Styled Represen-tations of hands

1

• First signs of abstraction

• Styled Represen-tations of hands
• Cave Santian (Spain)).

2

• The relation of hands to their body is
  metonymical (pars pro toto), i.e., one can guess
  the whole if one has the necessary knowledge,
  which is easy in the case of the hand. In some
  cases, the hands are deformed (e.g., have only
  four fingers) they could therefore be the
  personal signature of a painter some authors
  even guessed an underlying gestured language.

3
Methonymic abstraction
Contours of a deers head
Giant deer
Sketch of a deers head
4

• Many other pictures cannot be linked with
  specific contents, from which they are derived.
  Leroi-Gourhan (1992 chapter IX) made an
  inventory of the Franco-Cantabric signs and
  distinguished three major classes
• small signs (e.g., sticks and ramified forms),
• full signs e.g., triangles, squares, rectangles
  (tecti-forms), key shapes (clavi-forms), and
• punctuated signs.
• Leroi-Gourhan comes to the conclusion that all
  these signs have only a very indirect association
  with the animals represented in the paintings.
  They are a supplementary code. This is very clear
  in Lascaux, where signs and pictures are
  systematically combined into one gestalt and have
  corresponding sizes (cf. ibidem 337).

5

• Combination (and separation) of pictorial and
  abstract signs in the Paleolithic period.
• (cf. J. Jelinek, 1975, 433)

The abstract sign is of the tectiform type
6

• The small signs could be derived by
  disjunction, i.e., certain figural features
  from pictures are isolated, cut off. The general
  tendency is one of geometrical abstraction. Small
  pictures as in portable art could have triggered
  the abstraction. The conventionalized miniature
  signs were later added to full-scale pictures in
  the cave paintings. This is the same process as
  the one observed in the evolution of early
  writing systems, e.g., in Egypt.
• Leroi-Gourhan associates these signs with the
  male sex (as phallic symbols). Full signs are
  associated with the female sex. Either they are
  derived from the form of the vulva, or from a
  female profile (without head and feet).

7

• The signs called tecti-forms or rectangular
  (cf. ibidem 208 f.) look like huts or shelters
  and could refer secondarily to the domain of
  females (In a matrilineal society, daughters
  inherit the house and objects in the house and
  these are associated with the female sex).
  Figure 17 shows some examples from Leroi-Gourhan
  (1992 319).
• The punctuated signs can be related to a basic
  technique of painting and engraving, i.e., to
  aligned points, which produce a curve or two rows
  of them, which fill a surface. It is thus a
  discrete variant in the representation of lines
  and surfaces. There is some evidence that
  counting or representing mathematical structures
  may underlie these signs

8
A list of abstract symbols
Tectiform symbols 1-16 1-10 Dordogne ( Les
Eyzies) 11-16 Northern Spain (Altamira,
Castillo, u.a.) 17 23 isolated signs
9
The transition to the Mesolithic (after the last
ice-age and after the Magdalenean 17.00to 11.000)

• In the period between 12.000 and 7.000y. BP,
  i.e., just before or after the rise of
  agriculture, a wealth of engravings is found in
  which humans occupy the central place. The arrow
  had been invented and chasing (probably also
  warfare) had been sophisticated. The individual
  huntsman or the group of hunters and the animal
  (sometimes the enemy) are the major topics. The
  scenes are very dynamic as they show people and
  animals running, attacking, fleeing. In many
  cases, there is a basic relation, e.g., a
  huntsman shoots at an attacking ibex, four
  huntsmen with a leader, or a battle between two
  groups, etc. We could say a relation or a valence
  schema is realized in the painting.

10
Art of the Levante (Spain) ca. 9-8 000 BP
11
Transition to the Meso- und Neolithic
Northern Sahara (Kargur Talh) (Neolithic 4-5.
Thou. B.C.)
The Franco-Cantabric had parallels in northern
Africa the style resembles the rock engravings
in the Sahara Atlas and the oasis Fezzan (south
of Tripoli). Between 7 and 6.000y. BP cultures
based on cattle breeding reached this area from
Sudan. They continued the same realistic style
(mainly with contours engraved in the rock) but
with different contents.
12
The disappearance of the Sahara civilizations

• The transition between Mesolithic and Neolithic
  civilizations may have its origin in the area
  north of the Sahara, which was an ideal zone for
  hunting and later for cattle breeding. A huge
  amount of rock engraving has been discovered in
  this area. Probably this civilization which was
  in contact with first cattle breeding
  civilizations in the Sudan immigrated to Egypt
  and the near East, when the climate became hot
  and the water supplies were dramatically reduced.

13
Distribution of rock-engravings in Northern Africa
Transition between an iconic engraving and an
ideogram
The neolithic cultures of the Sahara had not only
cattle breeding, they also demonstrate the
domestification of sheep, horse and (later)
dromedary. Taken from Striedter,1983 258 (map)
and 11 (pictures)
14
Rock-engravings in the Alps as a reminiscence of
a cultural stage preceding the modern writing
systems

• The rock-engraving in Neolithic Europe will
  continue these traditions and there are even
  current populations in Australia and south Africa
  who still practice rock-engraving with a similar
  function (one may even consider modern graffiti
  as a contemporary use with the same expressive
  function).
• The European Alps are a zone where these
  traditions were conserved (e.g. in Trentino and
  Val Camonica).
• As some pictures resemble popular games, one may
  even assume an origin of visual plays like chess
  and others in the graphical tradition of
  rock-engravings.

15
The distribution of menhirs with pictures in the
province Trentino
The Menhir of AlgundMuseum of Meran
(Ebers/Wollenik 1982 47)
16
Selection of typical items in Capo di Ponte
(prov. Brescia)(Ebers/Wollenik 198298f)
These rock-engravings belong already to the
Neolithic period and continued until the Bronze
age. An archeological sensation was the discovery
of the Ötzi-man in the Alps who lived 6000 y BP
17
Type of figure found in rock-engravings in the
Alps
Such geometrical patterns were probably also the
starting point for the invention of many
rule-governed games using graphical schemata. If
de Saussure was inspired by chess as a metaphor
of language as a rule governed system, he should
rather have referred to the Mesolithic /
Neolithic evolution of symbolic games than to the
much older system of language.
18
Fourth lecture

• The evolution of writing

4.1 Developments after the Neolithic
revolution 4.2 Some aspect of the Egyptian
writing system and the transition to alphabets
19

• As the Nilotic cultures melted into the
  civilization of early Egypt, there was possibly a
  continuity (in the Mesolithic period) between
  Paleolithic art in Northern Africa and early
  writing systems (e.g., in Egypt and Mesopatamia).
  The hieroglyphic characters are pictorial
  (although schematized) and sequential, i.e., they
  are at the level of semi-symbolic signs in the
  hierarchy. As soon as signs for a word with one
  consonant were used as signs for this consonant,
  a consonantal alphabet could be created. It
  remains controversial if Mesolithic sign systems
  really contributed to the evolution of writing.
  Coulmas (198917) enumerates three
  characteristics of writing
• 1. It consists of artificial graphical marks on a
  durable surface 2. its purpose is to communicate
  something 3. this purpose is achieved by virtue
  of the marks conventional relation to language.

20
From object-language to writing

• Between 8000 BC and 3000 BC very simple object
  languages, where small-scale sculptures
  represent their objects, existged.
• Later two-dimensional contours represented the
  object-signs included in a jar.
• They finally lead to the first systems which may
  truly be called writing systems. These presuppose
  the political and economic organization of the
  first empires and cities.
• Cf. Schmandt-Besserat (1978 82)

21
Transition to writing (the last 10.000 years)
Object signs

• Original functions
• Representation of objects for the purpose of
  bookkeeping (a sign stands for an object in the
  economic world)
• Creation of a representational universe of
  discourse (where the buying, selling, transfer.,
  loss etc. of objects is represented).
• Calculation (origin of mathematics)

22

• The abstraction process from pictures to writing
  symbols corresponds to a general mnemonic
  principle. This is also valid for messages in an
  object language employed by Yoruba tribes and in
  Australian messenger-sticks. The message is coded
  for the messenger, who reads it when he arrives
  after a long journey. This guarantees that he
  does not forget important contents, but it
  presupposes that he knows the message. This means
  that the written message can only be read
  accurately if the reader has a knowledge of its
  contents independently from the written
  document (cf. Friedrich, 1960 17).
• Full-fledged writing-systems presuppose a writing
  industry, i.e., the frequent production and usage
  of writing in proper contexts. The Paleolithic
  stone industries established the context for the
  manufacturing of functionally optimal artifacts
  (weapons, tools), the Mesolithic and Neolithic
  picture and symbol industries established the
  necessary context for writing systems

23

• The communicative/functional usage of writing was
  systematically developed in Mesopotamia, which
  became a melting pot of many cultures and
  concentrated large populations into one organized
  political system. The paths for the exchange of
  goods, values, and ideas became complex and
  difficult to control. The civilizations of
  Mesopotamia (and the golden crescent) took
  their new shape between 11 and 8.000y. BP. The
  first token systems, called object languages
  by Schmandt-Besserat (1978), appeared ca. during
  this area and were not dramatically changed for
  almost five millennia. Only in the Bronze Age,
  between 7,500y. BP and 5,100y. BP, did the number
  of tokens increase and their shape differentiate
  and finally give rise to Sumerian writing (ca.
  5.000y. BP cf. also Friedrich, 1966 42 f.). The
  context was not religious but economic. The
  storage, transport and control of goods motivated
  a system of bookkeeping. A closed jar contained a
  number of symbolic objects, which stood for the
  goods sent to a destination. On the jar, a list
  of the symbolic objects in the jar was marked.
• The next slide shows the state of the system in
  the intermediate period of the Bronze age (before
  Sumerian writing arrived).

24
Early object-symbols (choice from a field of 12
categories)
25

• If we look closer at the symbolic objects in the
  table given by Schmandt-Besserat (1978 87 f.) we
  notice the geometrical and abstract character of
  the signs spheres, discs, pyramids, cones,
  tetrahedrons, biconoids, and ovoid are the basic
  shapes. On these bases, other abstract
  geometrical shapes are marked (in a lower
  dimension) holes, lines in/on the sphere, disk,
  etc. The Sumerian pictograms later flatten the
  symbolic objects to two-dimensional shapes.
• The direction of writing was first rather
  accidental, later an organization into vertical
  columns came up with the order of columns from
  left to right and inside the columns from top to
  bottom. Finally the whole arrangement was rotated
  by 90o the first column on the left became the
  first line on the top. In the same move the
  symbols were rotated by 90o.

26
The scribe and his instruments. A wood cut 4700
years old
Writing industries in Egypt

• The scribe of the pharao, Hesire, has
• On his shoulder a plate ink-cake,
• A container in wood for the brush,
• A container with water to make the brush wet
• (taken from Claiborne, 1976 93)

27
Hieroglyph of life from the grave of Tutanchamun
(3450 years old) INSCRIPTION IN THE MIDDLE Neb
hieroglyph for basket Kheper (hieroglyph for the
Skarabäus) Re hieroglyph for the Sun Together
they compose the proper name of the
possessor Nebkheperure The three strokes below
the Skarabäus stand for the vowel u (taken
from Claiborne, 1975 107)
28
Hieroglyphs in Egypt
Signs for nouns /concrete contents
Signs for verbs /processes
29

• As a word stood for a whole family of words with
  the same root, determina-tives were used to
  distinguish different word-forms. As only
  consonantal patterns were mapped into written
  symbols, the written forms were still ambiguous.
  There were two major methods of disambiguation
• By a kind of punctuation the vowels could be
  marked. The method of punctuation was adopted by
  many civilizations and languages in the Near East
  (still observable today in Arabic and Hebrew).
• Special symbols for vowels were inserted into the
  sequence of consonantal symbols. This method was
  first adopted by the Phoenician and later by the
  Greek, Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. For this
  purpose signs of consonants not used could be
  reinterpreted.

30
Further developments in Egypt
Hieroglyphs First simplifications in the 3rd
millennium B.C. Hieratic Latest text 3rd
century AD Demotic Latest text 476 AD
Friedrich, 1966195
31
Diffusion of the writing-systems between 1600 BC.
(yellow) and alphabets 450 BC. (green)
32
The evolution of the Greek alphabet from the
Phoenician
Friedrich, 1966 275 Partial list
33
A rough summary of the evolution of writing
Paleolithic period 36.-12.000 BP Mesolithic period 12.000 - .. BP (the end depends on the region) Neolithic period 10.000-5.000 BP (before the rise of the classical high cultures) Cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt 5.000-1500 BP (latest text 476 AD) Phoenician Greek, Roman cultures 2.500 to modernity
Abstract symbols besides realistic pictures Rock engravings and paintings in the Levante and Atlas Rock engravings, object languages Cuneiform writing hieroglyphs Alphabet writing systems
Realistic pictures dominate Abstract signs increase and form a huge lexicon Beginning of writing industries Complex systems of writing evolve which imply also a phonological analysis Dominance of systems based on the phonological motivation of writing

34
Ideographic systems

• Different solutions for the design of writing
  systems were in conflict and in Europe and
  western Asia the ideographic systems disappeared
  and the alphabetic principle expanded into all
  directions.
• Only in China did the ideographic writing system
  survive. It had found its very abstract shape
  already in the old bone-engravings
  (1 400-1 200 B.C.). The basic economy of these
  systems has, in spite of its ideographic
  character, structural similarities with the
  alphabetic systems.
• In Japan and Korea mixed systems were created. In
  Japan phonetic syllables are designed by writing
  symbols and completed by Chinese ideograms.

35

• The ideogram can be decomposed into more
  elementary strokes (ca. 20). Thus the number of
  elementary signs corresponds roughly to the
  number of signs in an alphabet (22 to 30).
• At the next level of complexity one can
  distinguish 24 different radicals. Thus the sign
  for sun (see above) consists of four strokes.
• The complete signs are fitted to an imaginary
  square. Similar tendencies can be observed in
  Hebraic quadratic letters, Roman capital letters
  and the Antiqua introduced in the Renaissance.

36
Chinese signs for words and their original
pictorial form
Child Tree Door Arrow Heart Word Rain Dog Snail Ha
nd Richness Field
37
Conclusions

• There is a line which leads continuously from
  artifact-industries already presupposing the
  semantics and pragmatics of a natural language to
  art, writing and mathematics.
• The basic principles which organize these levels
  of semiotic evolution should be formulated in a
  common language.
• Such a scientific language must have geometrical
  and combinatorial powers.