Woods Christopher et al. (eds.) Visible Language. Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond

The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2010. — 240 p. — ISBN-10 1-885923-76-7; ISBN-13 978-1-885923-76-9Writing, the ability to make language visible and permanent, is one of humanity's greatest inventions. This book presents current perspectives on the origins and development of writing in Mesopotamia and Egypt, providing an overview of each writing system and its uses. Essays on writing in China and Mesoamerica complete coverage of the four "pristine" writing systems - inventions of writing in which there was no previous exposure to texts. The authors explore what writing is, and is not, and sections of the text are devoted to Anatolian hieroglyphs of Anatolia, and to the development of the alphabet in the Sinai Peninsula in the second millennium BC and its spread to Phoenicia where it spawned the Greek and Latin alphabets. This richly illustrated volume, issued in conjunction with an exhibit at the Oriental Institute, provides a current perspective on, and appreciation of, an invention that changed the course of history.Foreword. Gil J. Stein
Preface. Geoff EmberlingTime Line of Writing
Introduction — Visible Language: The Earliest Writing Systems. Christopher Woods
Cuneiform in Mesopotamia and Anatolia
Iconography of Protoliterate Seals. Oya Topçuoğlu
The Earliest Mesopotamian Writing. Christopher Woods
Object Descriptions: Catalog Nos. 1–58
Adaptation of Cuneiform to Write Akkadian. Andrea Seri
Object Descriptions: Catalog Nos. 59–62
The Rise and Fall of Cuneiform Script in Hittite Anatolia. Theo van den Hout
Object Description: Catalog No. 63
Bibliography for Cuneiform Essays
Egyptian Writing
The Conception and Development of the Egyptian Writing System. Elise V. MacArthur
Egyptian Myth of the Creation of Writing
Object Descriptions: Catalog Nos. 64–79
The Earliest Egyptian Writing. Andréas Stauder
Egyptian Hieroglyphic Writing. Janet H. Johnson
Object Descriptions: Catalog Nos. 80–82
Orientation of Hieroglyphs. Julie Stauder-Porchet
Writing in Nefermaat. Julie Stauder-Porchet
The Potency of Writing in Egypt. Emily Teeter
Hieratic. Kathryn E. Bandy
Object Descriptions: Catalog Nos. 83–84
Demotic. Janet H. Johnson
Object Description: Catalog No. 85
Ptolemaic Hieroglyphs. François Gaudard
Object Description: Catalog No. 86
Coptic. T. G. Wilfong
Object Descriptions: Catalog Nos. 87–88
Bibliography for Egyptian Essays
Alphabetic Writing
Invention and Development of the Alphabet. Joseph Lam
Object Descriptions: Catalog Nos. 89–94
Anatolian Hieroglyphs
Anatolian Hieroglyphic Writing. Ilya Yakubovich
Object Descriptions: Catalog Nos. 95–99
China
The Beginnings of Writing in China. Edward L. Shaughnessy
Object Description: Catalog Nos. 100–101
Mesoamerican Hieroglyphs
The Development of Maya Writing. Joel Palka
Object Description: Catalog No. 102
Concordance of Museum Registration Numbers
Art Institute of Chicago
Semitic Museum, Harvard
Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago
Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin
Yale Babylonian Collection
Checklist of the Exhibit
Illustration Credits
Glossary of Linguistic Terms. Monica L. Crews