How Did Humankind Evolve From The Sumerian And Egyptian...
The Development of Writing Materials From the Sumerian and Egyptian Times Today, writing
materials are easy to come by and something humans tend to take for granted. There was, however, a
time that paper did not exist. According to the book Scribes, Script and Books written by Leila Avrin:
Today we think of a book as a gathering of paper pages bound together with a protective cover. For
the books of older, partially lost civilizations, we must expand our imagination to include all kinds of
writing instruments and bookmaking materials we would not have considered otherwise, such as
stone, metal, trees (wood, bark, bamboo, and palm leaves), glass, ivory, clay, wax, fabric, and the
bones and skins of animal. (64)
The question is, how did humankind evolve from the point that thoughts, events, and numbers could
not be conveniently recorded to where humankind is now with written materials readily available?
This paper will defend the statement that the Egyptians ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...
Compared to the Sumerian Empire, the Egyptians were more civilized and had the time and resources
available to focus on the further development of literature. In the book, A History of Writing edited by
Ann Marie Christin, Christin confirms, writing was used in everyday life (correspondence,
administrative, legal documents) and in ideological and religious writing on temples, royal
monuments, and funerary monuments, as well as in autobiography documents, religious rites, and for
magical spells (46). The Egyptian people incorporated writing into their work. Masonry workers
carved artful inscriptions into arches and pillars. Morticians inscripted sacred rites onto coffins.
Agricultural workers kept detailed records of flood dates, seed treatment, yields, and profits on scrolls
of papyrus. Middle class Egyptians started to make reading and writing the new social standard
continually innovating ways to turn any substance into a writing
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