History of Writing

NOTES:

The Spread of Writing

Egypt: 3100 B.C. – records of history or propaganda

Writing was first used as a tool to suppress the lower classes

Phoenician (Syria) – first modern alphabet that spreads to Greece and then to Rome

Babylon: The Epic of Gilgamesh – 2100 B.C. (this Epic includes a story of the great flood, Gilgamesh in the underworld, the first idea of what a hero-warrior). Homer knew this Epic and adapted from it.

Greece: The Iliad
The Odysseus

Homer – 800 B.C.

Herodotus – Helen was never in Egypt
Pindar – Homer was born in Turkey

Alexander the Great – slept with the Iliad under his pillow and was inspired by it. He brought writing to much of the world. He spread books to Arabic countries. Hellenistic Age.

ROME: The Aeneid – Virgil 29 – 19 B.C.

Aeneas refers back to the Iliad

120 A.D. Rome has conquered Gaul (France), Spain, England and most of the Mediterranean into Asia and Africa. Rome spreads learning and writing.

400 A.D. Rome leaves Great Britain

476 A.D. The Roman Empire ends and thus begins the Medieval Ages

300-500 A.D. Conchobhar King

900 A.D. Beowulf is written down in Old English thus beginning English lit

1100-1400 A.D. Icelandic Sagas written down

1300-1400 A.D. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Canterbury Tales

1485 Le Morte D’Arthur