Forty Centuries of Ink Part 2

The other history of ink, long preceding the departure of Israel from Egypt, and with few exceptions until after the middle ages, can only be considered, as it is intimately bound up in the chronology and story of handwriting and writing materials. Even then it must not be supposed that the history of ink is authentic and continuous from the moment handwriting was applied to the recording of events; for the earliest records are lost to us in almost every instance. We are therefore dependent upon later writers, who made their records in the inks of their own time, and who could refer to those preceding them only by the aid of legends and traditions.

There is no independent data indicating any variation whatever in the methods of the admixture of black or colored inks, which differentiates them from those used in the earliest times of the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews or Chinese. On the contrary if we exclude "Indian" and one of the red inks, for a period of fourteen hundred years we find their number diminishing until the first centuries of the Christian era.

Exaggerated tradition has described inks as well as other things and imagination is not lacking. Some of these legends, in later years put in writing, compel us to depend on translations of obscure and obsolete tongues, while the majority of them are mingled with the errors and superst.i.tious of the time in which they were transcribed.

The value of such accounts depends upon a variety of circ.u.mstances and we must proceed with the utmost caution and discrimination in examining and weighing the authenticity of these sources of information.

If we reason that the art of handwriting did not become known to all the ancient nations at once, but was gradually imparted by one to another, it follows that records supposed to be contemporaneous, were made in some countries at a much earlier period than in others. It must also be observed that the Asiatic nations and the Egyptians practiced the art of writing many centuries before it was introduced into Europe.

Hence we are able to estimate with some degree of certainty that ink-written accounts of some Asiatic nations were made while Europe was in this respect buried in utter darkness.

An interesting story which bears on this statement is told by Kennett, in his "Antiquities of Rome,"

London, 1743, as to the discovery of ancient MSS., five hundred and twenty years before the Christian era, of what even then must have been remarkable:

"A strange old woman came once to Tarquinius Superbus with nine books, which, she said, were the oracles of the Sybils, and proffered to sell them.

But the king making some scruple about the price, she went away and burnt three of them; and returning with the six, asked the same sum as before.

Tarquin only laughed at the humour; upon which the old woman left him once more; and after she had burnt three others, came again with them that were left, but still kept to her old terms. The king now began to wonder at her obstinacy, and thinking there might be something more than ordinary in the business, sent for the augars (soothsayers) to consult what was to be done. They, when their divinations were performed, soon acquainted him what a piece of impiety he had been guilty of, by refusing a treasure sent to him from heaven, and commanded him to give whatever she demanded for the books that remained. The woman received her money, and delivered the writings; and only, charging them by all means to keep them sacred, immediately vanished. Two of the n.o.bility were presently after chosen to be the keepers of these oracles, which were laid up with all imaginable care in the Capitol, in a chest under ground. They could not be consulted without a special order of the Senate, which was never granted, unless upon the receiving of some notable defeat; upon the rising of any considerable mutiny, or sedition in the State; or upon some other extraordinary occasion; several of which we meet with in Livy."

Some of the ancient historians even sought to be misleading respecting the events not only of their own times, but of epochs which preceded them. Richardson, in his "Dissertation on Ancient History and Mythology,"

published in 1778, remarks:

"The information received hitherto has been almost entirely derived through the medium of the Grecian writers; whose elegance of taste, harmony of language, and fine arrangement of ideas, have captivated the imagination, misled the judgment, and stamped with the dignified t.i.tle of history, the amusing excursions of fanciful romance. Too proud to consider surrounding nations, (if the Eyptians may be excepted) in any light but that of barbarians; they despised their records, they altered their language, and framed too often their details, more to the prejudices of their fellow citizens, than to the standard of truth or probability.

We have names of Persian kings, which a Persian could not p.r.o.nounce; we have facts related they apparently never knew; and we have customs ascribed to them, which contradict every distinguishing characteristic of an Eastern people. The story of Lysimachus and one Greek historian may indeed, with justice, be applied to many others.

This prince, in the part.i.tion of Alexander's empire, became King of Thrace: he had been one of the most active of that conqueror's commanders; and was present at every event which deserved the attention of history. A Grecian had written an account of the Persian conquest; and be wished to read it before the king. The monarch listened with equal attention and wonder: 'All this is very fine,' says he, when the historian had finished, 'but where was I when those things were performed?' "

CHAPTER II.

ANTIQUITY OF INK.

THE INVENTION OF THE ART OF WRITING--TO WHOM IT BELONGS--ITS UTILIZATION BY NATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS--WHEN IT IS FIRST MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE--CITATIONS FROM THE ENCYCLOPaeDIA BRITANNICA AND SMITHS DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE--SOME REMARKS BY HUMPHREYS OF THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF HANDWRITING--COMMENTS BY PLATO AND THE COLLOQUY BETWEEN KING THAMUS AND THOTH, THE EGYPTIAN G.o.d OF THE LIBERAL ARTS--FIRST APPEARANCE OF INK WRITTEN ROLLS--DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLES WHICH CONTAINED THEM--COMMENTS OF THE HISTORIAN ROLLINS--DESTRUCTION OF THE MOST ANCIENT CHINESE INK WRITTEN MSS.

THERE is a difference of opinion as to what nation belongs the honor of the invention of the art of handwriting. Sir Isaac Newton observes:

"There is the utmost uncertainty in the chronology of ancient kingdoms, arising from the vanity of each claiming the greatest antiquity, while those pretensions were favoured by their having no exact account of time."

Its antiquity has been exhaustively treated by many writers; the best known are Ma.s.sey, 1763, The Origin and Progress of Letters;" Astle, 1803, "The Origin and Progress of Writing;" Silvestre, "Universal Palaeography," Paris, 1839-41 ; and Humphreys, 1855, "The Origin and Progress of the Art of Writing."

They, with others, have sought to record the origin and gradual development of the art of writing from the Egyptian Hieroglyphics of 4000 B. C.; the Chinese Figurative, 3000 B. C. ; Indian Alphabetic, 2000 or more B. C. ; the Babylonian or Cuneiform, 2000 years B. C.; and the Phoenician in which they include the Hebrew or Samaritan Alphabet, 2000 or more B. C., down to the writings of the new or Western world of the Christian era.

The data presented and the arguments set forth, deserve profound respect, and though we find some favoring the Egyptians, or the Phoenicians, the Chaldeans, the Syrians, the Indians, the Persians or the Arabians, it is best to accept the concensus of their opinion, which seems to divide between the Phoenicians and the Egyptians as being the inventors of the foremost of all the arts. "For, in Phoenicia, had lived Taaut or Thoth the first Hermes, its inventor, and who later carried his art into Egypt where they first wrote in pictures, some 2200 years B. C."

The art appears to have been first exercised in Greece and the West about 1500 or 1800 B. C., and like all arts, it was doubtless slow and progressive.

The Greeks refer the invention of written letters to Cadmus, merely because he introduced them from Phoenicia, then only sixteen in number. To these, four more were added by Simonides. Evander brought letters into Latium from Greece, the Latin letters being at first nearly the same form as the Greek. The Romans employed a device of scattering green sand upon tables, for the teaching of arithmetic and writing, and in India a "sand box" consisting of a surface of sand laid on a board the finger being utilized to trace forms, was the method followed by the natives to teach their children.

It is said that such methods still obtain even in this age, in some rural districts of England.

After the invention of writing well-informed nations and individuals kept scribes or chroniclers to record in writing, historical and other events, mingled with claims of antiquity based on popular legends.

These individuals were not always held in the highest esteem. Among the Hebrews it was considered an honorable vocation, while the Greeks for a long time treated its pract.i.tioners as outcasts. It was an accomplishment possessed by the few even down to the fifteenth century of the Christian era. The rulers of the different countries were deficient in the art and depended on others to write their doc.u.ments and letters to which they appended their monogram or the sign of the Cross against their names as an attestation.

So late as A. D. 1516 an order was made in London to examine all persons who could write in order to discover the authorship of a seditious doc.u.ment.

The art of writing is not mentioned in the Bible prior to the time of Moses, although as before stated, in Egypt and the countries adjacent thereto it was not only known but practiced.

Its first mention recorded in Scripture will be found in Exodus xvii. v. 14; "And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this, for a memorial, in a book; and rehea.r.s.e it in the ear of Joshua; for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven."

This command was given immediately after the defeat of the Amalekites near h.o.r.eb, and before the arrival of the Israelites at Mount Sinai.

It is observable, that there is not the least hint to induce us to believe that writing was then newly invented; on the contrary, we may conclude, that Moses understood what was meant by writing in a book; otherwise G.o.d would have instructed him, as he had done Noah in building the Ark; for he would not have been commanded to write in a book, if he had been ignorant of the art of writing; but Moses expressed no difficulty of comprehension when he received this command. We also find that Moses wrote all the works and all the judgments of the Lord, contained in the twenty-first and the two succeeding chapters of the book of Exodus, before the two written tables of stone were even so much as promised. The delivery of the tables is not mentioned till the eighteenth verse of the thirty-first chapter, after G.o.d had made an end of communing with him upon the mount, though the ten commandments were promulgated immediately after his third descent.

Moses makes frequent mention of ancient books of the Hebrews, but describes none, except the two tables on which G.o.d wrote the ten commandments. These he tells us, were of polished stone, engraven on both sides and as Calmet remarks: "it is probable that Moses would not have observed to us these two particulars so often as he does, were it not to distinguish them from other books, which were made of tables, not of stone, but of wood and curiously engraven, but on one side only."

It cannot be said that Moses uses any language which can be construed to mean the employment of rolls of papyrus, or barks of trees, much less of parchment.

We have therefore reason to believe that by the term book, he always means table-books, made of small thin boards or plates.

The edicts, as well as the letters of kings, were written upon tablets and sent to the various provinces, sealed with their signets. Scripture plainly alludes to the custom of sealing up letters, edicts and the tablets on which the prophets wrote their visions.

The practice of writing upon rolls made of the barks of trees is very ancient. It is alluded to in the Book of Job: "Oh! that mine adversary had written a book; surely I would take it upon my shoulders, and bind it as a crown to me." (Old version.) The new one runs: "And that I had the indictment which mine adversary hath written!" The rolls, or volumes, generally speaking, were written upon one side only.

This is intimated by Ezekiel who observes that he saw one of in extraordinary form written on both sides: "And when I looked, behold, an Hand was sent unto me, and lo! a roll of a book was therein; and he spread it before me, and it was written within and without."

To have been able to write on dry tablets of wood or barks of trees with the reed or brush, the then only ink-writing instruments in vogue would have necessitated the employment of lampblack suspended in a vehicle of thick gum, or in the form of a paint. Both of these maybe termed pigmentary inks. The use of thin inks would have caused spreading or blotting and thus rendered the writing illegible.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica generalizes its remarks on this subject:--

"The earliest writings were purely monumental and accordingly those materials were chosen which were supposed to last the longest. The same idea of perpetuity which in architecture finds its most striking exposition in the pyramids was repeated, in the case of literary records, in the two columns mentioned by Josephus, the one of stone and the other of brick, on which the children of Seth wrote their inventions and astronomical discoveries; in the pillars in Crete on which, according to Porphyry, the ceremonies of the Corybantes were inscribed; in the leaden tablets containinlu the works of Hesiod, deposited in the temple of the Muses, in Boeotia; in the ten commandments on stone delivered by Moses; and in the laws of Solon, inscribed on planks of wood. The notion of a literary production surviving the destruction of the materials on which it was first written--the 'momentum, aere perennius'

of Horace's ambition--was unknown before the discovery of substances for systematic transcription.

"Tablets of ivory or metal were in common use among the Greeks and Romans. When made of wood--sometimes of citron, but usually of beech or fir--their inner sides were coated with wax, on which the letters were traced with a pointed pen or stiletto (stylus), one end of which was used for erasure. It was with his stylus that Caesar stabbed Casca in the arm when attacked by his murderers.

Wax tablets of this kind continued in partial use in Europe during the middle ages; the oldest extant specimen, now in the museum at Florence, belongs to the year 1301."

Later the Hebrew Scriptures were written in ink or paint upon the skins of ceremonially clean animals or even birds. These were rolled upon sticks and fastened with a cord, the ends of which were sealed when security was an object. They were written in columns, and usually upon one side, only. The writing was from right to left; the upper margin was three fingers broad, the lower one four fingers; a breadth of two fingers separated the columns. The columns ran across the width of the sheet, the rolled ends of which were held vertically in the respective hands. When one column was read, another was exposed to view by unrolling it from the end in the left hand, while the former was hidden from view by rolling up the end grasped by the right band. The pen was a reed, the ink black, carried in a bottle suspended from the girdle.

The Samaritan Pentateuch is very ancient, as is proved by the criticisms of Talmudic writers. A copy of it was acquired in 1616 by Pietro della Valle, one of the first discoverers of the cuneiform inscriptions.

It was thus introduced to the notice of Europe. It is claimed by the Samaritans of Nablus that their copy was written by Abisha, the great-grandson of Aaron, in the thirteenth year of the settlement of the land of Canaan by the children of Israel. The copies of it brought to Europe are all written in black ink on vellum or "cotton" paper, and vary from 12mo to folio. The scroll used by the Samaritans is written in gold letters. (See Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible,"

vol. III, pp. 1106-1118.) Its claims to great antiquity are not admitted by scholars.

The enumeration of some of the modes of writing may be interesting:

The Mexican writing is in vertical columns, beginning at the bottom.

The Chinese and j.a.panese write in vertical columns, beginning at the top and pa.s.sing from left to right.

The Egyptian hieroglyphics are written invertical columns or horizontal lines according to the shape and position of the tablet. It is said that with the horizontal writing the direction is indifferent, but that the figures of men and animals face the beginning of the line. With figures, the units stand on the left.

The Egyptians also wrote from right to left in the hieratic and demotic and enchorial styles. The Palasgians did the same, and were followed by the Etruscans.

In the demotic character, Dr. Brugsch remarks that though the general direction of the writing was usually from right to left, yet the individual letters were formed from left to right, as is evident from the unfinished ends of horizontal letters when the ink failed in the pen.

In writing numbers in the hieratic and enchorial the units were placed to the left. The Arabs write from right to left, but received their numerals from India, whence they call them "Hindee," and there the arrangement of their numerals is like our own, units to the right.

The following noteworthy pa.s.sage is taken from Humphreys' work "On the Origin and Progress of the Art of Writing:"

"Nearly all the princ.i.p.al methods of ancient writing may be divided into square capitals, rounded capitals, and cursive letters; the square capitals being termed simply capitals, the rounded capitals uncials, and the small letters, or such as had changed their form during the creation of a running hand, minuscule. Capitals are, strictly speaking, such letters as retain the earliest settled form of an alphabet; being generally of such angular shapes as could conveniently be carved on wood or stone, or engraved in metal, to be stamped on coins. The earliest Latin MSS. known are written entirely in capitals like inscriptions in metal or marble.