HISTORY OF GRAPHIC DESIGN: MODULE 1 THE INVENTION OF WRITING 1
Our use of visual symbols originated with the Egyptians; from them we inherited the zodiac, the scales of justice, and the use of animals to represent concepts, cities, and people.
True
The manuscript illustrations were drawn in simplified contour lines using black or brown ink, and then flat color was applied using white, black, brown, blue, green, and sometimes yellow pigments.
True
The wooden palette used by the scribe was a trademark identifying the carrier as being able to read and write.
True
the ancient land of Mesopotamia "the land between rivers," was the cradle of civilization.
True
Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Unlike the Sumerians, whose pictographic writing evolved into abstract cuneiform, the Egyptians retained their picture-writing system, called hieroglyphics
A bottom surface of vertical fibers
Verso
The _____________ used by the scribe was a trademark identifying the carrier as being able to read and write.
Wooden Palette
Was a trademark identifying the carrier as being able to read and write.
Wooden Palette
________is the visual counterpart of speech.
Writing
_____________ selected to become scribes began their schooling at the edubba, the writing school or "tablet house,"
Youngsters
Its vast, multi-storey brick temples were constructed as a series of recessed levels, becoming smaller toward the top of the shrine.
Ziggurat
Hieroglyphics (Greek _____________for after the Egyptian for "the god's words"
"sacred carving,"
Until recent discoveries indicated that early peoples in Thai-land may have practiced agriculture and manufactured pottery at an even earlier date, archaeologists had long believed that the ancient land of Mesopotamia, _____________was the cradle of civilization.
"the land between rivers,"
Code of Hammurabi, who reigned from ______________
1792 to 1750
The Code of Hammurabi is written in careful cuneiform on a _________________________________used for commemorative purposes
2.5-meter (8-foot) tall stele, an inscribed or carved stone or slab
The stele contains _________ gridded in twenty-one columns.
282 laws
Assyrians simplified it into only _______ signs.
560
The invention of writing
About an intellectual revolution that had a vast impact upon social order, economic progress, and technological and future cultural developments.
Sumerians pictographic writing evolved into ___________
Abstract cuneiform
Often could not be adapted to pictographic representation.
Adverbs, prepositions, and personal names
____________simplified it into only 560 signs.
Assyrians
The oldest extant artifact combining words and pictures on the same surface.
Blau monument
__________an oval frame around the glyph of an important figure, is also the French word for "bullet," the frame's shape.
Cartouche
is also the French word for "bullet," the frame's shape.
Cartouche
Scribes and artists were commissioned to prepare funerary papyri,
Chapters of Coming Forth by Day or Book of the Dead.
The ________________ is written in careful cuneiform on a 2.5-meter (8-foot) tall stele, an inscribed or carved stone or slab used for commemorative purposes
Code of Hammurabi
Pictographs evolved into an abstract sign writing called ____________(from the Latin for "wedge-shaped")
cuneiform
__________ became rebus writing, which is pictures and/or pictographs representing words and syllables with the same or similar sound as the object depicted.
Cuneiform
Mesopotamian Visual Identification
Cutters of cylinder and stamp seals developed great skill and a refined sense of design. The earliest seals were engraved with simple pictures of kings, a line of cattle, or mythic creatures.
In ancient times the______________ plant grew along the Nile in shallow marshes and pools.
Cyperus papyrus
An even more abstract script called _______ (from the Greekwordfor "popular") came into secular use for commercial and legal writing by the year 400 BCE.
Demotic
Came into secular use for commercial and legal writing by the year 400 BCE
Demotic
"tablet house,"
Edubba
The writing school for youngsters that are selected to become scribes
Edubba
Greek culture received much of its knowledge from the _________
Egyptians
The ____________ were the first people to produce illustrated manuscripts in which words and pictures were combined to communicate information.
Egyptians
They inherited both forms of identification from the Sumerians.
Egyptians
Hieroglyphics
Egyptians retained their picture-writing system,
There are ______different papyrus grades were made for uses ranging from royal proclamations to daily accounting.
Eight
Papyrus and writing
Eight different papyrus grades were made for uses ranging from royal proclamations to daily accounting. The finished sheets had an upper surface of horizontal fibers called the recto and a bottom surface of vertical fibers called the verso.
The origin of the Sume-rians—who settled in the lower part of the ______________before 3000 bce—remains a great mystery
Fertile Crescent
Greek for "sacred carving," after the Egyptian for "the god's words"
Hieroglyphics
Prehistoric visual communication
In the Twelfth Dynasty, carved scarab emblems were commonly used as identification seals.
________________ seals provided a forgery-proof method for sealing documents and proving their authenticity
Mesopotamian cylinder
The drawstring sack for dried ink cakes, and a reed brush holder.
Old Kingdom palette
The hieroglyph for scribe depicted the ______________ , the drawstring sack for dried ink cakes, and a reed brush holder. The changes in this glyph demonstrate the evolutionary process
Old Kingdom palette
Incised into a precious pale blue quartz called chalcedony in a gold mount, this seal, with its symmetrical design of a pair of heraldic beasts locked in combat, probably belonged to a member of the royal family or the high priesthood
Persian stamp seal
Used as phonograms, or graphic symbols for sounds.
Pictures
Greek culture received much of its knowledge from the Egyptians.
True
An upper surface of horizontal fibers
Recto
Youngsters selected to become _______ began their schooling at the edubba,
Scribes
The First Illustrated Manuscripts
Scribes and artists were commissioned to prepare funerary papyri, called the Chapters of Coming Forth by Day or Book of the Dead.
In use for over three thousand years, these small cylinders had images and writing etched into their surfaces.
Stamp-cylinder seal ("the Tyszkiewicz seal"), Hittite,
_______________1650-1200 BCE. Combining decorative ornamentation with figurative images, this most likely portrays a ritual.
Stamp-cylinder seal ("the Tyszkiewicz seal"), Hittite,
high civilization occurred after the____________ arrived in Mesopotamia
Sumerian people
Scribes and artists were commissioned to prepare funerary papyri, called the Chapters of Coming Forth by Day or Book of the Dead.
The First Illustrated Manuscripts
The origin of the Sumerians
The Sumerian people arrived in Mesopotamia near the end of the fourth millennium BCE.
Pictographs
The animals painted in the caves are pictographs—elementary pictures or sketches that represent the things depicted.
Prehistoric visual communication
The animals painted in the caves are pictographs—elementary pictures or sketches that represent the things depicted.
Drawn as a two-dimensional schematic.
The human body
Drawing of the Sarcophagus of Aspalta.
The inscriptions carved into this granite sarcophagus demonstrate the flexibility of hieroglyphics.
Brought about an intellectual revolution that had a vast impact upon social order, economic progress, and technological and future cultural developments.
The invention of writing
The cradle of civilization
The leap from village culture to high civilization occurred after the Sumerian people arrived in Mesopotamia near the end of the fourth millennium BCE. The origin of the Sumerians
_______________reads simultaneously as both profile and frontal image.
The stylized eye
When they were rolled across a damp clay tablet, a raised impression of the depressed design, which became a _____________ for the owner, was formed.
Trademark
Had modest origins as the symbol for a sandal strap.
ankh
The hieroglyph ________, a cross surmounted by a loop had modest origins as the symbol for a sandal strap.
ankh
The Sumerians invented ___________ headed by a supreme deity named Anu, who was the god of the heavens.
a system of gods
Coffin texts
all surfaces of the wooden coffin and/or stone sarcophagus were covered with writings and often illustrated with pictures of possessions for use in the afterlife
The Code of Hammurabi is written in careful cuneiform on a 2.5-meter (8-foot) tall stele, an inscribed or carved stone or slab used for __________________
commemorative purposes
from the Latin for "wedge-shaped"
cuneiform
The early pictographs evolved in two ways
first they were the beginning of pictorial art second, they formed the basis of writing.
Chapters of Coming Forth by Day or Book of the Dead
funerary papyri
Pictures used as __________ or graphic symbols for sounds.
phonograms,
Beginning with the pyramid of Unas (c. 2345 bce), the walls and passages of the pyramids were covered with the _______________- of hieroglyphic writings, including myths, hymns, and prayers relating to the godlike pharaoh's life in the afterworld.
pyramid texts
The Sumerians' contribution to __________ had even more impact upon the future.
social and intellectual progress
Speech
the ability to make sounds in order to communicate—was an early skill developed by the species on the long evolutionary trail from its archaic beginnings.
The Book of the Dead was __________ in the evolution of funerary texts.
third phase
Ivory tablet of King Zet, First Dynasty.
this five thousand year-old tablet is perhaps the earliest known example of the Egyptian pictographic writing that evolved into hieroglyphics
Wall paintings and papyri
used similar design conventions.
Rebus writing
which is pictures and/or pictographs representing words and syllables with the same or similar sound as the object depicted.
