Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/45

 The Story of Egypt 21 receive an unpleasant visit from the chieftain, demanding instant payment. These were the earliest taxes. Such transactions led to scratching a number of strokes on the mud wall of the peasant's hut, indicating the number of measures of grain he had paid. At length a rude picture of the basket grain-measure was also scratched there, to make it clear to what the strokes referred. In this and many other ways the peasant's dealings with his neighbors or with the chieftain led him to make picture records (Fig. 12), and these are the earliest writing known. Gradually each picture which he em- ployed came to have a fixed form, and each picture always indicated the same word. Let us imagine for convenience that " Egyptian " contained the English word "leaf." It would be written thus: %;. The Egyptian would in course of time come to look upon the leaf as the sign for the syllable " leaf," wherever it might occur. By the same process |^ might become the sign for the syllable " bee " wherever found. Having thus a means of writing the syllables " bee " and " leaf," the next step was to put them together thus, ^ %^, and they would together represent the word " belief." Notice, how- ever, that in the word " belief " the sign ^ has ceased to suggest the idea of a bee but only the syllable " be." That is to say, ^ has become a phonetic sign. Fig. 12. Example OF THE EarLIEST- KnowxNt Egyptian Writing Interpretation — above, the falcon (symbol of a king) leading a hu- man head by a cord ; behind the head, six lotus leaves (each the sign for 1000) grow- ing out of the ground to which the head is attached; below, a sin- gle-barbed harpoon head and a little rec- tangle (the sign -of a lake). The whole tells the picture story that the falcon king led captive six thousand men of the land of the Harpoon Lake In this way early man could write many names of things of which you cannot make a picture. It is impossible to make a picture of " belief," as you can of a jar or a knife.