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Prior to the Industrial Revolution, there was little interest in history or archeology. The process of digging up land for the building of factories and railroads led to the unearthing of ancient artifacts. This awakened a new interest in the past during the eighteenth century.
Napoleon led an expedition to Egypt in 1798. Some French scholars went along and brought back many artifacts and antiquities. One of these was the giant obelisk of Rameses II, which is on the Place de la Concorde in Paris. This obelisk had been first erected in 1250 BC. The ancient pyramids and temples were partially buried in the sand. The problem that faced these French scholars was that no one could read the inscribed hieroglyphics!
In the town of Rosetta, on the Nile Delta, an engraved stone was found which contained text in three languages. This 4ft. X 2 1/2ft. slab of granite was written in hieroglyphics, Demotic (simplified Egyptian) and Greek. Jean Francois Champollion of France deciphered the stone in 1822. Now the ancient hieroglyphics on the Egyptian pyramids could be read. They had a story to tell, since almost nothing was known of Egyptian history prior to the deciphering of the Rosetta stone.
Claude James Rich, an agent of the British East India Company, was investigating the ancient Mesopotamian ruins in 1811. He dug in mounds, which revealed the ancient cities of Ninevah and Babylon. There were huge quantities of literature uncovered in Ninevah and Babylon. Once again, no one could decipher the writing until a stone was discovered that contained an inscription in three languages. The inscription was a proclamation by Persian King Darius in 516 BC. It was written on a vertical wall, 400 feet above the ground, in Persian, Elamite and Babylonian.
The greatest library of all antiquity was the library at Alexandria, Egypt. This library had been founded by Alexander the Great before 300 BC. This library collected writings from all over the world. Caliph Omar raided Egypt in 642 AD as part of the Muslim expansion. The library was burned to the ground.
Writing probably ranks third in importance as a discovery, just behind the invention of the wheel and the harnessing of fire. It marks the dividing line between history and prehistory. Without writing to help us decipher the meaning of found objects, we can only guess the significance of ancient treasures.
Around 3100 BC, the Sumerians of Mesopotamia developed a series of pictograms for keeping track of weights and measures. It replaced the ancient system of counting-stones and drawings of animals. These pictograms were simplified over time and became simple abstract forms. These are best compared to our English symbols like: @,#,$,%,& and +.
Trade and commerce spread this system to other areas of the world. The Assyrians and Babylonians adapted the Sumerian symbols for their own use. The Egyptians developed their own hieroglyphics.
The next major development after writing was the alphabet. Phonetic symbols replaced drawings and with an alphabet. Any concept could be expressed by a combination of symbols or letters. It is thought that the Phoenicians developed the first alphabet around 1500 BC. The Hebrew alphabet was derived from the Phoenician. Neither alphabet contains vowels.
This disadvantage of an alphabet as opposed to drawings is that fluency in the language is required for reading. Languages with pictures, like Chinese, can be read by people who don’t speak it.
Writing must have seemed like magic to those who first encountered it. Prior to writing, communication was limited to “face to face” encounter. With writing, a person could transmit their words to someone else far away. Early writing was the privilege of Kings and priests. It was also used for propaganda. Kings would have their victories recorded and exaggerated, while defeats would be ignored.
The Bible contains references to the writing of books. In Exodus 17:14, after Israel’s victory over the Amalekites, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Write an account of this victory, so that it will be remembered”. Moses received the Ten Commandments and in Exodus 24:4, “Moses wrote down all the Lord’s commands.” Later “Then he took the book of the covenant, in which the Lord’s commands were written, and read it aloud to the people.” (Ex. 24: 7)
These are the clues that lead to the current belief that Moses wrote the Pentateuch (Torah). The priests and Levites would have been responsible for the safekeeping of those sacred scrolls of papyrus. “Moses wrote God’s law in a book, taking care not to leave out anything. When he finished, he said to the Levitical priests, who were in charge of the Lords Covenant Box, ‘Take this book of God’s Law and place it beside the Covenant Box of the Lord your God, so that it will remain there as a witness against his people.’” (Deuteronomy 31: 24-26)
Sources:
Good News Bible, CBS, 1992
Halley’s Bible Handbook, Zondervan, 2000
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