Art 4561 Midterm Key Terms 281-420

30. Capitalis monumentalis, page 31,

"monumental capitals" of the Latin alphabet created for Roman architectural inscriptions celebrating military leaders and their victories, drawn in thick and thin strokes with organically unified straight and curved lines (Figs. 2‐17).

33. Capitalis rustica, page 31,

"rustic capitals," a condensed letterform style written quickly with a flat‐nibbed pen held in an almost vertical position. They enabled the writer to include half again as many letters on the page as was possible with square capitals; a style used during the same period as the square capitals used used from the second century CE until the fifth century (Fig.2‐19).

32. Capitalis quadrata, page 31,

"square capitals" written carefully and slowly with a flat pen held at an angle, with stately proportions and clear legibility; a style widely used used from the second century CE until the fifth century (Fig. 2‐18).

6. Mesopotamia, page 8,

"the land between rivers," which is known as the cradle of civilization. This flat, once-‐fertile plain, with its wet winters and hot, dry summers proved very attractive to early humans. They ceased their restless nomadic wanderings and established a village society between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which flow from the mountains of what is now eastern Turkey across Iraq and into the Persian Gulf.

25. Votive stela, page 27,

(Fig. 2‐11) an upright slab with an inscribed dedication or sculptured surface used as a monument or commemorative tablet on the façade of a building

26. Boustrophedon, page 27,

(from the Greek "to plow a field with an ox,"), a writing method developed by the Greeks in which every other line reads in the opposite direction.

24. Hieratic script, page 18,

(from the Greek for "priestly"), a simplified hieroglyphic book hand, developed in Egypt by the priests for religious writings. The earliest script differed from hieroglyphs only in that the use of a rush pen, instead of a pointed brush, produced more abstract characters with a terse, angular quality.

25. Demotic script, page 18,

(from the Greek word for "popular"), an abstract script in ancient Egypt that supplemented hieroglyphs and came into secular use for commercial and legal writing by the year 400 BCE (Fig. 1‐30).

9. Cuneiform, page 9,

(from the Latin for "wedgeshaped"), a method of writing in which a triangular‐tipped stylus was pushed into the clay and formed a series of wedge‐shaped strokes rather than a continuous line drawing (Figs. 1‐8, 1‐9, 1‐10, 1‐11, 1‐12, and 1‐13).

15. Dharani, page 41,

Buddhist charms printed and placed in pagodas to help lengthen one's life and eventually lead to paradise (Fig. 3‐14).

5. Pi Sheng, page 45 (1023-1063 CE),

Chinese alchemist who developed the concept of movable type.

Papyrus

Developed in Egypt, this paperlike substrate was made from the Cyperus papyrus plant, which grew along the Nile in shallow marshes and pools. Used for manuscripts, papyrus was a major step forward in Egyptian visual communications.

Rosetta Stone

In August 1799, Napoleon's troops were digging a foundation for an addition to the fortification in the Egyptian town of Rosetta, which they were occupying, when they unearthed a black slab bearing an inscription in two languages and three scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphics, Egyptian demotic script, and Greek (Fig. 1‐22 and Fig. 1‐23).

Sejong ( 139X-1450 CE), page 32,

Korean monarch who introduced Hangul, the Korean alphabet, by royal decree in 1446.

16. Phoenician alphabet, page 23,

North Semitic writing, an early alphabetic system of twenty‐two characters written from left‐to‐right was in use by 1500 BCE.

Cylinder seal

Prized as ornaments, status symbols, and unique "trademarks" for the owner, they were a method of sealing documents and proving their authenticity by rolling the seal across a damp clay tablet to create a raised impression of the depressed design (Fig. 1‐18).

Hieroglyphics

The Egyptians retained their picture-writing systems (Greek for "sacred carving," after the Egyptian for "the god's words") for almost three-and-one-half millennia. The earliest known (Fig. 1‐21) date from about 3100 BCE.

13. Woodblock printing, pages 40, 45:

The negative space around characters and images are carved away from the wood. Ink is then applied to the wood, and it is pressed onto paper or other substrates to print the image (Fig. 3‐16).

14. Relief printing, page 39,

The spaces around an image on a flat surface are cut away, the remaining raised surface is inked, and the inked image is transferred to the paper.

Cartouche

a bracketlike plaque containing the glyphs of important names (Fig. 1‐24).

3. Petroglyph, page 7,

a carved or scratched sign or simple figure on rock (Fig. 1-2).

8. Phoenicia, page 23,

a culture on the western shores of the Mediterranean Sea in what is now Lebanon and parts of Syria and Israel.

11. Phonogram, page 11,

a graphic symbol that represents sounds.

Ankh

a hieroglyph of a cross surmounted by a loop (see Fig. 1‐31), which had modest origins as the symbol for a sandal strap. Due to a phonetic similarity, it gained meaning as a symbol for life and immortality and was widely used as a sacred emblem throughout the land.

6. Substrate, page 22,

a material on which letterforms and images are inscribed. Includes papyrus, parchment, wax, stone, wood, etc.

19. Pen ts'ao, page 43,

a medical book on herbs with illustrations and calligraphy used for headings and a graphic design grid system used to separate the text into sections shown in the center of the right‐hand page (Fig. 3‐17).

21. Naskhi, page 25,

a more cursive Arabic lettering ideal for writing on papyrus that evolved into the modern Arabic scripts (Fig. 2‐7).

27. Uncials, page 27,

a more rounded writing style developed by the Greeks that could be written more quickly because its rounded letters were formed with fewer strokes (Fig. 2‐12).

7. Hsiao chuan, (small‐seal style), page 35,

a much more abstract form with lines drawn in thicker, more even strokes and with more curves and circles used in a graceful, flowing style (Fig. 3‐1).

8. Ziggurat, page 9,

a multistory brick temple compound constructed as a series of recessed levels becoming smaller toward the top of the shrine.

29. Etruscans, page 29,

a people whose civilization on the Italian peninsula reached its height during the sixth century BCE (Fig. 2‐16).

13. Achrophonic, page 23,

a pictorial symbol or hieroglyph used to stand for the initial sound of the depicted object.

36. Scroll, page 31,

a roll of parchment, papyrus, or other substrate used for writing a document, called a rotulus.

11. Chop, page 39,

a seal made by carving calligraphic characters into a flat surface of jade, silver, gold, or ivory. The raised surface is inked and the image is transferred to paper by stamping. (Fig. 3‐ 10).

1. Alphabet, page 22,

a set of visual symbols or characters used to represent the elementary sounds of a spoken language (derived from the first two letters of the Greek, alpha and beta).

12. Cinnabar, page 39,

a substance used to make a paste‐like red ink for stamping.

1. Substrate, page 6,

a surface, as a writing surface.

4. Ideograph, page 7,

a symbol that represents an idea or concept (Fig. 1‐3).

Obelisk

a tall, geometric, totemlike Egyptian monument.

14. Ras Shamra script, page 23,

a true Semitic alphabetical script found on clay tablets inscribed around 1500 BCE It used thirty cuneiformlike characters to represent elementary consonant sounds (Fig. 2‐3).

Edubba

a writing school or "tablet house" where those youths in early Mesopotamia selected to become scribes began their schooling.

10. Sui generis, page 23,

a writing script developed in Byblos, the oldest Phoenician city‐state, around 2000 BCE. This script used pictographic signs influenced by cuneiform and hieroglyphics but devoid of any remaining pictorial meaning, a major step toward the development of an alphabet.

2. Paper, page 34,

a writing substrate made with wood pulp.

Cadmus of Miletus, page 25,

allegedly designed some of the Greek letters and is thought to have been the first to bring the alphabet to Greece.

12. Sinaitic script, page 23,

an achrophonic adaptation of hieroglyphics designed by Egyptian turquoise miners in the Sinai desert.

1. Chinese calligraphy, page 34,

an ancient writing system using gestured brush strokes developed by the ancient Chinese; used today by more people than any other visual language system.

23. Calligraphy, page 25,

an early form art of fine writing using brush strokes.

2. Pictograph, page 7,

an elementary picture or sketch representing the thing depicted.

Stele

an inscribed or carved stone or slab used for commemorative purposes (Figs. 1‐16 and 1‐17).

5. Oracle bones, page 35,

animal bones with written messages on them used to communicate with the dead.

27. Pyramid text, page 19,

beginning with the pyramid of Unas (c. 2345 BCE), hieroglyphic writings that covered the walls and passages of the pyramids, including myths, hymns, and prayers relating to the godlike pharaoh's life in the afterworld.

26. Papyrus manuscripts, page 19,

came into use as funerary texts around 1580 BCE in Egypt. Citizens of limited means could afford simple papyri to accompany them on the journey into the afterlife.

2. Prime Minister Li Ssu (c. 280-208 BCE), page 35,

charged with designing the new standardized writing style, hsiao chuan.

Spurius Carvilius, page 29,

designed the letter G and added it to the Latin alphabet to replace the Greek letter Z (zeta).

18. Square Hebrew alphabet, page 24,

developed from the Aramaic alphabet and: possibly influenced by Old Hebrew. This alphabet evolved into modern Hebrew, which consists of twenty‐two consonantal letters, four letters to indicate long vowels, and five letters for use at the end of a word. Dots and dashes also indicate vowels (Fig. 2‐5).

19. Arabic writing, page 24,

developed from the Aramaic alphabet with curving calligraphic gestures. Includes twenty‐two original sounds of the Semitic alphabet supplemented by six characters added to the end, Three characters are also used as long vowels, and diacritical marks are added for short vowels and to distinguish consonant sounds.

Jean‐François Champollion (1790-1832) page 15,

did the major deciphering of the Rosetta Stone hieroglyphs. He realized that some of the signs were alphabetic, some were syllabic, and some were determinatives.

7. North Semitic writing, page 23,

early alphabetic writing created by the Northwest Semitic peoples of the western Mediterranean region.

24. Greek alphabet, page 25,

evolved from the Phoenician, or North Semitic, alphabet. The Greeks changed five consonants to vowels and employed applied geometric structure to the uneven Phoenician characters. Through a standardized system of horizontal, vertical, curved, and diagonal strokes, the Greeks achieved visual order and balance. (Fig. 2‐9, and see Fig. 2‐1).

17. Aramaic alphabet, page 24,

first used by tribes from Aram, a major early derivation from the North Semitic script and the predecessor of the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets which developed further into Hebrew and Arabic writing, it is written right to left. (Fig. 2‐4).

17. Accordion‐style book, page 43,

folded book resembling a scroll that was folded like a railroad timetable instead of rolled.

20. Kufic, page 24,

from the famous Muslim academy at Kufah in Mesopotamia, a bold inscriptional Arabic lettering with extended thick characters widely used on coins, manuscripts, and inscriptions on metal and stone (Fig. 2‐6).

28. Coffin texts, page 19,

funerary texts, often illustrated with pictures of possessions for use in the afterlife that covered all surfaces of a wooden coffin and/or stone sarcophagus.

37. Signature, page 31,

gatherings of two, four, or eight sheets that could then be folded, stitched, and combined into codices with pages like a modern book.

3. Logograms, page 34,

graphic signs that represent an entire word (the sign $, for example, is a logogram representing the word dollar).

8. Chen‐shu or kai‐shu, (regular style), page 36,

has been in continuous use for nearly two thousand years. Every line, dot, and nuance of the brush can be controlled by the sensitivity and skill of the calligrapher. It is considered the highest art form in China, more important even than painting (Fig. 3‐5).

20. Movable type, page 45,

in Asia, single characters made individually in a mixture of clay and glue and arranged side by side to compose full lines of text (Fig. 3‐19).

5. Scribe, page 7,

in early cultures, such as Sumeria and Egypt, the profession of those individuals who could read and write.

6. Chin‐wen, (bronze script), page 35,

inscriptions of well‐formed characters in orderly alignment on cast bronze objects, including food and water vessels, musical instruments, weapons, mirrors, coins, and seals; also used for important treaties, penal codes, and legal contracts (Fig. 3‐3).

1. Ts-‐ang Chieh, page 34,

inspired in about 1800 BCE to invent writing by contemplating the claw marks of birds and footprints of animals, then developing elementary pictographs of things in nature.

2. Minoan civilization, page 22,

it ranks only behind Egypt and Mesopotamia in its early level of advancement in the ancient Western world. Minoan and Cretan picture symbols (see Fig. 2‐1) were in use as early as 2800 BCE

35. Codex, page 31,

it's book format began to supplant the scroll in Rome and Greece beginning about the time of Christ. Parchment was gathered in signatures of two, four, or eight sheets. These were folded, stitched, and combined into codices with pages like a modern book. The parchment of it had several advantages over the papyrus scroll. The clumsy process of unrolling and rolling scrolls to look up information yielded to the quick process of opening a codex to the desired page. Both sides of the parchment pages in a it could be used for writing; this saved storage space and material costs. The durability and permanence of the it appealed to Christians because their writings were considered sacred.

28. Latin alphabet, page 29,

modified from the Greek alphabet by the Etruscans and later adopted by the Romans, originally containing only twenty‐one letters, after the letter G was designed by Spurius Carvilius (c 250 BCE) to replace the Greek letter Z (see Fig. 2‐1).

10. Rebus writing, page 11,

pictures and/or pictographs representing words and syllables with the same or similar sound as the object depicted.

Dr. Thomas Young (1773-1829), page 12,

proved that the direction in which the glyphs of animals and people faced was the direction hieroglyphics should be read and that the cartouche for Ptolemy occurred several times on the Rosetta Stone (Fig. 1‐22).

Hammurabi, page 11,

reigned in Sumeria from 1792-1750 BCE, and established social order and justice through the Code of Hammurabi, a stele containing 282 laws that spelled out crimes and their punishments (Fig. 1‐16).

King Eumenes II of Pergamum, page 31,

ruled 197-160 BCEKing Eumenes II (ruled 197-160 BCE) of Pergamum and Ptolemy V of Alexandria were engaged in a fierce library‐building rivalry. Ptolemy placed an embargo on papyrus shipments to prevent Eumenes from continuing his rapid production of scrolls.

Ptolemy V of Alexandria, page 31,

ruled c. 205-181 BCE. King Eumenes II (ruled 197-160 BCE) of Pergamum and Ptolemy were engaged in a fierce library‐building rivalry. Ptolemy placed an embargo on papyrus shipments to prevent Eumenes from continuing his rapid production of scrolls.

9. Phoenicians, page 23,

seafaring merchants of the Mediterranean Sea who developed an early alphabetic writing system, it's alphabet, which was quickly absorbed by other areas in the region.

Determinatives

signs, such as hieroglyphs, determine how the preceding glyph should be interpreted.

31. Serifs, page 31,

small lines extending from the ends of the major strokes of a letterform.

18. Codex‐style book, page 43,

stitched book with sequences of two pages of text printed from one block, then folded down the middle with the unprinted side of the sheet facing inward and the two printed pages facing out.

38. Hangul, page 32,

the Korean alphabet, which has fourteen consonants (Fig. 2‐21) and ten vowels (Fig. 2‐22). Letters are combined within an imaginary rectangle to form syllabic blocks. These syllables are made by combining at least one consonant and one vowel (Fig. 2‐23).

3. Crete, page 22,

the Mediterranean island where the Minoan civilization developed.

22. Qur'an or Koran, page 25,

the Muslim holy book written in the Arabic alphabet. Muslims believe it contains great truths revealed by Allah (God) to Muhammad.

Verso

the bottom surface of a papyrus sheet in which the fibers run vertically.

10. Tao, page 36,

the cosmic spirit in Chinese culture that operates throughout the universe in animate and inanimate things.

4. Ts'ai Lun, page 37,

the eunuch and high governmental official credited with inventing paper.

34. Vellum, page 31,

the finest parchment, made from the smooth skins of newborn calves.

11. Byblos, page 23,

the oldest Phoenician city‐state, where sui generis was developed.

16. Diamond Sutra, page 41,

the oldest surviving printed manuscript, consisting of seven sheets of paper pasted together to form a scroll conveying Buddha's revelations to his elderly follower Subhuti (Fig. 3‐15).

9. Li, page 36,

the prehistoric character for the three‐legged pot, which is now the word for tripod (Fig. 3‐6).

15. Alphabetical order, page 23,

the sequence in which the letters of an alphabetic script are memorized.

Recto

the upper surface of a papyrus sheet in which the fibers run horizontally.

7. Sumerians, page 9,

those who settled in the lower part of the Fertile Crescent before 3000 BCE.

5. Principle of movable type, page 22,

type‐like stamps are used to impress each character carefully into a substrate. Each character is created as a separate stamp, allowing it to be moved and arranged to create complete words, sentences, or paragraphs as multiple lines of type.

4. Phaistos disk, page 22,

unearthed on Crete in 1908, a flat terra‐cotta disk 16.5 centimeters (6 inches) in diameter that has pictographic and seemingly alphabetic forms imprinted on both sides in spiral bands; one of the most interesting and perplexing relics of the Minoan civilization (Fig. 2‐2).

4. Chiaku‐wen, (bone‐and‐shell script), page 35,

used from 1800 to 1200 BCE as a pictographic writing system inscribed on oracle bones, which were believed to convey communications between the living and the dead (Figs. 3‐1 and 3‐2).

29. The Book of the Dead, page 19,

was a third phase in the evolution of funerary texts; the book was written in a first‐person narrative by the deceased and placed in the tomb to help its occupant, the deceased, triumph over the dangers of the underworld. The artists who illustrated papyri were called upon to foretell what would occur after each subject died and entered the afterlife (Fig. 1‐31).

3. Li Fangying ( 1695-1754 CE), page 36,

wrote and illustrated the Album of Eight Leaves, showing how the vividly descriptive strokes of a bamboo brush join calligraphy, painting, poem, and illustration, into a unified communication (Fig. 3-‐7).