{"id":3105,"date":"2013-01-29T20:57:43","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T04:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=3105"},"modified":"2013-01-29T20:58:45","modified_gmt":"2013-01-30T04:58:45","slug":"beginnings-of-writing-and-libraries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=3105","title":{"rendered":"Beginnings of writing and libraries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=floatRight src=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/0\/07\/Lascaux2.jpg\/220px-Lascaux2.jpg\">My class on the History of Books and Libraries started off with a tour of ancient writing systems and libraries.  We covered a wealth of fascinating content.  For example, it had never occurred to me that the Lascaux cave paintings were three-dimensional, since they were painted onto irregular cave walls!  I&#8217;d only ever seen flat-looking 2D pictures like the one at right.  Today you can <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lascaux.culture.fr\/#\/en\/00.xml\">visit the Lascaux cave paintings in 3D<\/a> through the magic of the Internet.  Do it!  I sat there enthralled as I floated through the twisty little passages and came away with an entirely different sense of this early artwork. &#8220;Early&#8221; is an understatement.  The paintings are estimated to be 17,000 years old!<\/p>\n<p>I also learned that cuneiform tables had a 3D aspect not only in their wedge-shaped impressions but because, as chunks of clay, they were rather thick, and scribes took advantage of this to write on all sides, including the edges.  <a href=\"http:\/\/cdli.ucla.edu\/collections\/rosicrucian\/rosicrucian.html\">Browse all sides of real tablets yourself!<\/a>  (Now I want to make my own, maybe out of Play-doh.)<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=floatRight src=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/langnames\/nm_heptal.gif\">We discussed various writing systems, and you can <a href=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/scroll.htm\">browse several historical scripts<\/a> as well as (quite curiously) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/conscripts.htm\">constructed scripts<\/a>, mainly for English, that replace our current alphabet.  One of my favorites is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/heptal.htm\">Heptal<\/a> (rendered at right).  We also discussed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=1911\">boustrophedon, a word I will never again misspell<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, we covered the ancient libraries at Nippur, Ur, Nineveh, and Alexandria.  The library at Nineveh was the creation of Ashurbanipal and grew to contain 30,000 clay tablets, with a complex indexing system and integrated book curses.  My assignment for this week was to create a &#8220;learning activity&#8221; about Ashurbanipal and his library.  <\/p>\n<p>Dare you <a href=\"http:\/\/www.quia.com\/quiz\/4038668.html\">take my quiz<\/a>?  Will you earn yourself Ashurbanipal&#8217;s admiration or his scorn?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My class on the History of Books and Libraries started off with a tour of ancient writing systems and libraries. We covered a wealth of fascinating content. For example, it had never occurred to me that the Lascaux cave paintings were three-dimensional, since they were painted onto irregular cave walls! I&#8217;d only ever seen flat-looking [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[38,47,64],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3105"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3105"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3114,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3105\/revisions\/3114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}