Since the first recorded writing system from ancient Mesopotamia, cultures have adopted literacy in its many different forms in application to daily life, economy, and entertainment. Making a distinct progression over time, the technological jumps in the writing world have changed it accordingly. One to duly note is the invention of papyrus and paper, and the impact that these discoveries had on the way things were recorded and written, the style in which this was done, and also the availability of literacy to the cultures affected. It’s quite a jump from hammer to quill.
Pre-literate society gets a bad reputation more times than not. But when a perspective of oral culture is taken on, though, things do change. Before the discoveries were made, stories, trades, and an abundance of knowledge needed to be remembered, since there was no means to record. This meant that one generation passes its experience and the experience of the generations prior to the next generation coming up. Once the vastness of all that cumulative knowledge is realized, it’s easy to see how some slipped through the cracks. It’s understandable that the content of stories and tales changed progressively over time. Even with the invention of basic stone and clay tablet writing systems, the majority of writing was done in relation to government, law or commerce.
When more standardized recording methods came about, the oral culture diminished. This leads to two distinct changes in culture: Less demand on human memory, and a much higher demand on recorded knowledge. Some could argue that this was a negative. That writing was detrimental to memory. But as far as a wealth of knowledge is concerned, literacy allows for massive amounts of information to be recorded, and re-visited when needed.
“Papyrus was for nearly a thousand years the main writing material of the Greco-Roman world. First manufactured in Egypt as far back as the third millennium B.C., it was prepared from the papyrus, an aquatic plant formerly plentiful in that country, though now extinct there… Papyrus was exported to Greece and there used for both literary works and business documents certainly as early as the fifth century B.C. and probably much earlier. Its use spread throughout the whole Mediterranean world, but it was naturally most general and most persistent in Egypt, the country of origin.”
This new canvas brought several things along with its invention. Due to the portability and ease of writing on the Papyrus, literacy was able to spread beyond the scribes and made an entry to the general populations. With recording now done with quills or a sort, as opposed to chisels and stone, more liberal characters, as well as more rapid writing, came about. Over time, alphabets replace symbols and hieroglyphics, and from there, more detailed texts emerge.
Paper and Papyrus took on many uses once fully integrated into society. In the beginning, it assimilated similar uses to its clay and stone predecessor: Used for recording trade and governmental business. As time moved forward, it finds uses in entertainment, personal correspondence, and political spinning. From its discovery on, progress is continually made. The wealth of knowledge is collected from around the globe, and distributed in libraries such as the
Library at Alexandria. Without paper and papyrus, the only knowledge we would have of the ancient world would be via oral culture or symbolic stone writings. Those methods would give us a vague idea of the cultures that preceded us, but by no means would they provide the window we have today due to the texts that have been preserved over time. The writings and thoughts of the ancient philosophers, the medical and engineering feats of Rome, and histories recorded would all be, for the most, lost. Just look at what happened during the lack of literacy and communication during the Middle Ages after the fall of the Roman Empire.
Ouch. Literate culture definitely takes the win.
Literacy through the creation papyrus and paper changed the world. Allowing for knowledge to be accumulated, great civilizations were able to spring up and move forward technologically; Civilizations that have shaped the world we live in today. Without those discoveries, for all we know, the saying ‘chiseling out a paper’ would take on a whole new meaning.
Reference:
H. Idris Bell and T.C. Skeat, 1935. "Papyrus and its uses"
David Crowley and Paul Heyer, 2007. “Communication in History”
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