A History of Graphic Design THE ANCIENT WORLD CHAPTERS 1–4 Cave Images Invention of Writing Alphabets Paper Relief Printing Illuminated Manuscripts

Paleolithic Age is a prehistoric period distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools and covers roughly 95% of human technological prehistory. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools,, 2.6 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene Period. The climate consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods. During the Paleolithic period, humans grouped together in small bands, and subsisted by gathering plants and fishing, hunting or scavenging wild animals. The Paleolithic is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers. During the end of the Paleolithic, specifically the Middle and or Upper Paleolithic, humans began to produce the earliest works of art and engage in religious and spiritual behavior such as burial and ritual.

Paleolithic Stone Lamp

Entrance to the cave

1-01 Lascaux, c. 15,000 –10,000 B.C.

1-01 Over 600 images

1-01 Lascaux, c. 15,000 –10,000 B.C.

1-01 Lascaux, c. 15,000 –10,000 B.C.

1-05 Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known systems of writing, distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made by means of a blunt reed for a stylus. The name cuneiform itself simply means "wedge shaped", from the Latin cuneus "wedge" and forma "shape," and came into English usage probably from Old French cunéiforme. Emerging in Sumer in the late 4th millennium B.C.E. (the Uruk IV period), cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs. In the third millennium, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract as the number of characters in use grew smaller, from about 1,000 in the Early Bronze Age to about 400 in Late Bronze Age

1-05 Sumerian Ziggurat

1-05 Cuneiform Wedge-shaped Writing Wrting school or Edubba (tablet house)

Petroglyphs—”rock art” images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading. Pictograph—If the word is used to describe a type of “rock art” it refers to painted images. Aa a symbol for a word or phrase, pictographs were used as the earliest known form of writing, examples having been discovered in Egypt and Mesopotamia from before 3000 BC. Ideographs—abstract ssymbols to reesent ideas or concepts

1-05 Early Sumerian pictographic tablet, c B.C.

1-06 Sumerian symbols for “ star ” (which also meant “ heaven ” or “ god ” ), “ head, ” and “ water ” evolved from pictographs to ideographs 3100 B.C. evolved into the early cuneiform writing by 2500 B.C.

Cuneiform

Stele bearing the Code of Hammurabi, between 1792 and 1750 B.C.

1-11 Detail of the Code of Hammurabi, c B.C. One half of the code deals with matters of contract Other provisions set terms of transition A third of the code adddresses household issues Many remaining deal with issues related to military service

Cylinder Seals

Cylinder Seal Hittite 1650–1200 BCE

1-19 A rebus is an allusional device that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words.

cartouches

Rosetta Stone Egyptian hieroglyphs middle portion Demotic script and the lowest Ancient Greek

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Papyrus Plant

The hieroglyph for scribe

1-24A Tools of the scribe, drawstring sack for dried ink cakes, and a reed brush holder