Write like an Egyptian (Book Review)

The New Criterion ^ | March 2022 | John Steele Gordon

[Covenantor]

Well don't the figurative cave paintings pre-date hieroglyphs?

And we still don't have a real clue what they really represent...just one human's urge to record beauty of what he saw; a catalogue of game to be found in the area, with hunters/spotters pointing to image to identify specific game seen; animist hoo-doo; mama's shopping list?

Were these concurrent with developing vocal languages? Imagine visting Og and having him point to an image, what would that convey? Umm pretty...umm me hungry...taste good, hard to kill, umm warm skin....or something else?

This photo clearly shows the human scale of those paintings which always puzzled me. See how high up they are and how wide the horned beast is... how did they get up there in the dark? Even with modern illumination it is frikkin dark.

[null and void]

YES!
But you need a large format 3D printer and good luck finding drivers.

Such printers exist.

Shouldn't be to hard to import a .pdf...

[Openurmind]

Lol... :)

[Flick Lives]

Those cave paints go way way back. Some are 40,000 years old. It is impressive how detailed and realistic some of the paintings are. And again there is a sophisticated level of abstraction to paint a representation of a 3-D object in 2-D. Makes one wonder what knowledge has been gained and lost over and over if man could create something that sophisticated so many tens of thousands of years ago. Interesting to contemplate.

[Covenantor]

nah...they weren't that big. Keep in mind they were hand held. Small budget 3D printer could do the job if it had the fine resolution.

Saw vid from Brish Museum and was surprised to see the size of a tablet in the curators hand.

Notice the penny for scale...and being used mainly for business transactions one now understands the need to read the fine print.

[null and void]

Laugh now. The patent draft is to the attorney finally.

[Covenantor]

Here'another one that's puzzling.

Was this just a guy saying "watch this!" And others saying "Way kewl, lemme try that."

Or the first political voting...all those who agree to move to greener warmer pastures vote on this wall. One hand print, one vote. "Throg you with dirty hand no vote again"

Heck ask any modern kid, they'll say it was a Rave back in the day.

So many questions.

[M Kehoe]

I’ve been walking like an Egyptian for years.

Walk like an Egyptian.

Ear worm.

5.56mm

[Openurmind]

I’m not sure it is quite accurate. I am going to throw some modern slang words at it later, and if it produces something I would be wary of it being accurate. lol

[JeanLM]

Sumerian script was older and deciphered with its own three language key tablet.

[lapsus calami]

 

 

Not just the why that fascinates me, but the HOW they did that. Looks just like someone put down their hand and turned loose with a can of Krylon spray paint. How the heck did they do that sort of spray painting, umpteen thousand years ago.

 

 

[scottiemom]

I loved this post! Looks like there is plenty of good reading on this site. As a former art history teacher I am especially pleased to know I can read and learn about an arts topic without the woke culture imposing it’s iron fist of ideology on it. Thanks for the enlightenment. The story of art IS the story of man.

[scottiemom]

Aren’t they wondetful! The artist has cleverly reduced the subjects to their simplest form and yet we are never confused about the creatures we are seeing. There is some thought that the artist,using a ladder holding a torch, actualy chewed pigment and charcoal then spit the blend on the cave walls. There is evidence from analysis of small samples that saliva was indeed used.

[Covenantor]

I've heard an explanation that suggested they used powdered ocher in the other hand and blew the powder onto the hand...but that doesn't explain why the powder remained in place all these thousand years

[ProtectOurFreedom]

How did they do that without spray paint?

[alexander_busek]

[...] but that doesn't explain why the powder remained in place all these thousand years

Because it didn't!

In fact, almost ALL of the powdered ochre has already long since fallen off! Only about 3% of the original powder remains! Which is more than sufficient to still see the handprints.

I friggin' hate questions containing implicit, unfounded assumptions!

And in case you're wondering how those 3% remained in place: Because these handprints are deep inside a friggin' cave!

Regards,

[alexander_busek]

How did they do that without spray paint?

I bet that you are capable of figuring that out on your own!

Failing that: Look it up on Wikipedia!

Regards,

[Scarlett156]

Thank you!

[Joe 6-pack]

"Fascinating how some languages developed as phonetic and others as symbolic."

Hangul (Korean) is a pretty neat blend of the two with each character intended to be a standardized representation of the position of the mouth when they character is spoken.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks ProtectOurFreedom.

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