Saturday, November 24, 2007

How did humans spread across the Earth?
A narrow sea channel known as the Bering Strait divides Asia from North America. During the last Ice Age, the sea level was lower than it is today and the two continents were connected by dry land. Prehistoric people from Asia crossed this land bridge and spread down into the Americas, becoming the first Native Americans. Then, around 10 000 years ago, the sea flooded the Bering Strait and left the Indians stranded. It is though that the first Aborigines reached Australia from South-east Asia in prehistoric times. New Zealand and other Pacific islands were settled by seafaring Polynesian islanders in more recent times.

THE MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE

People have been on the move since before historical records began, whether fleeing from their enemies or looking for new land to settle. Around 1600 BC a great famine in Canaan drove the Israelites and Polynesians in canoes voyaged thousands of miles across the oceans. Humans, it seems, are natural wanderers.

Viking Expansion
Most people think of the Vikings as seaborne raiders whose longships brought terror to European shores. They also made epic voyages to Iceland, Greenland and North America, and travelled south into Russia, and east to Constantinople. They were looking for new lands to settle and people to trade with.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Type style
Gutenberg shaped his letters in so-called Gothic style, to look like the ornate pen-writing of the day.

Writing implement
The Mesopotamians cut reed-tips to a triangular shape for making wedge-shaped symbols. The unshaped ends were used for round symbols.

Top to bottom
Chinese writing runs in columns that are read from top to bottom and right to left across the page.

Illuminated letter
When medieval monks copied books by hand, they decorated the pages with beautiful letters and patterns.

The story of the alphabet A breakthrough in the story of writing occurred with the emergence of an alphabet in the Middle East around 1700 BC. In this system, each letter represents a single sound in the spoken language, rather than a whole object or idea. The Phoenicians (who wrote rfom right to left) used a sound-based alphabet, and around 1000 BC their system was adopted by the ancient Greeks. The Greeks however, reversed the shaped of Phoenician letters and wrote from left to right. Greek letters may have been used by the Etruscans, who lived in central Italy before the Romans. Greek letters were borrowed by the Romans, who slightly reshaped them to create the alphabet we use today (the word alphabet comes from the first two Greek letters, alpha and beta)

Thursday, November 22, 2007

When were the first books made?
Egyptian scribes wrote on papery scrolls made from strips of papyrus, a reedy plant that grew by the Nile. True paper was a Chinese invention of around AD 100, and was made originally from a variety of materials, including pulped tree bark, hemp, old rags and fishing nets. Ancient China also gave the world the surviving printed book, a Buddhist scripture printed from woodblocks in AD 868. In Europe, most books were copied by hand until the 1440s, and were rare and expensive. By 1500, thanks to Gutenberg's invention, cheap books were being printed in their thousand all across Europe.
Writing to printing
In the 1440s, a German goldsmith named Johann Gutenberg invented a printing press made from a converted wine press. He spent several years perfecting it. The machine held lines of movable type made up of individual metal letters. Ink was dabbed onto the metal letters by hand, and the press applied the pressure needed to transfer the inked text onto a sheet of paper.

Magic runes
The Vikings used an alphabet of 16 symbol, known as runes. This were formed chiefly from straight lines so that they were easy to cut into pieces of bone or wood. In Viking belief, runes were charged with magic. They were cut to heal the sick, and poorly carved runes were thought to bring bad luck to a household

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Early writing
In Mesopotamia, simple picture-symbols gradually evolved into 'wedge-shaped' marks. The Egyptians based their writing, called 'hieroglyphics' on drawing.

Does all writing run from left to right?
Different writing systems developed around the world, and there were no common rules about the direction in which words or symbols should run. In traditional Chinese, the words are set out in columns rather than lines. this is probably because the earliest Chinese writing was done on strips of bamboo, which were arranged top to bottom. The Western custom of writing from left to right down the page became fixed by the ancient Greeks only around 1000 BC. Arabic script runs from right to left, so Arab newspaper readers begin on what would be the back page of a Western paper.

THE WRITTEN WORD

Written words cause images to appear in the mind as if by magic. The invention of writing was one of the most important events in history, because it allowed information of every kind to be recorded and stored. And with the invention of printing in Europe in the 15th century, the number of books in circulation quickly increased. This led to the spread of knowledge and greater use of written languages.

Who invented writing?
Writing began around 3500 BC among the people of Mesopotamia, where priest and merchants wanted to keep records of harvests or areas of land sold. To begin with, picture-symbols were used. These, were simplified representations of objects or people, such as 'sun', 'ox' or 'king'. Gradually. these picture, known as pictograms., became simpler still, so that the writer could use wedge-shaped marks to represent each object and action. The marks were made with reed-tips on wet clay tablets, which then dried and hardened. This early script is known as 'cuneiform' ( from the Latin cuneus meaning 'wedge').

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

The first city
The bible tells how Joshua and the Israelites brought down the walls of the city of Jericho with a blast of trumpets. Archaeologist have shown that Jericho really existed, and may have been the world's first city. It grew up in a farming area of the Middle East, and by 8000 BC it had massive stone walls. So when Joshua captured it in about 1400 BC Jericho was several thousand years old.

Monday, November 19, 2007

How did people get about?
Wheeled vehicles were first used in Mesopotamia around 3200 BC. Ox-carts with solid wooden wheels carried merchants wine jars and grain sacks. Around 2000 BC, lighter, spoked wheels were invented for war chariots and speedier vehicles appeared. The Romans built straight roads so that the army could get about quickly. The roads made travel easier and could take heavy wagons.


Sunday, November 18, 2007

How did farming change things?
Crop-growing produced more food than hunting and gathering had done and not everyone was needed to work the land. Town craftsmen such as potters and jewellers emerged, and developed specialist skills. Architects evolved the techniques needed for building palaces and temples. People worked together on large projects, such as digging irritation channels to bring water to dry areas of land.