948
WKITING
WRITING
and (of the Roman period) in Italy and Britain. The quill pen is tirst mentioned by an anonymous biocia])her of Theodoric the Goth (c. 500) and by Isidore of Seville (c. 600). — The earliest form of ink {ptiXav, atramentum, lyKavarov, incaustum, whence ink) appears to have been either the juice dis- charged by the cuttle-fish (I'ersius, iii. 13) or a mixture of soot and gum. This often gives excel- lent results, the ink of the Greek papyri, even from the earliest times (3rd and 2nd cent. B.C.), being often admirably black. This kind of ink did not sink deeply into the material on which it was laid, and could be washed off without much dilficulty ; on papjTus this was the ordinary method of deletion on a large scale. Gall-apples are not mentioned until the 5th cent. (Martianus Capella, iii. 2-25), but were probably used con- siderably earlier. Metallic inks were not used with papyrus, but must have been adopted early in the history of writing upon vellum ; it is to
the Hebrews. The uncertaintj- which attends ths dating of the earlier books of the OT and of the materials upon which they are based, makes it dangerous to draw any conclusions from the references in them to the practice of writing. The discovery (in 1887) of the Tel el-Amarna tablets (Fig. 1), near the site of the capital of Amenophis IV., containing correspondence, in cuneiform characters and in Babylonian dialect, between the Egj'ptian governors or vassal princes in Palestine and Syria and the king and his minis- ters in Egj-pt, proves that writing was practised in Palestine at a date either a century before the Exodvis (if that event be assigned to the reign of Merenptah, as commonly held), or contemporary with tiie Hebrew entry intj tlie Promised Land, according to the alternative chronology. There is also no difficulty in believing that Moses, having been brought up in the Egyptian court (cf. Ac 7-), was acquainted with the art of writing ; tbough, of
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this element that the erosion seen in so many early vellum MSS {e.<j. the Codex Vaticanus and the Coilex Alexandrinus) is due. In the Middle Ages a less corrosive ink is generally used. Some beautiful specimens remain from about the begin- ning of the 8th cent., e.g. the Codex Amiatinus and the Lindisfarne Gospels. Many recipes for ink are recorded in mediaeval MSS ; the principal ingredients are gall-apples, vitriol, and gum.
LlTEliATiniB.— Birt, Dasantikr Bxichmsm, 1882 ; Gardthttusen, GriechuKhe Paltwijraphie, 1879; Thoni)>son, Uandbouk it/dra-k and Latin Pa/ceajraphti, cc. ii-iv, 1803; Dziatzko, Untersrtch- ungen uber awiijcwuhlle KapUel dea aniiken BuchueKem, 1900 ; Piet«chmann, Leder uitd Unlz als Schreibmatmai hex den Aeijupten (SaTmnlinig bibliothekTOissenscliaftlichcn Ar- ntiU'n, Hft. 8), 1S95 ; Karabacek and Wiesner, Vas arabisclte Paiwr (Mitth. aiis d. Saminluni; d. I'apvrus Erzherzog Rainer, II. 87 9), 1887; Buhl, Caium and Text o/ the OT, EnK. tr. i 74, 1892; Kenjon, Palceoqraphy of Greek Papiiri, ch. U. 1899 ; W'attenbach, Dot Schriftwetm xm MiUelaUer^, 189«.
iii. Hebrew Writing.— It is impossible to fix with any precision the beginning of writing among
course, this fact in itself proves nothing as to his actual and immediate autliorship of the books ascribed to him. The name Kinath-sepher (.Jos 15'") is held by Sayce and some others (but see Moore, Judges, 26 f.) to mean 'city of books,' which might indicate even the existence of a library (perhaps such a one as that of Ashur- bani-pal at Mneveh) or record -oflice ; and one interpretation of shfbet sopher in Jg 5" (LXX B if fiajibif SnjYqffCiiis ypafiuanu^, AV ' the pen of the writer,' RVm ' the stall' of the scribe ' ; but IIV ' the m.arshal's statV) finds a reference to writing in what is universally admitted to be a very ancient document. It is not until much later, however, that indubitable evidence of Hebrew writing is found. The earliest extant specimens are on the bowU of Baal Lebanon (see Alphabet, vol. i. p. 73), the earliest of which may date from c. 1000 B.C., and the Moa/nte Stone, erected by Me.siia, king of Moab, about 850 B.C., to com niemorate his o^vn revolt against Jehoram. This
WRITING
WRITING
9-19
In written in a dialect scarcely diflfering from Hebrew, and in the ancient Hebrew characters, which were a development from the original I'hoe- nician alphabet (Alphabet ; for facsimile see MoAU). It is followed by the Silonm inscription, attributed to the reign of Hezekiah (c. 700 B.C.) or Manasseh (c. 650 B.C.), the characters of which are a modification of those on the Moabite Stone. Somewhat later still, probably, are the inscriptions on the iar-handles found by Dr. Bliss at Tell ej- Judeiden, which are assigned approximately to 650-500 B.C. {PEFSt, 1900, pp. '2u7, 341).
Of actual Hebrew writing in the old characters we have no remains, since our earliest extant MSS belong to a period lung after the adoption of the square characters ; but their appearance may be learnt from the MS.S of the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch, the Samaritans having retained the ancient alphabet when the Jews abandoned it, after the Captivity, in favour of the Aranuuan characters, which ^epre^ented a dirt'erent line of descent from the original Phoenician alphabet.
which were to be used in the services of the syna- gogue. These must always be leather rolls, not in modern book form ; and they must be written with the most scrupulous care.