Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/31

r A Egyptian Civilization n town very near the spot where the modern city of Cairo lies. Menes founded the first dynasty, or family of kings, and after- wards the Egyptian dynasties rose and fell for over three thousand years, until finally a Greek conqueror, Alexander the Great, brought Egypt under his sway and founded the city of Alexandria (332 B.C.), which is now the chief port of Egypt ( 165, 168 ff). We cannot retrace here the history of Egypt's rulers through three thousand years and more or the conquests they made in Western Asia. We shall have to confine our PICTORIAL MESSAGE SCRATCHED account to the wonderful contnbu- ON WooD BY ALASKAN INDIANS tions made to civilization by the T- A - <-ni. j- j A figure with empty hands hang- Egyptians. Their discoveries and ing Lwn helplessly, palms down, inventions were finally introduced as an Indian gesture for uncer- intO Europe and now form a part tainty, ignorance, emptiness, or f j IT nothing, means "no." A figure of our everyday life. with ^' ne hand Qn itg mQ g uth 14. The Invention of Writing, means "eating" or "food." It The Egyptians were the first people P ints toward the tent, and this means "in the tent." The whole so far as we know to possess an ig a message stating> [There fa] alphabet and learn how to write. no food in the tent" No people could possibly advance very far in civilization without written records of any kind, or means of sending messages, or any books from which they could learn what others had found out. Reading and writing have be- come so common now that we find it hard to realize what the world would be like if the art of writing should suddenly disappear and there were no books, newspapers, magazines, or letters and no way of communicating with anyone except by word of mouth. The first step in the development of writing was the use of rude pictures such as the North American Indians employed ; for an event and even a kind of story can be told by drawings without any writing (see accompanying cut). All writing, whether it developed as it did first in Egypt or later in Babylonia and China, is derived from such pictures of things previously used to convey ideas.