What I learned on the first day of History of Graphic Design is mostly about language and who were the ones who first used language to communicate with others. In class, we learned about petroglyphs, rock carvings that I would believe cavemen used millions of years ago. Then another interesting thing we learned about pictograph which was pictures drawn of objects, for example like emoji’s we use today are pictographs to communicate with others by phone for texting.
I remember learning about language used thousands of years ago in every global history class. Listening to these languages again, reminded me so much of middle school. I got a refresher about the Mesopotamia era. In Mesopotamia, there were civilians called Sumerians. The Sumerians were known for creating their written language called Cuneiform. They created it, so Sumerians can have a way to remember and keep in touch records such as birthdays, names, etc. Data like that were written and recorded clay tablets with a pencil-like stylus. Once you finished writing down information the clay tablets were left out in the sun to dry so they can be permanent. People who wrote on clay tablets were called scribes.
Another written form of language was from Ancient Egypt. Egypt was known for their pictographic like language called hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphics were carved inside the walls inside pyramids and each hieroglyphic had its very own meaning and told stories. One part of hieroglyphics that I really liked was mostly about the book of the dead. The Book of the Dead was written on a scroll called a papyrus. The book was written to explain Egypt’s mummification process. I really enjoyed about learning about Egypt because of their process of preserving the body once it’s dead. You remove almost all the organs except the heart. You even put the organs in special mummy jars to preserve them.
Another thing I like about Egypt’s Book of the dead was that it was also a guide or I’d like to call a cheat sheet on how to be a good person in order to go into heaven or into the Afterlife to be with your loved ones. It’s a long process. Once you become a spirit you go into a boat that would carry you down the river of the Underworld. Then you go through a bunch of tasks and meet with different gods and guards. At the end, your heart is measured with a scale, and if your heart is lighter than the feather, you go into the afterlife to see your loved ones and ancestors.
Lastly, I learned about the Rosetta stone. I heard of the Rosetta stone because of commercials. Rosetta Stone in my view was a DVD and cd set of learning any sort of language such as English, Spanish, Chinese, etc. But, from what I learned in class the Rosetta stone was literally an actual stone which contained writing on it in two different languages. I really enjoyed learning more in languages and pictographs on my first day of class.
