Stories of Useful Inventions

by S. E. Forman

. The Phœnicians, who were great travelers, visited Egypt at a very early date and borrowed not only the idea of the alphabet, but also the forms of the Egyptian letters, as column c shows. Column d confirms the words of Herodotus, who tells us that the Greeks borrowed their alphabet from the Phœnicians. Column e shows that the Greeks handed the alphabet on to the Romans, who handed it on to us. Thus the three letters p, a, d come straight from the Egyptians and were originally a door, an eagle, and a hand, respectively. As it is with these three letters, so it is with nearly all the letters of our alphabet. If the letters on the page before you could be suddenly changed to their original form, you would behold a motley collection of birds, serpents, animals, tools, and articles of household use.

(a)	(b)	(c)	(d)	(e)
Egyptian Picture Signs	Hieroglyphics.	Phonecian.	Greek.	Roman.

FIG. 5.—SHOWING THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE THREE LETTERS, P, A, AND D.

We must look to Egypt for the origin of the material form of our book as well as for the origin of our alphabetical characters. Before history had dawned the Egyptians had covered over with their writing nearly all the available surface on their pyramids and in their temples. At a time too far back for a date necessity seems to have compelled them to seek a substitute for stone. This they found in the papyrus plant, which grew in great luxuriance in the valley of the Nile. They placed side by side strips of the pith of the papyrus, and across these at right angles they placed another layer of strips. The two layers were then glued together and pressed until a smooth surface was formed. This made one sheet. To make a book a number of sheets were fastened together end to end. When in book form the papyrus was wound around a stick and kept in the form of a roll, a volume (Fig. 6). The roll was usually eight or ten inches wide, but its length might be upward of a hundred feet. This papyrus roll was the parent of our modern paper book, as the word papyrus is the original of our word paper. The pen used in writing upon papyrus was a split reed (calamus), and the ink a mixture of soot and gum.

The most ancient volume in the world is an Egyptian papyrus (Fig. 7) now in the National Library of France. It was written nearly 5,000 years ago by an aged sage and contains precepts of right living. In this oldest of volumes we find this priceless gem:

"If thou art become great, if after being in poverty thou hast amassed riches and art become the first in the city, if thou art known for thy wealth and art become a great lord, let not thy heart become proud, for it is God who is the author of them for thee."

In Assyria and in other ancient countries of Central Asia letters were engraved on cylinders and these were rolled upon slabs of soft clay, making an impression of the raised letters, just as we make an impression with the seal of a ring. In the ruins of the cities of Assyria these old clay books may be found by the cart-load. The Assyrian cylinder was really the first printing press. In ancient Greece and Rome wooden tablets within which was spread a thin layer of wax were used as a writing surface in schools and in the business world. The writing on the wax was done with a sharp-pointed instrument of bone or iron called the stylus. But next to papyrus the most important writing material of antiquity was parchment, or the prepared skin of young calves and kids. The invention of parchment is said to have been due to the literary ambitions of two kings, the king of Persia and the king of Egypt. The king of Pergamus (250 B.C.) wishing to have the finest and largest library in the world was consuming enormous quantities of papyrus. The king of Egypt, who also wished to have the finest library in the world, in order to cripple the plans of his literary rival, issued a command forbidding the exportation of papyrus from Egypt. The king of Pergamus, being unable to get papyrus except from Egypt, caused the skins of sheep to be prepared, and on these skins books for his library continued to be written. The prepared skins received the name of pergamena, because they were made in Pergamus, and from pergamena we get the word parchment. This is the story that has come down to us to explain the origin of parchment, but it cannot be accepted as wholly true. We know very well that the Old Testament was written in gold on a roll of skins long before there was a king of Pergamus. Indeed, writing was done on skins as far back as the picture-writing period.