few manuscripts of any northwest Semitic language remain
from before the Common Era (although inscriptions in stone
survived). Hebrew developed its own version of the alpha-
betic script and used it to write the Hebrew Bible (the Old
Testament). Th e Hebrew language, script, and biblical texts
became important factors in forming and maintaining Jew-
ish identity.ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
BY KIRK H. BEETZ
Writing in Asia and the Pacifi c seems to have developed and
evolved to answer specifi c needs of societies. For example,
the ancient Australians did not develop a writing system but
painted rocks with images of their history and religious be-
liefs. Similarly, the Chinese of the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1500–
ca. 1045 b.c.e.) used pictures to represent words. Although
the pictorial lexicon of the ancient Australians could be in-
terpreted only by people specially acquainted with them, it
seems to have been enough to satisfy the religious needs of
the ancient Australians. It was not enough for the Shang,
however, because their religious beliefs included the ability to
contact dead ancestors and ask them questions. Th ese ques-
tions had to be written down on animal bones or the shells
of turtles, which seers would transmit to the dead for their
answers. A seer would drill a hole in the bone or shell and
then touch a red-hot bronze pin to the hole, making the bone
or shell crack. Th ese cracks were the replies of the ancestors,
which the seer would read and then record in writing.
Religion was not the only motivation for developing a
written language. In the Harappan civilization (ca. 2600–ca.
1500 b.c.e.) of the Indus River valley, the creation of writ-
ing seems to have followed a path similar to that of the fi rst
written words of the Near East. Harappan writing is almost
universally associated with commerce, with most of it being
found on seals used to mark goods. As was probably the case
for the Near East, writing appears to have begun as symbols
representing goods and ownership of goods for trade. As
time passed, those symbols may have evolved into symbols
for words, which may have separated into symbols for syl-
lables and then symbols for spoken sounds. Harappan seals
were carved in tiny stones, usually soapstone, and they were
impressed into clay. Although about 2,000 seals have been
found, almost all in or near marketplaces, the words written
on them have yet to be translated.
About 5,000 characters for the Shang written language
have been found, with about 2,500 having so far been trans-
lated. Each Shang character represents a single word. Lin-
guists call the characters logographs. Th ey were not only
written on bones and turtle shells but also on bamboo and
wood. Th e writing implement was probably made of metal,
with a sharp edge used to incise the logographs.
During the Zhou Dynasty (ca. 1045–ca. 256 b.c.e.) the
Chinese written language became more complicated and
versatile. Characters represented things or ideas, and whennew things or ideas were to be expressed, the Chinese writers
combined two or more characters to form a new image. Char-
acters that represent things or ideas are called ideograms. Th e
Zhou favored writing on wood, bamboo, and silk. For writing
on wood and bamboo they used sharp writing implements.
Silk required new tools: brushes and ink. Silk was expensive,
but it was possible to write something long on silk and be able
to roll it up and store it. Th e oldest silk scroll found dates from
about 500 b.c.e.
It was during the brief Qin Dynasty (221–207 b.c.e.) that
Chinese writing took on its modern form. During the Zhou
Dynasty many languages were spoken in the empire, and in
various parts of the empire new ideograms were added to
Chinese writing to express words from the local languages.
Had this process been allowed to continue, written Chinese
probably would have split into several distinct and mutually
incompatible written languages. Th e Qin Dynasty pulled to-
gether all the diverse strands of writing that had developed
during the Zhou Dynasty, eliminated about 25 percent of the
ideograms, and created a standard script that the law required
to be used for all offi cial business. Th is script has undergone
little modifi cation since.
As a matter of political policy during the Han Dynasty
(202 b.c.e.–220 c.e.), government offi cials had to be schol-
ars. To assume a position in government, a person had to
read and write Chinese fl uently; it took about 10 years for
a student to learn enough ideograms to be fl uent. Every
scholar carried a writing toolkit—a wooden box containing
a brush, a knife, sticks of solid ink, and a mortar and pestle.
Ink was usually carbon made from soot, with pine soot being
the most common. Ink makers made sticks of ink that were
oft en works of art designed to remind the writer to do his
best because he was destroying a beautiful object to create a
written work. At the start of the Han Dynasty most brushes
were tipped with horsehair, but rabbit hair came to be fa-
vored during the middle of the era. When the writer wished
to erase writing on wood or bamboo, he used a knife to peel
away a layer from the wood. Th e wood or bamboo would be
prepared for writing by being dried and then cut into slats,
which were then stitched together by string or thongs so that
the slats could be wrapped around each other into a tube for
carrying. Calligraphy was considered an art as well as an im-
portant skill; the written work, even a simple one, was sup-
posed to be beautiful.
Less is known about the development and evolution of
writing in India than about the Chinese writing system. Th e
Indians did not have a single written language that remained
intact or changed slowly. Th ey had many. Until the 1830s
scholars thought that the history of India began at about 1200
c.e., because no readable government or historical records
survived from before the Muslim invasion. In 1837 a British
civil servant in India released a translation of writings found
on pillars. Th e written script is called Asoka Brahmi, aft er the
emperor who had the pillars erected. Since then archaeolo-
gists have searched for more such inscriptions.writing: Asia and the Pacific 11870895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1187 1187 10/10/07 2:31:23 PM