preview

The Sumarians Essay

Decent Essays
Open Document

Sumarians, an ancient group of people who lived in southern Mesopotamia around 3500 BC, are attributed with the very first attempts to transcribe symbols onto moveable materials. The Sumarians developed a ‘cuneiform’ alphabet, which were then etched into clay tablets with a triangle shaped stylus called a ‘calamus’ and then allowed to dry or fired in a kiln to make them last as long as possible. The Sumarians are speculated to be the earliest people to ever use the first known written system in the world. The earliest surviving Papyrus scrolls that contain written text originate in Egypt and date back to around 2400 BC during the Fifth Dynasty of King Neferirkare Kakai, although historians have suggested papyrus could have been used as early as 3100 BC during the First Dynasty. Papyrus is a very thick paper-like material that is made from the ‘pith’, center of the stem, of the papyrus plant, a reed like swamp plant that used to be found in abundance along the Nile river. This pith was cut into thin strips, pressed together, and then glued and dried to form a thin flat surface that could be written on. A calamus, like the Sumarians used, was cut from the stem of a reed and then sharpened to form a writing utensil, but bird feathers were also used. …show more content…

He used a combination of mulberries, hemp, old rags, bark, and even used fish nets for the creation of the paper pulp around 105 AD. While paper had been used in China for wrapping and padding since 200 BC, recent archaeological discoveries have been reported near Dunhuang of paper with writing on it dating from 8 BC. The very first book was printed on paper in China, using a block of wood that had characters carved in reverse relief. Ink was then placed on the block of wood to create a prink on the paper. This technique is known as ‘woodblock printing’ and was originally used as early as 220 AD as a means of printing on

Get Access