Writing Material - Archaeology

Archaeology

Because drawing preceded writing, the first remains of writing materials are the stone walls of the caves on which the famous images were drawn. Another precursor were tally sticks used to record the count of objects or the passage of discrete units of time (days). Tally sticks have been found made of wood and of bone. Knotted ropes and similar materials were also used for tallies. Such materials did not take a great deal of preparation for their use for drawing or writing. Animal hides also had potential for use as a material for writing or drawing, although the drawings and writings may have been decorative or to convey status or religious meaning. Among the barks of trees, birch bark is very well suited for use as a writing material and was so used both in Northern Europe and among native peoples in North America.

Three other classes of material were sometimes used for writing: clay, wax, cloth, and metal. The value of metal for useful implements may have made it less than useful for practical writing and drawing. The very hardness of many metals that made them useful also made it an inconvenient material for many kinds of writing. But foils or sheets of soft metals like lead were usable. Lead sheets were used for curse tablets.

Cloth probably shared its mode of use with animal skins. Clay introduces the useful combination of extreme ease of making the inscription with the potential for rendering it fairly permanent. Unglazed pottery can readily accept inscription even after firing. Wax offers another novel combination of advantage: a reusable surface, easily inscribed and erased, and easy combination with materials like wood that give it durability. Stone tablets, clay and wooden writing tablets, and wax-covered wooden tablets are some of the first specialized configurations of materials in flat surfaces specifically for writing.

Unglazed pottery shards were used almost as a kind of scratch paper, as ostraka, for tax receipts and, in Athens, to record the individual nominations of Greek leaders for ostracism.

The archaeological record contains either examples of these materials used for drawing or writing or it has indirect indications of their use for writing, drawing, or tallying.