Bibliography - Typography

Bibliography: Updike, Daniel Berkeley. Printing Types: Their History, Forms, and Use (volumes 1&2), 4th ed. Oak Knoll Press, 2001.  This book really describes the history of different printing types from many different countries like France, Germany, and even Latin-based roots. It included a lot of picture copies of these different texts as well. It started with the fact that Gutenberg did not actually invent printing, but that he adopted many ideas from different countries around him. I originally found this on the HBLL page and wanted to read it, but it was already checked out; luckily I found it free on Google Books. Blades, William. The biography and typography of William Caxton, England's first printer. 1824-1890 This book began with a biography of William Caxton (obviously stated in the title of this book), but it also delved into the history and development of England's first printer. William Blades listed several things in which you can determine when a book was published and how similar early typography was to books that were handwritten by a scribe. For example, how each page was written one at a time, how each print varied from another, what kind of paper they used, how closely they printed to the inner margins, the kind of ink, etc all contributes to helping bibliographers and others know precisely when the book was published. This book can be found at the HBLL and also in the Hathi Trust Digital Library. (Click the link in the title above). Printers' marks : A chapter in the history of typography by W. Roberts editor of "The Bookworm". W. Roberts (William), 1862-1940. The best description of this book is found here in the book's preface: (Please notice the pretty art) This book discusses printer's marks, which were used to protect from piracy; illustrations; book origins; history and bibliography; art, and many other subjects. Full of fascinating information. You can also find an online copy at this link here. Sir John Young Walker MacAlister, Alfred William Pollard, Ronald Brunlees McKerrow, Library Association, Sir Frank Chalton Francis. The Library, Volume 8. This book is a compilation and discussion of many different texts of different authors all of whom either wrote a book on an area of typography or wrote an actual document using typography. It included many historical documents and discussed which font number type it was, what ink it was written with, how many leaves, etc. It brushed on wood engravings, and how different blocks were carved. This book contained a LOT of information. Gress, Edmund G., A. Frederick,  etc. The American manual of typography; an exhaustive exposition of the various phases of type-composition. 1903. This book is incredibly detailed and covers so many topics! It begins with more modern forms of typography, but constantly refers to ancient methods. I thought it was really interesting how often it mentioned that some typographers try to model their print after medieval printing methods, because of the artistic beauty and how authentic the type looks, making it more appealing. Also, all throughout the book, it had pictures of old type, and it was fascinating to look at. I found this books on Google books. (Click the link in the title above). Challenges and Insights and Interesting Facts:   Probably over 60% of the books and bibliographies I found were in other languages, which made it rather difficult to research. I definitely had to get creative! Google Books "Content" drop down menu on many of the books were very inaccurate. Finding books about older texts instead of about modern day typography Trying to understand the older texts. They were WAY above my knowledge level...definitely written for someone who is in to that kind of thing. Finding footnotes Wikipedia searching was WAY more interesting to me than boring old books. No offense. But I felt like I actually learned more with Wikipedia because they were straight to the point, chronological, more on my comprehension level, and had so many examples of ancient typography like Medieval tiles, Phiastos Disc, Pruefening Abbey Inscription, etc. I didn't get that from the books that I read. Of course, I got a lot more detailed info, but that was pretty much useless to me (and boring) because I didn't appreciate it due to my lack of knowledge in that area. However, I did enjoy looking at the ornate pictures included in the books.

Printing and its Effects on Libraries

Brianne's reflection in her post for the annotated bibliography assignment got me thinking about libraries. Remember way back when we discussed libraries as an institution of knowledge? We discussed the library as a institution of knowledge for a written medium. However, I'm sitting in a library right now, and there aren't too many hand-written manuscripts I can handle. It's mostly printed books. I am therefore going to take a look at libraries in terms of print knowledge.

Libraries (by which I mean the print-based libraries we're used to) are incredibly useful. When in doubt, we go to the library. When looking for information on printing and various topics related to it, we search in a library. When we need to kill a basilisk, we wander to the library, mirror in hand. When hunting Voldemort's horcruxes, we travel in a mobile library. You get the point.

Annotated Bibliography on the History of the Dictionary

This post fills a requirement for my current Civilization class.  We were to find several sources on a topic related to printing during the renaissance.  I chose to specialize on how dictionaries changed during the years 1500-1700 AD.  I did most of my research at the Harold B. Lee Library on campus at BYU.  Below is what I found.

L'Imprimerie en le Monde Francophone

In English: The Printing Press in the French World

For our annotated bibliography assignment, I went in with an idea of wanting to do something related to how printing varied from place to place. To begin my search for sources, I skimmed the "notes" for the two sections of Reinventing Knowledge that overlap with the same time span as our print unit: the University and the Republic of Letters. I got nine possible texts from this. Of these nine, six were English texts about Europe, one was on the Islam world (a very interesting sounding work called Technology and Religious Change: Islam and the Impact of Print), and one was on China (yes, I know, that's only eight... I'm going to get there). These last two got me thinking about how I'd like to possibly include a global scale of printing instead of focusing exclusively on Europe. Unfortunately, there was no version of the cool-sounding Islam text to be found. While I did find the Chinese text online through the library's website, I ended up deciding to drop it because of a lack of non-Western books on the subject and because, honestly, it didn't sound nearly as cool as the Islam one (the subtitle was "A Historical Essay" ... come on, that sounds boring even to me).

The last text I thought seemed applicable from the end notes for Reinventing Knowledge was entitled "L'Histoire de la République des Lettres en France" ("The History of the Republic of Letters in France," but you probably could have guessed that...) Now, I wasn't planning on focusing on France an French Europe specifically yet, but keep this in the back of your mind.

The Early British Book Trade (bibliography)

          Of the topics listed by Professor Burton, the workings of the book trade fascinated me. I had already blogged a little bit about how I thought that writing and publishing must have seriously influenced the economic processes of the day. My research ended up focusing on the effects of these things in early Britain. It was interesting to me to see how the sources I found all seemed to end up pointing toward the same general line of research. This was illuminated particularly when I found a book that listed one or two of my previous sources in its own bibliography. Another helpful insight I gained was the value of this kind of research. As a new kid on the researching scene, my previous experience has been limited to google searches. This project opened my eyes to the different tools at my disposal for research. So without further ado, here is my annotated bibliography.

History of Printed Illustration and Woodcuts: Brianne Burraston, Annotated Bibliography

I started my bibliography with a general search in the library related to printing, unsure of what I first wanted to research. My search on printing lead me to section ZE on the fifth floor of the library where I found a plethora of material on the printing press. I opened a book and flipped through the pages to find a subject that interested me. However, due to the obscurity and specificity of the subject, I had difficulty creating a bibliography. Thus, I decided to go back to the shelves and browse and came across illustrations and woodcuts. This caught my attention and inspired this bibliography.




1. Chappel, Warren, A Short History of the Printed Word, The New York Times 1970 (Found through browsing the shelves at the HBLL)

• This author discusses the origins and techniques of printing from medieval times through the twentieth century. Focusing on his chapters regarding wood cuts, he discusses the history of wood cuts and the impact wood cut illustrations had for artists and social status, and the economic benefits of wood cuts. He provides background on how wood cuts were made in the sixteenth century and also discusses how illustrated books changed the emphasis to the art rather than the text. 

2. Goldschmidt, Earnst Ph. The Printed Book of the Renaissance, Cambridge University Press, 1950 (Found through browsing the shelves at the HBLL)

• This book goes through the history of print illustration beginning with the medieval era, where non-print illustration originated. It traces the history of illustration prints and how they increased their efficiency with the woodcuts. He discusses how woodcut printing was practical knowledge acquired through technical experience and how this intentionally limited the use of wood cuts until artists and printers began to sell them to other cities and countries and it became a large economic business.

3. Lewis, John, Anatomy of Printing, Watson-Guptil Publications, 1970  (found through online HBLL search)

• In Chapter 4: "The reformation and the printing press: artists take an interest in the printed illustration," Lewis discusses some of the unexpected benefits of the printed illustration. For example, the printing press accelerated ideas not only through words, but through illustrations. He discusses the social benefit of illustrations that allowed the illiterate to understand ideas through pictures. He also addresses the economic benefit to printers of using the same illustration for multiple works. 

4. Morrison, Stanley and Jackson, Holbrook. A Brief Survey of Printing History and Practice, New York, 1923 (found through browsing the shelves at the HBLL)

•  This source offers a brief history of woodcutting and illustrations in the sixteenth century Europe. He discusses the use of the printer's trade-mark as an illustration used to distinguish works and continues to discuss the evolution of the technology regarding printing and illustrations through the mid-twentieth century.

   5.  Gascoigne, Bamber. How to Identify Prints : A Complete Guide to Manual and Mechanical Processes from Woodcut to Ink Jet (found with through online Google Scholar search, then searched and found on HBLL webpage, and then read in person in the HBLL)

• This book gives a thorough history of the printed illustration while covering the technical vocabulary. It details the print illustration techniques used throughout the years. The illustrations in the book itself aid the reader in understanding a more technical understanding of the history and process of the printed illustration. Wood cuts were at their peak use in the sixteenth century, declined, and then began to be used again in the eighteenth century when a more efficient technique was developed.

6.  Cole, Richard G. "The Use of Reformation Woodcuts by Sixteenth-Century Printers as a Mediator Between The Elite and Popular Culture", Journal of Popular Culture, Bell and Howell Information and Learning Company, 2000 (Found online through google search and HBLL search, then read in person)

• This article offers sociological insight into how woodcutting and illustration affected social roles in society. It discusses various insights into how the printer of the sixteenth century served as a mediator between the elite and popular culture through using both " early modern" and early folklore images in their prints.

7.Eichenberg, Fritz, The art of the print: masterpieces, history, techniques, Harry. N. Abrams, Incorprorated, 1976 (found through bibliography of How to Identify Prints then read in person)

• This book details the world history of print and illustration from early Chinese prints to modern day. He discusses the simplicity of the wood cutting technique and how its popularity spread. He then details the specific technique of early wood cut artists complete with illustrations of their works.

If You Don't Write It, It Didn't Happen

Our recent Rosetta Stone project left me with a dusty taste in my mouth.  Granted, that is probably because I spent the better part of two days carving messages into stone, and the residual dust got everywhere.  As I both carved in stone, and watched others do so, I had significant amounts of time to reflect on the lives of those people who previously would have done the same thing.  As it turns out, carving stone is tedious (who knew?) and takes a while to complete.  You want to do it right the first time, and you need to know what you're going to say, before you say it.  As our group was, in the majority, representing cultures where the only written records are monuments that have weathered millenia, it was interesting for us to decide on what we were going to write that would have been important enough to put on a stone monument.

Reflections Related to the Roman Rosetta

In order to not bombard the blog with an excessive number of posts about my group's experience with the Rosetta Project, I have combined my three reflections into one very long blog post... Hopefully, it's not too long. (Ok, it is really long. That's because it's three posts of varying length in one, but it's more organized this way and less obnoxious, I think.)

Part One: Creating the Artifact
In creating wax tablets for the Rosetta Project, my group (see also the posts by Marc Wein (part 2) and Alyssa Cardon; Madison Grant will have one up, too; I am blatantly stealing pictures from their posts as well as the Asians who took more pictures of out tablet...) had the advantage of not needing to chisel out stone, but the creation process was a bit more involved than some of the others.

The final product should have looked something like this. Essentially, we have a wooden folder with wax on the inner right that we would write on. There's really two major differences between our wax tablet and the one that the Romans would have used. First, the Romans would have probably used beeswax, which we were unsuccessful at finding. Instead, we used what wax we could find, scented wax melts, which was good because my apartment smelled nice afterwards, but this provided a few challenges for us... Second, we weren't able to find anything at all authentic for the binding of the codex, so we just have single tablets that have been removed from a codex. (Come on, we weren't going to give another group a whole codex to translate! We don't want to give away that many of Ancient Rome's secrets!)

This is what our final product ended up looking like:

You did WHAT to the Bible?!?!?!

Going to the King James Bible exhibit, I imagined that the professors wanted, in addition to our gaining a greater appreciation of print culture, for us to become more appreciative of the great men who translated the Bible. This is not exactly how my experience went, though...

King James Response: Alex

I’m glad our group decided to visit the King James exhibit early on in this unit. The things I explored at the exhibit played right into some of the things I have been thinking about and researching as part of our Rosetta Stone project and in class the last couple times.

I was unsure about the Library’s policy concerning pictures, recordings, and what have you in the exhibit so I thought it best to err on the side of caution. These pictures are just images obtained online.

The Latin Vulgate

King James Bible

First, issues of translation crop up immediately. The whole story of the King James Bible is based on translation. Each translation of the bible occurred as part of an attempt to get the most correct version. However, those in charge of each current bible strongly resisted efforts for new translations. They worried that their authority would diminish with new versions of the bible, and that legitimacy would decrease as a result in the variations in text.

I spent most of my time in the exhibit fascinated by the competing bibles, and the lengths people would go to see the bibles printed, or banned. I also started wondering at the cause of the various versions and translations. I had always given more credence to the fact that the “evil designs of men” were responsible for many of the plain and precious parts of the bible being taken out. However, as I came to experience in our group project, I believe that many of the translation issues could easily have stem simply from the process itself. It’s extremely complicated!

I also really enjoyed a line of conversation that came up in class last time. Somebody mentioned that when a religious text is changed, it raises serious questions about its legitimacy. Then somebody else brought up the fact that in our LDS scriptural cannon, the Joseph Smith Translation is incorporated mainly in the footnotes of our King James Bible, and is not overly advertised. I believe that Christians not of Mormon faith would feel like they had even less in common with us if we began publishing the “Joseph Smith Bible”. The LDS church is sensitive to this, and while not ashamed of the fact that we have a more correct version of the Bible, we celebrate the efforts of the King James Bible.

I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit. I recommend allotting at least 25 minutes to go through and read everything, enjoy the artwork, and play around with the interactive display. I'm planning on going back to review one of the stations more thoroughly, and then I'll ad on to this post when I've done that. 

Rosetta Project: My Maya Akkadian experience (Part 1 and 2)

First, this post is a compilation of both the first half and second half of my Rosetta learning experience. Some parts are labelled and specifically discuss on part of the project. Others are mixed.

Akkadian is tedious. When I found out we were assigned Akkadian, I found some basic information online regarding the grammar and symbols Source, but not enough to make sense of the lines and triangles on the clay tablet. Thus, I enlisted the help of Dr. Stratford, a BYU Professor and expert in Akkadian. I set up a meeting with him, and Erin met with him as I was unable to go at the time that worked for him. He provided as valuable information, informing us that the group had written the text in the wrong direction and gave us a guide of the symbols, which helped us to efficiently translate the cuneiform Akkadian, to the syllables, to English when we met as a group that night. These symbols then represent other syllables that have to be translated to English. Did I mention tedious? I wish we had included the syllabic translation of Akkadian on our Rosetta Stone, because it added another complicated dimension. The second half of the project Holland, Erin, Mike and I met at Mike's apartment to put all of our information together and resources together into the lovely "Rosetta Stone" pictured above.

I learned many things during this experience:

•  Make sure your source is accurate. If not, it will add additional complications.


• It fascinates me that these lines and triangles actually communicate something as it just looks like geometric configurations to me.  However, if these triangles are misplaced, it doesn't actually mean anything. If you are unfamiliar with the language, it can take a while to realize this. 

We not only had to deal with an unfamiliar language, but also with the mistakes of the group who wrote Akkadian. (This is understandable as it was a learning experience for them too.) Erin shared with us that Dr. Stratford had told her that the cuneiform text should be written horizontally–left to right. However, the Akkadian group had written their word vertically, top to bottom. . We wrote it correctly on our Rosetta Stone. I wonder how many mistakes and misinterpretations have been made throughout history. . . ?

Handle Your Medium with Care: 
The tablet broke while in class moments after we got it. Thankfully we had the modern technology of photographs and the internet so that we did not have to carry our broken slab of clay around throughout the entire translation process and risk losing this valuable information. This photo was an effective way to share the tablet so that we could all work on the translation process simultaneously in different places. Imagine how little information we would have today if the mediums were as fragile as this piece of clay. . .

This is the Akkadian clay tablet we received to translate. Notice the faint crack on the right hand side.
Yes, it broke into two pieces. Thankfully, it was still legible. Lesson learned: Some mediums need to be handled with more care than others.

Rise of the Author

One thing that has been mentioned by Dr. Burton a couple of times in class is that the print culture led to the "rise of the author." I am going to both take issue with and defend this assessment.

There were, of course, authors before the middle ages. Well-known authors of antiquity included Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Homer, etc., but I'm pretty sure that this isn't what Dr. Burton means when he says "rise of the author." What Dr. Burton seems to be saying is that following the abundance of authorship in antiquity, there was virtually no authorship in the middle ages because they relied on classical texts so much but once the renaissance began after the development of the printing press, authorship resurfaced.

Rosetta Stone Project

My group all had cultures who resided in Africa, making this Rosetta Stone project very appropriate, seeing as the Rosetta Stone was partly written in Egyptian! Unfortunately, our group was unable to meet all at the same time for the first part of the project; so we had to divide it up a little bit. Jenna, Sam, and Tanner transcribed a phrase from the Book of Coming Forth by Day (otherwise known as the Book of the Dead) to Sculplie clay, and then they baked it. They did a phenomenal job. I then, took the replica and painted it.

However, before I painted it, I did some research about the colors they used. I was fascinated at what I found!

"In ancient Egypt, color was an integral part of the substance and being of everything in life. The color of something was a clue to the substance or heart of the matter. When it was said that one could not know the color of the gods, it meant that they themselves were unknowable, and could never be completely understood. In art, colors were clues to the nature of the beings depicted in the work. For instance, when Amon was portrayed with blue skin, it alluded to his cosmic aspect. Osiris' green skin was a reference to his power over vegetation and to his own resurrection.

Of course, not every use of color in Egyptian art was symbolic. When overlapping objects, such as when portraying a row of oxen, the colors of each animal is alternated so as to differentiate each individual beast. Apart from these practical considerations though, it is safe to say that the Egyptian use of color in their art was largely symbolic."

This knowledge is really meaningful to me. Personally, (and I know this probably sounds weird), but I am very partial to color. To me, color is everything. It influences moods and evoke emotion, catches your eye, helps you to communicate and express yourself. In fact, I often catch myself halfway through a movie just watching the colors moving across the screen--realizing that I have no idea what is going on in the movie! Anyways, hopefully you can see how important color is to me, and how ecstatic I was to learn that it was so important to the Egyptians as well!

In fact, the Egyptians used six main colors, including black and white. These colors were derived from mineral compounds, which caused them to retain their vibrancy over the millennia. Each color has a meaning; however, the meaning, like so much of our understanding of the Egyptian language, is ambivalent. I just have to include them:

"The color green (wadj) was the color of vegetation and new life. To do "green things" was slang for beneficial, life-producing behavior...Osiris was often portrayed with green skin and was also referred to as "the Great Green." Green malachite was a symbol of joy and the land of the blessed dead was described as the "field of malachite." In Chapter 77 of the Book of the Dead, it is said that the deceased will become a falcon "whose wings are of green stone". Highly impractical of course, it is obvious that the color of new life and re-birth is what is important. The Eye of Horus amulet was commonly made of green stone as well.

The pigment green could be produced from a paste manufactured by mixing oxides of copper and iron with silica and calcium. It could also be derived from malachite, a natural copper ore.

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Red (desher) was the color of life and of victory. During celebrations, ancient Egyptians would paint their bodies with red ochre and would wear amulets made of cornelian, a deep red stone. Seth, the god who stood at the prow of the sun's barque and slew the serpent Apep daily, had red eyes and hair.

Red was also a symbol of anger and fire. A person who acted "with a red heart" was filled with rage. "To redden" meant "to die". Seth while the god of victory over Apep, was also the evil murderer of his brother Osiris. His red coloration could take on the meaning of evil or victory depending on the context in which he is portrayed. Red was commonly used to symbolize the fiery nature of the radiant sun and serpent amulets representing the "Eye of Re" (the fiery, protective, and possibly malevolent aspect of the sun) were made of red stones. [However], The normal skin tone of Egyptian men was depicted as red, without any negative connotation.

Red paint was created by Egyptian artisans by using naturally oxidized iron and red ocher.

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The color white (hedj and shesep) suggested omnipotence and purity. Due to its lack of color white was also the color of simple and sacred things. The name of the holy city of Memphis meant "White Walls." White sandals were worn at holy ceremonies. The material most commonly used for ritual objects such as small ceremonial bowls and even the embalming table for the Apis Bulls in Memphis was white alabaster. White was also the heraldic color of Upper Egypt. The "Nefer", the crown of Upper Egypt was white, even though originally is was probably made of green reeds.

The pure white color used in Egyptian art was created from chalk and gypsum.

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In ancient Egypt, black (kem) was a symbol of death and of the night. Osiris, the king of the afterlife was called "the black one." One of the few real-life people to be deified, Queen Ahmose-Nefertari was the patroness of the necropolis. She was usually portrayed with black skin, although she was not a negro. Anubis, the god of embalming was shown as a black jackal or dog, even though real jackals and dogs are typically brown.
As black symbolized death it was also a natural symbol of the underworld and so also of resurrection. Unexpectedly perhaps, it could also be symbolic of fertility and even life! The association with life and fertility is likely due to the abundance provided by the dark, black silt of the annually flooding Nile. The color of the silt became emblematic of Egypt itself and the country was called "kemet" (the Black Land) by its people from early antiquity.

Black pigments were created from carbon compounds such as soot, ground charcoal or burnt animal bones.

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The color yellow (khenet, kenit) was created by the Egyptian artisans using natural ochres or oxides. During the latter part of the new Kingdom, a new method was developed which derived the color using orpiment (arsenic trisulphide).

Both the sun and gold were yellow and shared the qualities of being imperishable, eternal and indestructible. Thus anything portrayed as yellow in Egyptian art generally carried this connotation. The skin and bones of the gods were believed to be made of gold. Thus statues of gods were often made of, or plated with gold. Also, mummy masks and cases of the pharoahs were often made of gold. When the pharoah died he became the new Osiris and a god himself. In the image to the right of the Opening of the Mouth Ceremony, note the skin tones of the mummy and Anubis. Both are divine beings and both have golden skin. Compare this to the priest and the mourning women, who have the classic reddish-brown and pale pink skin tones of humans.

"White gold", an alloy of gold and silver (electrum), was seen as being the equivalent to gold and sometimes white was used in contexts were yellow would typically be used (and vice-versa).

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"Egyptian blue" (irtiu, sbedj) was made combining iron and copper oxides with silica and calcium. This produced a rich color however it was unstable and sometimes darkened or changed color over the years.

Blue was symbolic of the sky and of water. In a cosmic sense, this extended its symbolism to the heavens and of the primeval floods. In both of these cases, blue took on a meaning of life and re-birth.

Blue was naturally also a symbol of the Nile and its associated crops, offerings and fertility. The phoenix, which was a symbol of the primeval flood, was patterned on the heron. Herons naturally have a gray-blue plumage. However, they were usually portrayed with bright blue feathers to emphasize their association with the waters of the creation. Amon was often shown with a blue face to symbolize his role in the creation of the world. By extension, the pharoahs were sometimes shown with blue faces as well when they became identified with Amon. Baboons, which are not naturally blue, were portrayed as blue. It is not certain why. However, the ibis, a blue bird was a symbol of Thoth, just like the baboon was. It may be that the baboons were colored blue to emphasize their connection to Thoth.

The gods were said to have hair made of lapis lazuli, a blue stone. Note in the image above of the Opening of the Mouth ceremony that the mummy and Anubis both have blue hair.

Learning about how the Egyptians used color, really opened my eyes to how in touch with nature they were. Everything was about agriculture, the sun, life, death, water, sky. And in addition, they seemed to be so in tune with how the spiritual side correlates to nature. So although they may have had an impractical writing system, they really seemed to get a lot of meaning out of life (and death). I really appreciate them for that.


Now onto the second part of this project:

For this second part of this project, we received the small tablet from the Roman group, and had to translate it into English and then into Egyptian. This is what the tablet looked like this:

This tablet was about 2 inches by 2 inches. Upon obtaining this tablet, we quickly realized the importance of preserving your writing on something that WILL preserve your writing; in other words, this tablet was easily pliable and the letters quickly got smooshed--by the time we transferred the Greek onto clay, I could hardly tell what the letters even were...not to mention the handwriting was a little skiwampus. I'm not trying to be mean, but it is definitely is important!!! (I remember learning this lesson at a young age when my journal got wet and my ball point pen bled through all the pages, leaving a big black and blue puddle stain where letters used to be, ever since then, I have always used a non-bleed Sharpie! Seriously though, journals are irreplaceable!) Moral of the story: Preserve, preserve, preserve!

Anyways, this Saturday, we met up at the Ceramics studio in B66 (bet you didn't know this building existed, did ya?). We were fortunate that there was some free recycled clay that they let us use. (As well as color, I am very partial to artistic medium, so using this clay was really important to me. I wanted it to be as natural as possible...don't you even worry, we did a "smell" check, and it definitely smelled like dirt!). In other words, I am so grateful that we were able to use this clay.

Translating this tablet was fairly easy (apart from the smooshed and sloppy writing). However, all our credit, goes to Google for figuring it all out for us--thank you Google! If you want to know the details: we looked up the first couple words in a Google search and it magically appeared to be the first line of the Odyssey! Lucky us! It translated to: "Tell me, muse, of the man of many ways who wandered [much]."

Are you wondering why I put "much" in brackets? Well, an interesting twist to our translation was that the Greek group left off the last word! We weren't sure if they did this on purpose to humor us, or if they were just careless. We contemplated whether or not we were going to leave this word off of our English and Egyptian translation, to stress the importance of accuracy and the mistakes that follow when you aren't careful, but we decided otherwise.

Translating the Egyptian was the trickiest part of the whole process, mostly because it was hard to find the same words they used in Greek. However, we managed, and I think we were fairly successful! However, I am not sure we could have done it the other way around! The reason I say this, is because (like I already mentioned), the Egyptian's had a very inefficient way of writing. Some of their words are phonetic, others have meaning, and even just the assortment and positioning of the words can make all the difference. (Kind of like Brianne's post about writing her name in Maya). Also, Jenna in group 9 points out that the direction Egyptian is read is based on which way the animals in the drawings are facing! I thought that was very interesting! (Check out her blog post!)

After we finished, I took the artifact home and painted it. Of course, like before, I had a total blast (even though I don't look like it in this picture...I was just in my "FLOW" haha).

And here is the finished product!

Rosetta Stone Response Part 2

Our group was responsible for translating Chinese characters into English, and then into a form of Cuneiform.

Translating the Chinese characters was quite simple. Chinese has changed relatively little in the centuries it has been around. Thus, a message written in Chinese antiquity was easily translated by some very helpful Chinese students here at BYU.

Translating our now English phrase into Acadian or Sumerian was much more difficult. We had to consult the very helpful Professor Stratford, as well as some online resources and a book he loaned us. We came across a few different ways of going about the translation, but eventually we settled on one that worked.

One thing that was interesting to me was the process of simplification and clarification that we went through. The original literal Chinese messages read something like “If you have the strong will to do something, you will have success" and "You have the advantage if you move first." We immediately recognized the first one as being very close to an English saying: when there’s a will there’s a way. We left the other one pretty much as is. We then had to make these phrases, or these ideas, work for our new script. We came up with symbols that most closely represented the idea, rather than take the symbols for each English letter and write it out that way. This was much more efficient, and probably more representative of the way an ancient Mesopotamian would write.

This project forced me to confront some issues of translation that I had already been thinking about for a few years. Our translation was probably not perfect, but the exercise was immensely enlightening. It was a great way to wrap up everything I have learned and blogged about in this Written Knowledge unit.

Marriage: Man, Woman, and a piece of paper

 An elaborate penned (not printed) marriage certificate from Germans in Pennsylvania mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. 

I know this post is short, but I just got engaged last night. :D  Thus, I have been distracted, but managed to do some research. . . 

Marriage certificate from 1875

Because I just became officially engaged last night (yay!  :D), I have marriage on the mind and thus want to learn about the history of printing marriage certificates and licenses. Marriage used to just be a private contract between 2 families (ie arranged marriages). However, around the 16th century, the government began regulating marriage though marriage licenses.

First Response to Rosetta Project

As a group we were struggling to come up with an appropriate message to write on our clay tablet. I had to start thinking critically about linguistic issues that arose, and I was ever so glad when our group decided to consult with an expert. It worked so beautifully for my oral interview, and we actually ended up consulting with the same Professor that I interviewed.

However, as intriguing as some of those linguistic concepts were, most of my musings came along with the assignment I was designated for the group effort. It was my job to procure the clay. The current frigid conditions discouraged me from attempting to dig for clay, not to mention BYU grounds crew might be a little upset. Also, the clay I might find would be far from the quality we wanted for this project. So I got in my car and ventured forth to find myself some clay. Michaels, here I come. A quick question to a friendly employee and 13 dollars later, I had myself some high quality, air hardened clay.

But through what process acquired clay in early Mesopotamia? I have thought about this question a lot in the last two days. It is possible that every time somebody needed a tablet that they just went outside, dug up some clay, mixed it up, and made a tablet. However, in a business driven society such as the Sumerians, I figure that there were probably merchants that made their living as clay/tablet suppliers.

Writing, books, printing, and all the associated processes can have major economic ripples. Thinking about the modern process of printing a book was illuminating. Books are made out of paper. Paper is made in a mill, which employs many workers. Paper is made of wood, which is logged by other companies, which also employs many workers. Other companies make their tools. Authors write books. They use commercial products such as computers, word processing software, pens, and pencils. Editors, publishing houses, promoters, bookstores, online retailers, and Oprah all get into the mix. While some of these things could only happen today, many of these things were applicable as early as there has been writing.

The economic effects of Written and Printed Knowledge are far-reaching and impressive. I’d be interested to talk to my Econ professor more about this next semester. 

Woodblock Printing

For about a month now, my posts have been focused on the Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerians are celebrated as having developed the first writing system. So, thankfully, this has given me a wealth of information to work with in our Written Knowledge unit.

            As we are transitioning to talking about printing, I felt a little bit uncomfortable as I suddenly lacked direction in my research. However, I decided to try and find out anything I could about printing in its earliest stages. I stumbled upon the process called “Woodblock Printing”. This method emerged in China in about the year 200 and was used widely in East Asia as a method for printing on textiles, and later, paper.

            A woodblock can best be described as a type of primitive stamp. The white parts, or what you don’t want to be printed, are cut away. This leaves a design at a higher level, which is subsequently inked and then pressed onto a cloth, or whatever material is chosen. However, sometimes instead of stamping, they would use a rubbing method. In this case, the block is placed face up on a table or similar surface. The cloth, or paper in later times, is then placed on top of the block and “the back of the block is rubbed with a "hard pad, a flat piece of wood, a burnisher, or a leather frotton” (source). The process was arduous. Each block had to be hand cut, and there was no “press” available for use at the time.

A more artistic wood block

The Half-Blood Prints

Someone who is very knowledgeable, especially a college professor, is likely to be portrayed with a book about a favorite subject. Those who know a lot about several different topics is said to be "well-versed" (which I am assuming comes from a time before books, when bards would sing verses) or "well-read." Those who have an even more advanced knowledge that is mysterious or even mystical are also typically portrayed with a book, a book of spells.

If we see a depiction of Merlin, who lived before printed text existed, he would likely still have a book- and a rather large book at that. In addition to being highly expensive because of its size, such a book is worth even more because of the knowledge it contains. Clergymen, one of the most powerful class in the middle ages, always had another rather large book with them: the Bible, which although not a book of spells does have some similarities to one because of the super-human elements in both. Books have long been associated with both knowledge and power. But how does this concept change when books go from being hand-written to being printed?

To answer this question, I am going to do something incredibly post-medieval and post-Renaissance. I'm going to talk about our newest celebrity...