Part 25 (2/2)

CHAPTER XXV

INK UTENSILS OF ANTIQUITY

THE GRAVING TOOL PRECEDES THE PEN--CLassIFICATION UNDER TWO HEADS, ONE WHICH SCRATCHED AND THE OTHER WHICH USED AN INK--THE STYLUS AND THE MATERIALS OF WHICH IT WAS COMPOSED--POETICALLY DESCRIBED--COMMENTS BY NOEL HUMPHREYS--RECAPITULATION OF VARIOUS DEVICES BY KNIGHT--BIBLICAL REFERENCES--ENGRAVED STONES AND OTHER MATERIALS THE EARLIEST KINDS OF RECORDS--WHEN THIN BRICKS WERE UTILIZED FOR INSCRIPTION PURPOSES--METHODS EMPLOYED BY THE CHINESE-- HILPRECHT'S DISCOVERIES--THE DIAMOND AS A SCRATCHING INSTRUMENT--HISTORICAL INCIDENT WRITTEN WITH ONE--BIBLICAL MENTION ABOUT THE DIAMOND-- WHEN IT BECAME POSSIBLE TO INTERPRET CHARACTER VALUES OF ANCIENT HIEROGLYPHICS--DISCOVERY OF THE ROSETTA STONE AND A DESCRIPTION OF IT--SOME OBSERVATIONS ABOUT CHAMPOLLION AND DR YOUNG WHO DECIPHERED IT--ITS CAPTURE BY THE ENGLISH AND PRESERVATION IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM--EMPLOYMENT OF THE REED PEN AND PENCIL- BRUSH--THE BRUSH PRECEDED THE REED PEN--THE PLACES WHERE THE REEDS GREW--COMMENTS BY VARIOUS WRITERS--METHOD OF FORMING THE REED INTO A PEN--CONTINUED EMPLOYMENT OF THEM IN THE FAR EAST--THE BRUSH STILL IN USE IN CHINA AND japAN--EARLIEST EXAMPLES OF REED PEN WRITING-- WHEN THE QUILL WAS SUBStitUTED FOR THE REED--REED PENS FOUND IN THE RUINS OF HERCULANEUM--ANECDOTE BY THE ABBE, HUC

THE instru to two of the most distant epochs

In the first period, inscriptions were engraved, carved or impressed with sharp instru tool, chisel or other form which could be adapted to particular substances like stone, leaves, metal or ivory plates, wax or clay tablets, cylinders and prisms

The ancient assyrians even used knives or sta upon cylinders or priss in kilns

The other period was that in which written characters were made with liquids or paints of any kind or color The liquids (inks) were used in connection with a pen manufactured from a reed (calamus), while the paints were ”painted” on the various substances with a brush The writing executed with both of these instruments was on materials like the bark of trees, cloth, skins, papyrus, velluh of eneral heads, those which scratch and those which use an ink

There is no authority to dispute the generally conceded fact that the ”scratching” instrument was the first one used Its most popular form seems to have been the stylus or bodkin, which was made of a variety of materials, such as iron, ivory, bone, minerals or any other hard substance, which could be sufficiently sharpened at one end to indent the various materials employed in connection with its use The other end was flattened for erasingit Froin

The stylus is best described in the following lines:

”My head is flat and smooth, but sharp my foot, And by man's hand to different uses put; For what my foot performs with art and care, My head makes void, such opposites they are”

Relative to the e to the most venerable antiquity, Noel Hurowth of wealth and luxury had taught nations to raise nificent telyphic sculptor covered with records of the pomp and pride of princes, more purely national memorials had found their place upon the native rock, the most convenient surfaces of which were smoothed for this purpose Where no such rock existed in the situation required, a massive stone was raised by artificialto a victory, a new boundary, or any other event of national interest was engraved upon it Such memorials have been described by Hebreriters as aumad or ammod, literally, the lips of the people, or, the words of the people, but actuallya pillar Records in this forends ofstones--a na after tiinal purport of the defaced stone was forgotten In semi-barbarous epochs, like the era which followed the partial extinction of Roman civilization, popular curiosity and superstition co to the naends which thus arose, the itinerarium cambriae of Geraldus may be cited, in which a stone isstone'

(lech lavar) which was said to call out when a dead body was placed upon it Theare those of assyria and Persia, but many national tablets of more recent date are still in existence For the execution of such records and those of the palaces of Egypt and assyria, some kind of steel point must have been used, as no softer substance would have served to engrave theranitic and basaltic slabs with the sharpness they still exhibit, which proves that the art of hardening steel, long thought a comparatively modern invention, was known to the ancient people of Asia and Africa”

A list of the various devices of different countries, by which characters could be legibly portrayed with a scratching iht, who presents the order:

”The tabula or wooden board smeared ax, upon which a letter ritten by a stylus

”The Athenian scratched his vote upon a shell as did the lout when he voted to ostracize Aristides

”The records of Ninevah were inscribed upon tablets of clay, which were then baked

”The laws of Roraved on brass and laid up in the Capitol

”The decalogue was graven upon the tables of stone

”The Egyptians used papyrus and granite

”The Burmese, tablets of ivory and leaves

”Pliny mentions sheets of lead, books of linen, and waxed tablets of wood

”The Hebrews used linen and skins

”The Persians, Mexicans, and North American Indians used skins