken to mean that everybody in a literate community is logical and rational. So Ana Rodríguez sensibly looks at many relevant contexts separately, rather than aiming from the start for generalizations. Even so, one generalization that emerges is that, although writing gives the possibility for decontextualization, it rarely if ever lost contact with its oral context in the period considered.
Ana Rodríguez takes the view that the development of early writing systems is not a single phenomenon, given that they are so different. Even ancient cave paintings were, in her view, intended to convey a message. The earliest specific writing systems were logographic (fortunately, it seems that nobody now argues that they were ideographic), in China, Mesopotamia, Egypt and also (giving a quick but interesting glance across the Atlantic) Mesoamerica.
- New Book: The Shape Of Script
SAR The Shape of Script. How and Why Writing Systems Change Edited by Stephen D. Houston This book builds on earlier projects about the origins and extinctions of script traditions throughout the world in an effort to address the fundamental questions...
- New Book: Everyday Writing In The Graeco-roman East
University of California Press Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East Roger S. Bagnall December 2010 Most of the everyday writing from the ancient world—that is, informal writing not intended for a long life or wide public distribution—has perished....
- The Rise, Zenith And Fall Of Writing Systems
Antiquity The rise, zenith and fall of writing systems Gordon Whittaker STEPHEN HOUSTON (ed.). The first writing: script invention as history and process. xviii+418 pages, 123 illustrations, 2 tables. First paperback edition 2008 (first published in...
- New Book: The Disappearance Of Writing Systems
Equinox Books The Disappearance of Writing Systems: Perspectives on Literacy and Communication Edited by: John Baines, John Bennet, Stephen Houston Description This volume gathers papers from the first conference ever to be held on the disappearance of...
- Origins Of Early Writing
Origins of Early Writing Systems It is a really slow news day so this is thrown in for anyone interested in the origins of early writing systems. The Proceedings from the conference Origins of Early Writing Systems have been posted online. But as surprising...