How Calligraphy originated.

 

Writing was first developed in ancient Egypt where hieroglyphics (pictures) evolved into symbols. In ancient Egypt, most people did not know how to write at all, much less write beautifully.

Writing started out as signs and symbols. The earliest evidence of such writing dates to cavemen of 3500 BC. Their writing system was of pictograms. The pictograms also turned into ideograms - for example the moon might mean "night" too. At about 3000 BC, hieroglyphics were sacred carved writings.

Then phonograms, symbols representing sounds like a, b, c were invented. At almost 1500 BC, 24 phonograms were found written together side-by-side. People then started inscribing their writing in stone, clay or wood. The reed brush came into use. It contained liquid ink. People started writing on a thin flexible fabric called papyrus. The Greeks wrote on papyrus, skins and wax tablets. Wax was pretty common. A correction could be made easily by rubbing the previous inscription away. Then the Romans took the Greek and Italian alphabets, revised some letters, and developed different styles and scripts.

A while later, the monks started writing. The slanted pen was introduced, and it eliminated broad turns in the lettering. Even more scripts were developed. "The flowing, looped and elaborate forms of script were written without lifting the pen." (pg. 54 Johnston, Edward) People in Germany started to use the Gothic style of writing. Then printing started and replaced copying documents by hand. Today, people are using computers for their daily writing.