this presentation highlights content from meg's history of graphic design chapter 1 part 2 the egyptian contribution by the year 3100 bce a number of inventions from mesopotamia had reached egypt including the cylinder cell architectural design of brick decorative design motifs and the fundamentals of writing the egyptians inherited the sumerians use of seals to establish ship however the egyptian scarab seal is unique to the egyptian culture in form and decoration the scarab beetle was considered sacred by egyptians as it was connected with the creator sun god kemper oval stones were sculpted into the likeness of a scarab beetle then hieroglyphs were etched with a bronze needle into the flat bottom of the stone and that was used as the seal egypt's first dynasty saw the emergence of a unified land stretching from the delta to the first cataract of aswan a distance of over 1 000 kilometers along the nile valley unlike the sumerians who evolved their pictographic writing system into an abstract system called cuneiform egyptians retained their picture writing system egyptologists identified this 5 000 year old tablet from kingsette the first dynasty as the earliest known example of the egyptian pictographic writing system a system that later evolved into hieroglyphics that early writing system evolved into the egyptians picture writing system known as hieroglyphics the hieroglyphic writing system was used in egypt for almost 3 500 years the meaning of hieroglyphics remained a mystery to scholars until 1799 when napoleon's army unearth the rosetta stone the rosetta stone is a black slab with inscriptions in two languages and three scripts they are at the top egyptian hieroglyphics in the middle egyptian demotic script and at the bottom greek the rosetta stone is stated to have been created around 196 or 197 bce as egyptologists began to decipher the rosetta stone hieroglyphs it was found that all three languages said the same thing hieroglyphics should be read in the direction that the animals and the peoples faced some of the signs were alphabetic some syllabic and some determinatives including pictographs and phonograms experts were able to sound out words as the experts were decoding hieroglyphics it was noted that individuals names were often encased in what is known as a cartouche a lozenge shape with a line at one end in this graphic representation alphabetic characters placed next to the hieroglyphs in the cartesians of ptolemy and cleopatra demonstrate the approximate phonetic sounds deciphered by champlyon the egyptians employed a rebus principle to blend sounds and ideas into words in the hieroglyphic system these egyptian hieroglyphs illustrate the rebus principle words and syllables are represented by pictures of objects and by symbols whose names are similar to the word or syllable to be communicated this hieroglyph means be and leaf and c and sun they could also mean mean belief and season by 1570 bce the hieroglyphic writing system contained over 700 characters only about 100 of which remain strictly visual pictographs most had become phonetic and are called phonograms the ability to read and write brought with it respect and many privileges including the exemption from taxes ancient egyptians had an extraordinary sense of design hieroglyphs were everywhere interior and exterior temple walls furniture coffins clothing and jewelry this false door to the tomb of the ladies set to tintheland from the sixth dynasty it dated to around 2323 to 2150 bce in contrast to the raised images in the center the hieroglyphs are carved into the surface and contained in a mathematical grid of the carved lines the hieroglyphic writing system afforded a unique level of design flexibility scribes could write in any direction that they wanted as the hieroglyphs are red starting from the direction in which the living creatures are facing the scribe had four choices left to right horizontal left to right and vertical columns right to left horizontal and right to left vertical this graphic of the inscription carved into the granite sarcophagus of asphalta king of nubia dating to around 593-568 vce demonstrates the flexibility of hieroglyphics as with many early religions there was a fascination with death and a strong belief in the afterlife this belief evolved into a complex myth system complete with gods and spirits early civilizations did not have scientists to explain the phenomenon of nature earthquakes volcanic eruptions tidal waves droughts and floods were all explained as work of the gods it was also a means of governing the populace they were told that if you let a good life and did what was asked of you that on the final judgment day that you would be admitted into the company of the gods for many centuries funerary hieroglyphics were limited to the kings and noblemen kings had pyramids built walls covered with hieroglyphics noblemen had their stone sarcophaguses adorned with text and pictorial images they believed that the pictographs would become real food objects and clothing in the afterlife this is a detail from the inside panel of the coffin from the 12th dynasty the discovery and development of papyrus a type of paper made by the ancient egyptians from the stem or reeds of the cypress papyrus plant marked a significant step in egyptian visual communication in ancient times the plant grew in abundance along the nile's shallow marshes sheets of papyrus were made by adhering horizontal strips laid side by side on top of vertical strips laid side by side they were dried in the hot sun the horizontal fibers were called the recto and the vertical fibers were called verso sheets were pasted end to end and rolled into scrolls as many as 20 sheets could make up a single scroll the egyptians were the first people to produce illustrated manuscripts words and pictures were combined to communicate information around 1580 bc e papyrus manuscripts made it possible for the common citizen to afford a papyri to accompany them on their journey into the afterlife the prayer of every egyptian was to be cleansed of sin and found worthy at the final judgment day scribes were commissioned to prepare funerary papyri called the chapter of the coming forth by day renamed later by 19th century scholars as the book of the dead in this vignette from the papyrus of anai dated 1420 bce anai a royal scribe temple accountant and granary manager from thieves and his wife tafu arrive for his final judgment written in the first person narrative by the deceased and placed in the tomb with him or her the papyri foretold what might occur after the person died and entered the afterlife manuscript artists would include in the text magical spells passwords to various states of the underworld and request for protections of the gods consistent design format can be observed in the illustrated egyptian papyri a grid structured both text and image early papyri were text dominant scribes would write the text and leave blank places for the artist to fill in later later papyri were narrative dominant and the artist designed the manuscript illustrating it first and then the scribe would fill in the text as best he could the majestic egyptian culture survived for over three thousand years hieroglyphics papyrus and illustrated manuscripts are its visual communication legacy