Early European History Part 7

The domestication of plants marked almost as wonderful an advance as the domestication of animals. When wild seedgra.s.ses and plants had been transformed into the great cereals--wheat, oats, barley, and rice--people could raise them for food, and so could pa.s.s from the life of wandering hunters or shepherds to the life of settled farmers. There is evidence that during the Stone Age some of the inhabitants of Europe were familiar with various cultivated plants, but agriculture on a large scale seems to have begun in the fertile regions of Egypt and western Asia. [6] Here first arose populous communities with leisure to develop the arts of life.

Here, as has been already seen, [7] we must look for the beginnings of history.

4. WRITING AND THE ALPHABET

PICTURE WRITING

Though history is always based on written records, the first steps toward writing are prehistoric. We start with the pictures or rough drawings which have been found among the remains of the early Stone Age. [8]

Primitive man, however, could not rest satisfied with portraying objects.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VARIOUS SIGNS OF SYMBOLIC PICTURE WRITING 1, "war" (Dakota Indian); 2, "morning" (Ojibwa Indian); 3, "nothing"

(Ojibwa Indian); 4 and 5, "to eat" (Indian, Mexican, Egyptian, etc.).]

He wanted to record thoughts and actions, and so his pictures tended to become symbols of ideas. The figure of an arrow might be made to represent, not a real object, but the idea of an "enemy." A "fight" could then be shown simply by drawing two arrows directed against each other.

Many uncivilized tribes still employ picture writing of this sort. The American Indians developed it in most elaborate fas.h.i.+on. On rolls of birch bark or the skins of animals they wrote messages, hunting stories, and songs, and even preserved tribal annals extending over a century.

SOUND WRITING; THE REBUS

A new stage in the development of writing was reached when the picture represented, not an actual object or an idea, but a sound of the human voice. This difficult but all-important step appears to have been taken through the use of the rebus, that is, writing words by pictures of objects which stand for sounds. Such rebuses are found in prehistoric Egyptian writing; for example, the Egyptian words for "sun" and "goose"

were so nearly alike that the royal t.i.tle, "Son of the Sun," could be suggested by grouping the pictures of the sun and a goose. Rebus making is still a common game among children, but to primitive men it must have been a serious occupation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MEXICAN REBUS The Latin _Pater Noster,_ "Our Father," is written by a flag _(pan)_, a stone _(te)_, a p.r.i.c.kly pear _(noch)_, and another stone _(te)_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHINESE PICTURE WRITING AND LATER CONVENTIONAL CHARACTERS]

WORDS AND SYLLABLES

In the simplest form of sound writing each separate picture or symbol stands for the sound of an entire word. This method was employed by the Chinese, who have never given it up. A more developed form of sound writing occurs when signs are used for the sounds, not of entire words, but of separate syllables. Since the number of different syllables which the voice can utter is limited, it now becomes possible to write all the words of a language with a few hundred signs. The j.a.panese, who borrowed some of the Chinese symbols, used them to denote syllables, instead of entire words. The Babylonians possessed, in their cuneiform [9]

characters, signs for about five hundred syllables. The prehistoric inhabitants of Crete appear to have been acquainted with a somewhat similar system. [10]

LETTERS

The final step in the development of writing is taken when the separate sounds of the voice are a.n.a.lyzed and each is represented by a single sign or letter. With alphabets of a few score letters every word in a language may easily be written.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CRETAN WRITING A large tablet with linear script found in the palace at Gnossus, Crete There are eight lines of writing, with a total of about twenty words Notice the upright lines, which appear to mark the termination of each group of signs.]

EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS

The Egyptians early developed such an alphabet. Unfortunately they never gave up their older methods of writing and learned to rely upon alphabetic signs alone. Egyptian hieroglyphics [11] are a curious jumble of object- pictures, symbols of ideas, and signs for entire words, separate syllables, and letters. The writing is a museum of all the steps in the development from the picture to the letter.

PHOENICIAN ALPHABET

As early, apparently, as the tenth century B.C. we find the Phoenicians of western Asia in possession of an alphabet. It consisted of twenty-two letters, each representing a consonant. The Phoenicians do not seem to have invented their alphabetic signs. It is generally believed that they borrowed them from the Egyptians, but recent discoveries in Crete perhaps point to that island as the source of the Phoenician alphabet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EGYPTIAN AND BABYLONIAN WRITING Below the pictured hieroglyphics in the first line is the same text in a simpler writing known as hieratic. The two systems, however, were not distinct; they were as identical as our own printed and written characters. The third line ill.u.s.trates old Babylonian cuneiform, in which the characters, like the hieroglyphics, are rude and broken-down pictures of objects. Derived from them is the later cuneiform shown in lines four and five.]

DIFFUSION OF THE PHOENICIAN ALPHABET

If they did not originate the alphabet now in use, the Phoenicians did most to spread a knowledge of it in other lands. They were bold sailors and traders who bought and sold throughout the Mediterranean. Wherever they went, they took their alphabet. From the Phoenicians the Greeks learned their letters. Then the Greeks taught them to the Romans, from whom other European peoples borrowed them. [12]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MOABITE STONE, (Louvre, Paris) Found in 1868 A.D. at Diban east of the Dead Sea. The monument records the victory of Mesha king of Moab, over the united armies of Israel and Judah about 850 B.C. The inscription, consisting of 34 lines is one of the most ancient examples of Phoenician writing.]

5. PRIMITIVE SCIENCE AND ART

FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

We have already seen that prehistoric men in their struggle for existence had gathered an extensive fund of information. They could make useful and artistic implements of stone. They could work many metals into a variety of tools and weapons. They were practical botanists, able to distinguish different plants and to cultivate them for food. They were close students of animal life and expert hunters and fishers. They knew how to produce fire and preserve it, how to cook, how to fas.h.i.+on pottery and baskets, how to spin and weave, how to build boats and houses. After writing came into general use, all this knowledge served as the foundation of science.

COUNTING AND MEASURING

We can still distinguish some of the first steps in scientific knowledge.

Thus, counting began with calculations on one's fingers, a method still familiar to children. Finger counting explains the origin of the decimal system. The simplest, and probably the earliest, measures of length are those based on various parts of the body. Some of our Indian tribes, for instance, employed the double arm's length, the single arm's length, the hand width, and the finger width. Old English standards, such as the span, the ell, and the hand, go back to this very obvious method of measuring on the body.

CALCULATION OF TIME; THE CALENDAR

It is interesting to trace the beginnings of time reckoning and of that most important inst.i.tution, the calendar. Most primitive tribes reckon time by the lunar month, the interval between two new moons (about twenty- nine days, twelve hours). Twelve lunar months give us the lunar year of about three hundred and fifty-four days. In order to adapt such a year to the different seasons, the practice arose of inserting a thirteenth month from time to time. Such awkward calendars were used in antiquity by the Babylonians, Jews, and Greeks; in modern times by the Arabs and Chinese.

The Egyptians were the only people in the Old World to frame a solar year.

From the Egyptians it has come down, through the Romans, to us. [13]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STONEHENGE On Salisbury Plain in the south of England: appears to date from the close of the New Stone Age or the beginning of the Bronze Age. The outer circle measures 300 feet in circ.u.mference; the inner circle, 106 feet. The tallest stones reach 25 feet in height. This monument was probably a tomb, or group of tombs, of prehistoric chieftains.]

EARLY DRAWING AND PAINTING

The study of prehistoric art takes us back to the early Stone Age. The men of that age in western Europe lived among animals such as the mammoth, cave bear, and woolly-haired rhinoceros, which have since disappeared, and among many others, such as the lion and hippopotamus, which now exist only in warmer climates. Armed with clubs, flint axes, and horn daggers, primitive hunters killed these fierce beasts and on fragments of their bones, or on cavern walls, drew pictures of them. Some of these earliest works of art are remarkably lifelike.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HEAD OF A GIRL (Musee S. Germain, Paris) A small head of a young girl carved from mammoth ivory. Found at Bra.s.sempouy, France, in cave deposits belonging to the early Stone Age.

The hair is arranged somewhat after the early Egyptian fas.h.i.+on. Of the features the mouth alone is wanting.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PREHISTORIC ART SKETCH OF MAMMOTH ON A TUSK FOUND IN A CAVE IN FRANCE CAVE BEAR DRAWN ON A PEBBLE BISON PAINTED ON THE WALL OF A CAVE WILD HORSE ON THE WALL OF A CAVE IN SPAIN.

Later he pictured an aurochs--later he pictured a bear-- Pictured the sabre toothed tiger dragging a man to his lair-- Pictured the mountainous mammoth hairy abhorrent alone-- Out of the love that he bore them scribing them clearly on bone-- KIPLING.]

EARLY ARCHITECTURE

A still later period of the Stone Age witnessed the beginnings of architecture. Men had begun to raise huge dolmens which are found in various parts of the Old World from England to India. They also erected enormous stone pillars, known as menhirs. Carved in the semblance of a human face and figure, the menhir became a statue, perhaps the first ever made.

As we approach historic times, we note a steady improvement in the various forms of art. Recent discoveries in Egypt, Greece, Italy, and other lands indicate that their early inhabitants were able architects, often building on a colossal scale.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A DOLMEN Department of Morbihan, Brittany. A dolmen was a single chambered tomb formed by laying one long stone over several other stones set upright in the ground. Most if not all dolmens were originally covered with earth.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARVED MENHIR From Saint Sernin in Aveyron, a department of southern France.]

SIGNIFICANCE OF PREHISTORIC ART

Their paintings and sculptures prepared the way for the work of later artists. Our survey of the origins of art shows us that in this field, as elsewhere, we must start with the things accomplished by prehistoric men.

6. HISTORIC PEOPLES