A petroglyph is an image carved or etched into rock.

Essentially, a
petroglyph is made by scratching away the uppermost surface of a rock to
reveal rock of a different color underneath. The word comes from the Greek
words petro-, theme of the word petra meaning stone, and glyphein
meaning "to carve", and was originally coined in French as ptroglyphe. The
term 'petroglyph' should not be confused with pictograph, which is an image
drawn or painted on a rock face. Both types of image belong to the wider
and more general category of rock art.

Hieroglyphics was a system of writing which used logograms, rather than an
alphabet, to record a language. Hieroglyphs were called, by the Egyptians,
"the words of God" and were used mainly by the priest. This was a handwriting
in which the picture signs were abbreviated to the point of abstraction.
Hieroglyphs are written in rows or columns and can be read from left to right
or from right to left. You can distinguish the direction in which the text is to be
read because the human or animal figures always face towards the
beginning of the line.

Ideograms are symbols, often used within a written language, which utilizes a
picture, rather than letters, to represent a particular idea or concept. This
type of image is usually conceptual or abstract in nature, as the image
frequently represents something greater than what can be expressed
through a direct representation.

Pictographs are ideograms that show their meanings through their pictorial
resemblance to any physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing
and graphic systems in which the characters are to a considerable extent
pictorial in appearance.


An alphabet is a standard set of letters which is used to write one or more
languages. Many countries may still use the old style of alphabets from
ancient times while others have evolved tremendously.

Qoph is actually the 19
th
letter within the Hebrew Alphabet.

There are many alphabets three of them consist of Greek, Latin and
Armenian.
The Alphabet that is Western Standard today is Latin.
Ideogrammatic Codes
-Advantages
You can go from an idea straight to paper while with alphabetical
systems you have to go through sounds.
With the ideographical system a big positive is that it could be read in
any language.
-Disadvantages
Saying this using these codes there are many different types of
needed to be learnt
Arranging these are near to impossible due to no alphabetical order
Cannot be written down by sound
Mastering thousands of symbols to be able to write a language


Alphabetic Codes
-Advantages
Most languages the sounds of speech are around 40
A limit due to the restricted range of sounds
People can distinguish in listening and articulate in speaking
-Disadvantages
Dont consciously hear separate elements within our speech
We hear them as part of a continuous sound wave.
The Modern tool which is able to combine all the codes is the computer.













Papyrus is a product of the water reed of the same name found along the
banks of the Nile River in Egypt. It was probably made from the outer skin
since the center is pithy. Layers of the reed were laid on a stone slab side by
side and the next layer was laid on top of the first at right angles to those on
the bottom. The whole mass was then moistened with water, pressed, and
dried, resulting in a laminated mass. The dried material was hammered to
make it more compact and rubbed with a smooth stone to produce a writing
surface. Samples of papyrus have been found dating back to 3,500 B.C.
Greeks and Romans also wrote on it, and its use persisted until about the 10th
century A.D. when overproduction or disease wiped out the crops.

Paper developed separately in China around 200 BC. It differs from papyrus
in that the plants have been beaten to separate the fibers, suspended
evenly in water, placed on a webbing to drain off the water, and dried. The
beating allows a hydrogen bonding to form between the fibers. This
hydrogen bonding gives paper its cohesion and tearing strength. Paper can
be made from any cellulose-containing plant such as cotton, hemp, wood
chips, bagasse, straw, kenaf, etc. Paper derives its name from papyrus and is
a transferred application of an old name to a new material.
Before the advent of paper, there were many different surfaces used for
writing and painting on.
Some of these surfaces are bark, stone, papyrus, clay, vellum (skin of an
unborn calf), bamboo slips.
Different tools were also used to write on each of these surfaces:
BARK - knives, berries
STONE - animal blood, berries, rock (berries and animal blood were used for
their pigments almost like paint on the walls) (rock was used to scratch the
outer layer of the stone off to reveal the under layer, normally a different
colour)
PAPYRUS - reed pens (made by cutting and shaping a single reed straw or
length of bamboo)
CLAY- stylus (reed pen)
VELLUM - quill pen (pen made from a bird's feather)
BAMBOO SLIPS - writing brush and Chinese ink