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Ancient Era

The Ancient Era lasted from 3000 BCE to 100 CE and saw the development of early civilizations and important technological advancements. Some key developments included: 1) The origins of writing systems like cuneiform script in Mesopotamia and Egyptian hieroglyphs. 2) The Phoenician alphabet, considered one of the first widely used alphabets, which influenced later scripts like Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew. 3) The emergence of drama in ancient Greece, including the genres of tragedy and comedy and the works of playwrights like Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. 4) Early paper-like materials were developed

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516 views15 pages

Ancient Era

The Ancient Era lasted from 3000 BCE to 100 CE and saw the development of early civilizations and important technological advancements. Some key developments included: 1) The origins of writing systems like cuneiform script in Mesopotamia and Egyptian hieroglyphs. 2) The Phoenician alphabet, considered one of the first widely used alphabets, which influenced later scripts like Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew. 3) The emergence of drama in ancient Greece, including the genres of tragedy and comedy and the works of playwrights like Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. 4) Early paper-like materials were developed

Uploaded by

Rica Amaba
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Ancient Era

3000 BCE – 100 CE


Ancient Era
Is a historical period beginning with the
earliest known civilizations .
1. Writing
a. Cuneiform Script
Cuneiform, from the Latin cuneus, meaning "wedge," is the term
applied to a mode of writing which used a wedge-shaped stylus
to make impressions on a clay surface, and also on stone, metal,
and wax.
The cuneiform writing system was originated in ancient
southern Mesopotamia and the earliest texts in cuneiform script
are about 5000 years old.
Trilingual cuneiform inscription of Xerxes at Van Fortress in Turkey,
written in Old Persian, Akkadian, and Elamite.
b. Egyptian hieroglyphs
The Egyptian hieroglyphic script was one of the writing systems used
by ancient Egyptians to represent their language. Because of their
pictorial elegance, Herodotus and other important Greeks believed that
Egyptian hieroglyphs were something sacred, so they referred to them as
‘holy writing’. Thus, the word hieroglyph comes from the Greek hiero
means ‘holy’ and glypho means ‘writing’. In the ancient Egyptian language,
hieroglyphs were called medu netjer, ‘the gods’ words’ as it was believed
that writing was an invention of the gods.
The script was composed of three basic types of signs:
• Logograms representing words
• Phonograms representing sounds
• Determinatives placed at the end of the word to help clarify its
meaning.
Papyrus of Ani showing cursive hieroglyphs
2. Alphabet
a. The Phoenician Alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet developed from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet,
during the 15th century BC. Before then the Phoenicians wrote with a
cuneiform script. The earliest known inscriptions in the Phoenician alphabet
come from Byblos and date back to 1000 BC.
The Phoenician alphabet was perhaps the first alphabetic script to be
widely-used - the Phoenicians traded around the Mediterraean and beyond,
and set up cities and colonies in parts of southern Europe and North Africa -
and the origins of most alphabetic writing systems can be traced back to the
Phoenician alphabet, including Greek, Etruscan, Latin, Arabic and Hebrew, as
well as the scripts of India and East Asia.
The Phoenician Alphabet
b. Greek Alphabet
Was derived from the Phoenician Alphabet . Then , the Greeks
acclimated it to their own language , creating in the development the first "
true " alphabet , which vowels bestowed balanced status with
consonants .

According to Greek legends addressed by Herodotus , the alphabet was


carried from Phoenicia to Greece by Cadmos .
3. Drama
Drama is the clear-cut mode of narrative, commonly fictional, served in
performance.
The theatre of ancient Greece, the fountainhead of the entire Western
dramatic tradition. The earliest Greek drama is thought to have developed
during the 6th century BC from imitative religious magic associated with the
worship of Dionysus.
The golden age of Athenian Drama (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) saw the
emergence of the genres of Tragedy and Comedy and the production of the
great works of Aeschylus (c. 525–456 BC), Sophocles (c. 496–406 BC), and
Euripides (c. 484–406 BC). Aristophanes (c. 448–385 BC) was the greatest
comic playwright. The most important development of the later 4th century
was the emergence of the New Comedy of Menander. Although the Athenian
tradition was in serious decline by about 300 BC, its influence had already
spread to other parts of the Mediterranean world.
Relief of a seat poet (Menander) with makas of New
Comedy, 1st century BC- early 1st century AD
4. Paper
The word "paper" is etymologically derived from papyrus, Ancient Greek
for the Cyperus papyrus plant. Papyrus is a thick, paper-like material
produced from the pith of the Cyperus papyrus plant which was used in
ancient Egypt and other Mediterranean societies for writing long before
paper was used in China.
In the Americas, archaeological evidence indicates that a similar bark-
paper writing material was used by the Mayans no later than the 5th
century AD. The paper is created by boiling and pounding the inner bark
of trees, until the material becomes suitable for art and writing.
Oldest paper book, dating to 256 CE
Thank You

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