Very Cool Ancient Writing Demonstrations Video

Facebook | Videos Posted by Oriental Institute- University of Chicago: Visible Language

As I've mentioned before, the next temporary exhibit at the Oriental Institute is "Visible Language" focusing on the development, spread, and use of writing in ancient Egypt and the Near East.

Even people who are not a part of Facebook should be able to view the video at the link above. If you can't, please let me know in the comments or via email and I will be sure to make other arrangements.

It's a great demonstration of how Egyptian hieroglyphs were written with reed pen and ink on papyrus and how cuneiform was impressed in soft substances like clay with a wedge-shaped stylus.

There isn't any commentary, but it's still a fabulous visual demonstration. The Egyptian is written by Ray Johnson, who is the director of the Epigraphic Survey in Egypt and the cuneiform is written by Theo van den Hout, who is a professor of Hittitology and currently the head of the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. They're both two of my favorite people around the OI (well, Ray is in Egypt 6 months of every year), so I'm especially happy to share the video.

Evolution of the Alphabet

The Oriental Institute Museum has a regular series of special exhibits.  At the moment, the show is Pioneer to the Past about the trip of the OI's founder, James Henry Breasted through Egypt and the Middle East visiting various significant sites, many of which the OI at the time had projects exploring.

Coming this fall will be Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East.
Should be pretty cool.

My husband has been working on various behind-the-scenes stuff for the show, one of which is this awesome, awesome video showing the evolution of signs from Egyptian hieroglyphs to our own alphabet.  The link goes to the OI's Facebook page, which you should be able to view even if you aren't a member of Facebook.  There are some other sneak-peaks of the upcoming show there too.

It's both an excellent explanatory tool, but I'm also very impressed with the video in general.  Very awesome. 

I know many of you are interested in the origins of writing, etc., so I thought you'd especially enjoy this.  Even if you can't make it to Chicago for the show, I do encourage you to check out the OI Facebook presence and the website for all kinds of fun photos and videos and other snippets of info.