Secrets of the Rosetta Stone

Movie Rating: ★★★★☆

The movie Secrets of the Rosetta Stone provided intriguing historical background about the origin of the Rosetta Stone, the significance of such a profound tablet, and the countries that sought to cracking the code inscribed upon it. Napoleon Bonaparte, from France, sailed to Egypt with both soldiers and scholars in hopes of learning more about the Egyptian culture. During their time in Egypt, a few soldiers stationed in Rosetta  happened to discover the tablet later known to be called the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone had three different types of inscriptions: Greek, Egyptian heiroglyphics, and Demonic. However, the British had also come to Egypt and demanded that they keep the stone for themselves upon seeing it’s great importance. On February of 1802, the Rosetta Stone was shipped to Britain.

There were many attempts to translate the many different languages that were inscribed on the stone. Although the Greek language was easy to translate, it was difficult for scholars to translate the other two languages. However, the first to make some sense of the stone was Thomas Young. The first word ever translated on the Rosetta Stone was Pto la Mee. What Young discovered was that some of the names of Egypt’s prominenet leaders were depicted on the stone. In order to find out more clues, Young hoped to travel to Egypt but died while in Paris, France. Still to this day, many researchers aspire to find out more about the Rosetta Stone.

History of Photography ~ 4th Century – Present

Daguerreotype Image

 

Calotype Image

 

Wet Collodion Process Image

 

Dry Plate Process Image

 

First Photograph of a Human

The Daguerreotype process was invented by Louis Daguerre. The advantages of this process were that images could be made directly positive and permanent by immersing them in salt. However, some disadvantages of this process were that is was expensive and images could not be duplicated. The Calotype process was invented by William Fox Talbot. The advantage of this process was that it produced negatives, allowing images to be duplicated. However, the quality of the images were inferior to those of the Daguerreotype process. The Wet Collodion Process was invented by Frederick Scott Archer. The advantages of this process were that the process was faster with reduced exposure time, and the cost was significantly less than previous processes. The disadvantages of this process were that the glass plates used had to be exposed and developed immediately while they were still wet. The Dry Plate Process was invented by Richard Maddox. The advantage of this process was that gelatin was used instead of glass for the photographic plate. However, photography was still too complicated for the general public.

Robert Cornelius is credited with taking the first photograph of a human. Photo emulsion is a light-sensitive colloid, such as gelatin, coated in a substrate. George Eastman named his company Kodak because he liked the letter “k” and wanted a name that could not be misspelled or mispronounced. Polaroids were created by Edward Land. The process involved using polaroid light filters and creating instant photography by using move dyes from negative to positive.

The Linotype Machine ~ 19th Century

Shole’s Typewriter

 

Mergenthaler’s Linotype Machine

Operator Using Linotype

The typewriter is an important part of our history because it allowed type to be created at a much more rapid pace than in earlier years. Plus, more pages included type were used. Typesetting is the composition of text materials by means of type. It allowed the usage of storing fonts and lettering in order to be reused. The Linotype was the greatest advancement since moveable type because it allowed type to be set mechanically rather than by hand, and it revolutionized typesetting. The Linotype keyboard differs from the one that we use today because there were only 90 characters, there was no shift key, and the arrangment of keys was based on letter frequency.

The Gutenberg Press ~ 1450

Gutenberg Press

 

Movable Type

 

Offset Lithography

The Gutenberg Printing Press used different techniques in order to create prints. Ink was rolled over the raised surface of moveable hand-set block letters held within a wooden form. The form was then pressed against a sheet of paper. The press was develped from the technology of the screw-type for pressing grapes and olive seeds. Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document.

Porous printing is a basic stencil process where an image carrier is attached to a screen and ink is forced through open mesh areas. An example of this process is screen printing. The intaglio printing process involves an image area being sketched into a plate surface to hold the ink. The ink is applied, damp paper is placed on top, and the press applies pressure to transfer the ink to the paper. Lithography a drawing or artwork being made on a plate with greasy ink or a crayon, then applying water. When the ink is spread on top, the greasy parts accept the ink while the wet parts do not.

Compared to the Gutenberg Press, the printing processes used today are much more effective. There are many different types of new technologies that aid in the printing process, such as copy machines, instead of having to spend hours and much effort to make prints. CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black; during the CMYK printing process, these four colors are printed on top of one another to create a picture.

The Codex and the Illuminated Manuscript ~ 1st Century AD

Scroll

 

Codex

 

Illuminated Manuscript

The Codex is a covered and bound collection of hand written pages. In early years, the pages of the codex were made out of papyrus, thus giving the codex the Latin meaning “block of wood” due to the abundant quantities of pages included. Some advantages that the codex had over the scroll were compactness, sturdiness and ease of reference, random access and sequential access. Random access means that one can go to any point to find information while sequential access means one must go through the scroll to find a certain passage. The difference between the codex and the illuminated manuscript was that illuminated manuscripts included illustrations as well as other adornments included in each page of text. Craftsmanship is the many steps involved in creating a product and is important because the better the craftsmanship and amount of time put into the creation of the product, the better the overall result will be upon completion. The format of the codex gained so much popularity because of the use of parchment to replace papyrus pages, the durability, and the binding resulting in the format still being used to this day. Examples of the codex format can be found in dictionaries, the Bible, and textbooks.

Creation of the Phonetic Alphabet ~ 1050 BC

Phoenician Alphabet

 

Greek Alphabet

 

Roman Alphabet

The Phonetic Alphabet was successful because its simplicity allowed it to be used in multiple languages, it allowed common people to learn how to write, and the alphabet was spread into parts of north Africa and Europe due to the trading culture of Phoenician merchants. The “social structure” of a civilization refers to the pattern of social relationships in a society and states the standings of people throughout society. The Roman alphabet is the most widely used because it provided several different styles of lettering used for different purposes. The contributions that the Roman alphabet made were the origination of serifs, the institution of the baseline in typography and penmanship, and ensuring the type was perfectly aligned in rows. Although the three different alphabets (Phoenician, Greek, Roman) derived certain characteristics from one another, there were apparent differences. The Phoenician alphabet was a fairly simple one that used consonants to represent letters. The Greek alphabet adapted many of the consonants found in the Phoenician alphabet into vowels as well as adding additional letters. The Roman alphabet refined different styles to be used for different purposes, and adapted lowercase letters overtime. Lowercase, or minuscule letters are derived from the Greek, Latin, Cyrillic, and Armenian alphabets during the 3rd century in Greece.

Hieroglyphics and the Egyptians ~ 3000 BC

Hieroglyphics in a Tomb

 

Hieroglyphics in a Temple

 

Hieroglyphics on Papyrus

A scribe is a person who writes books or documents as a profession and helps keep track of the city’s records. Demotic script is the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic. This script was used as early as 650 BC in legal, administrative, and commercial documents. Chisels and hammers were used to impress the hieroglyphics into the walls of Egyptian temples. In order to write on papyrus, Egyptian scribes used ground up plants (for the powder) mixed with another liquid for the pigment and a brush holder. The Rosetta Stone was an important because it allowed people to learn a great deal about the ancient Egyptians and Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Cuneiform and The Sumerians ~ 3000 BC

Early Cuneiform

 

Evolved Cuneiform

 

Akkadian Cuneiform

Although the three cuneiforms have similar symbols and styles, the difference in technique and amount present greatly differs. The early Sumerian cuneiforms use basic symbols (and very few) to communicate, whereas the evolved cuneiform uses more intricate symbols as well as a greater amount. Lastly, the evolved cuneiform uses the most symbols as well as a drastic decrease in the size of them so as to fit more on the tablet.

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A nomadic civilization is one where groups of people move from one place to another instead of remaining in one location for a long period of time. The Sumerians created cuneiform in order to keep track of business transactions. The Sumerians used clay tablets as writing surfaces. They wet the clay, formed it into a flat surface, then used a wedge shaped stylus made from reeds to make impressions into the clay surface. They tablets were then laid out in the sun in order for them to dry and harden. A pictograph is a picture used to represent the meaning of a physical object. The difference between a pictograph and an ideogram is that a pictograph uses a picture while an ideogram use a character.

Cave Paintings ~ 30,000 BCE

Lascaux Cave Painting

 

Altamira Cave Painting

 

Chauvet Cave Painting

Cave paintings are beautiful, detailed and color representations found on the inside of cave walls and ceilings. Brushes were made by putting together sticks, small stones, leaves, and animal hair; the paint for the paintings was created by mixing water, plant juice, animal blood, soil, charcoal, and hematite (a form of iron oxide). Archeologists and historians believe prehistoric man created cave paintings to tell a story or recount an event that already happened, as an instructional visual and to help teach about hunting techniques, as well as for magical and religious reasons that if an image of a desired event were painted, it might come true. Speleology is the scientific study of caves.