Writing

Writing and Scribes - Egypt
The Egyptian scribes were (they had to ) experts in writing Hieroglyphs, there were approximately 700 picture/writing in Hieroglyphs. The Scribes deliberately kept the Hieroglyphs complicated so that not many people could use them. Hieroglyphs were usually written on monuments, temples, Tombs and religious Papyrus. The Good thing about hieroglyphs was that they could be written from right to left and left to right or top to bottom and vice versa. Stories scripts and books were written differently though, that type of writing was called Hieratic which was a sort of hieroglyph but was written faster. Later in the history of Egypt a new type of writing was made again it was called Demotic, Demotic was even faster than Hieratic. Scribes that lived in the last couple of years of the new kingdom had to be able to write Greek as well because Egypt fell to the Greeks.

**Hieratic:**
Hieratic is a cursive Egyptian writing that developped from Hieroglyphs , Hieratic writing was used in Egypt and Nubia. Hieratic was the type of writing that was used on Papyrus, Hieratic writing was also used on metal plates and seals.

**Demotic:**
Demotic writing developped when the Egyptians fell to Greek, The word demotic came from the Greek word Demotikos meaning popular. The word Demotic then made its appearance in Egypt.

**The Rosetta Stone** From the 6th Century A.D the skill of reading Hieroglyphs had been lost until 1779, The discovery of the Rosetta Stone. There were and still are 3 scripts on the Stone, One that was written in Hieroglyphs, one in Greek and one in demotic. Luckily the scripts had the same text which made it possible to translate the hieroglyphs. The Rosetta Stone was translated by a french archeologist named Jean-Francois Champollion. He spent many years translating every single symbols on the Stone.

One of the most talented Scribe was Imhotep, Imhotep may have lived 4500 years ago. He is also known because he was the high priest of the Sun God. Once he died the Egyptians believed that Imhotep became a god.

Wooden palettes were often used by Scribes because they were easy to carry. Scribes took these with them when travelling in case taxes had to be written down. Not all but some scribes used Basalt Palettes, not all Scribes were able to use these since only the Scribes that worked in the Palace. When Scribes had to write/draw they used thick brushes that were made out of Papyrus which covered a larger area of the Statues or monuments .ect. Finally When Scribes sketched drawings/Hieroglyphs they divided the bodies that were represented in the picture in squares, But even if the Scribes is all that their main job is to keep a record of what is happening in the city/town that they live in.

Writing - China
Before you read the rest of this page I would like to tell you 1 interesting fact about Chinese Writing is that it's bases haven't changed for over a thousand years!

First __EVERY SINGLE__ letter in the Chinese alphabet consist of the same base which is a number, a line and an imaginary square that have to be written in order and with a different style for each letter. Writing started with the Shang Dynasty andn their oracle bones that have been found and unearthed. Experts have examined them and most signs still exist today in a slighty different style. Archeologists have found various other ancient Chinese objects with writing on them and these have helped us understand that the style of the writing was different depending on the types of objects.

Oracle Bones were made out of cattle's Shoulders and Turtles Shells, about 10,000 have been found in the Archeological sites of the old Chinese capital city Anyang. The Purpose of oracle bones was a sort of fortune telling/divination type of thing, these oracle bones are special to the history of chinese writing because the writing somehow stayed the same for thousands of years (slightly different but very close to being perfectly identical). The only thing that they used to do in The Chinese civilization that they do not do nowadays is having holes in the writing that was on the oracle bones.

Chinese Writing was NOT written using brushes ( I thought so too BEFORE my research). They wrote with knifes. The Chinese population were influenced to write by paintings/drawings, so as well as being based on a number, line and imaginary square the letters are also based on paintings/picture.

Chinese Writing was known all across asia at some points. For many years Japan and Korea used the same writing

At first the Japanese Alphabet was an exact copy of the Chinese alphabet, but over time the Japanese alphabet change and developped new characters/characters that would be used by them and not other countries. Unlike the Japanese alphabet the Korean alphabet was never an exact copy of the Chinese one although it was based on it. Some characters were also the same but korea developped their own alphabet earlier and faster than the Japanese did. The Influence from chinese writing to their writing was so strong that even nowadays they use some letters that are exactly the same.
 * Japan
 * Korea

The Chinese writing developped fast because they made new letters based on letters/characters they already used, so they added very simple signs to the letter/character (simple signs for them). That is how they developped their writing.

Conclusion
I believe that writing was good in both civilizations, unlike the other domains like government there were no main problems in this domain. Although both civilizations were talented in the domain of writing i think that it was harder for the Egyptians to adapt themselves to one main type o fwriting which means they probably had to learn the different writings which took them much more time. How ever the Chinese Civilization did not really change the writing which is good and bad the Egyptians spent more time learning how to write those different types of writing but once they mastered the demotic writing they could write faster and spend less time but like I said the Chinese didn't change their writing so in the end it is strongly possible that they spent more time writing. Overall I believe that the 2 civilizations were as good in the writing domain.