Writing Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Egypt=== [[File:Narmer Palette serpopard side.jpg|196px|thumbnail|right|[[Narmer Palette]], with the two [[Serpopard]]s representing unification of [[Upper Egypt|Upper]] and [[Lower Egypt]], circa 3100 B.C.E.]] The earliest known [[Egyptian hieroglyph|hieroglyphs]] are about 5,200 years old, such as the clay labels of a Predynastic ruler called "Scorpion I" (Naqada IIIA period, {{circa|32nd century BC}}) recovered at Abydos (modern Umm el-Qa'ab) in 1998 or the [[Narmer Palette]], dating to {{circa|3100 BC}}, and several recent discoveries that may be slightly older, though these glyphs were based on a much older artistic rather than written tradition. The hieroglyphic script was [[logogram|logographic]] with phonetic adjuncts that included an effective [[Egyptian hieroglyph#Script|alphabet]]. The world's oldest deciphered sentence was found on a seal impression found in the tomb of [[Seth-Peribsen]] at Umm el-Qa'ab, which dates from the Second Dynasty (28th or 27th century BC). There are around 800 hieroglyphs dating back to the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom Eras. By the Greco-Roman period, there are more than 5,000.{{citation needed|date=June 2023}} Writing was very important in maintaining the [[New Kingdom of Egypt|Egyptian empire]], and literacy was concentrated among an educated elite of [[scribe]]s.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lipson |first=Carol |title=Rhetoric before and beyond the Greeks |publisher=SUNY Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0791460993 |editor-last=Lipson |editor-first=Carol S. |chapter=Ancient Egyptian Rhetoric: It All Comes Down to Maat |editor-last2=Binkley |editor-first2=Roberta A.}}</ref> Only people from certain backgrounds were allowed to train to become scribes, in the service of temple, pharaonic, and military authorities. The hieroglyph system was always difficult to learn, but in later centuries was purposely made even more so, as this preserved the scribes' status.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}} The world's [[Middle Bronze Age alphabets|oldest known alphabet]] appears to have been developed by Canaanite turquoise miners in the Sinai desert around the mid-19th century BC.<ref>[[Orly Goldwasser|Goldwasser, Orly]]. "How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs", Biblical Archaeology Review, Mar/Apr 2010</ref> Around 30 crude inscriptions have been found at a mountainous Egyptian mining site known as Serabit el-Khadem. This site was also home to a temple of Hathor, the "Mistress of turquoise". A later, two line inscription has also been found at [[Wadi el-Hol]] in Central Egypt. Based on [[hieroglyph]]ic prototypes, but also including entirely new symbols, each sign apparently stood for a consonant rather than a word: the basis of an alphabetic system. It was not until the 12th to 9th centuries, however, that the alphabet took hold and became widely used.{{citation needed|date=June 2023}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page