Research Catalog

Title

Writing : theory and history of the technology of civilization / Barry B. Powell.

Author

Powell, Barry B.

Publication

Chichester, U.K. ; Malden, MA : Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xx, 276 p. : ill., maps, music; 24 cm.

Summary

In this book the author explores writing not tied to speech, and traces the origins of writing tied to speech from ancient Sumer through the Greek alphabet and beyond. The book examines the earliest evidence for writing in Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium B.C., the relations of these systems to Ancient Egyptian, Chinese, and Mesoamerican writing, the origins of purely phonographic systems, and the mystery of alphabetic writing. With examples from contemporary and historical writing systems, and many illistrations, it shows how the structures of writing served and do serve social needs and in turn create deep patterns of social behavior. The book offers a coherent system of terms and categories for the study of complex phenomena in the world's writing systems.

Subjects

• History
• Writing > Social aspects
• Alphabet > History
• Writing > History

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [263]-269) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Introduction : a difficult topic, little studied, poorly understood -- What is writing? -- Writing with signs -- Categories and features of writing -- Some general issues in the study of writing -- Protocuneiform and counting tokens -- Origins of lexigraphic writing in Mesopotamia -- Plato's Ideas and Champollion's decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs -- Egyptian writing and Egyptian speech -- The origin and nature of Egyptian writing -- "The house of life" : scribes and writing in ancient Egypt -- Syllabic scripts of the Aegean -- The West Semitic revolution -- What kind of writing was West Semitic? -- The origins of West Semitic writing -- Chinese logography -- Lexigraphic writing in Mesoamerica -- The Greek alphabet : a writing that changed the world -- Summary and conclusions.

ISBN

• 9781405162562 (hardcover : alk. paper)
• 1405162562 (hardcover : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2008046991

OCLC

269455610

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library