Search Results: Travel writing reference books

Writing is generally agreed to be among the greatest inventions in human history, perhaps the greatest invention, since it made history possible. Subscribe for regular science videos: http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe You can read more about...

Maya glyphs aren't just Mesoamerican eye candy. They're a working writing system! Unlike the thousands of logograms encountered in your journey so far, the Maya syllabary lets you combine a very limited number of syllables into a block...

Writing in runes isn't a simple one-to-one conversion of one letter to one rune. This video shows how Old Norse was written using the runes of the Younger Futhark, and then looks at examples of real inscriptions from the Viking Age. Contents...

The Egyptian hieroglyphic script was one of the writing systems used by ancient Egyptians to represent their language. Because of their pictorial elegance, Herodotus and other important Greeks believed that Egyptian hieroglyphs were something...

Your vowels were invented in Greece, giving birth to the first "true" alphabet. Watch as your new toga-clad friend turns your consonant abjad into a consonant-vowel alphabet. It's such a useful mapping of letters to sounds that neighbor...

Calligraphy established itself as the most important ancient Chinese art form alongside painting, first coming to the fore during the Han dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE). All educated men and some court women were expected to be proficient at...

Lucius Flavius Arrianus, commonly known as Arrian (86 - c. 160 CE) was a Greek historian, philosopher, and statesman from Nicomedia, capital of the Roman province of Bithynia. Arrian is recognized as one of the most renowned authors of the...

Not a syllabary. Not quite an alphabet. Totally Indian. Watch Ashoka discuss his land's exotic script and tell you his plans for this unique alphasyllabary. This episode traces the invention of the Indic alphasyllabary, the parent of so...

The Hymn to Nisaba (c. 3rd millennium BCE) is a poem praising Nisaba, the Sumerian goddess of writing and accounts who also served as scribe of the gods. The poem is officially dedicated to Enki, the god of wisdom (sometimes given as her...

Ancient Egyptian literature comprises a wide array of narrative and poetic forms including inscriptions on tombs, stele, obelisks, and temples; myths, stories, and legends; religious writings; philosophical works; wisdom literature; autobiographies...