caves. ‘Then, too, we find coloured pebbles, dated by historians
to just before the Neolithic age, on which are markings that are
clearly not accidental, and these symbols are regarded as being the
fore-runners of the later alphabets of the east.

It is rather interesting to learn that many of our trivial and.
very modern habits can be traced back to these ancient forefathers
of ours—for example, the custom of tying a knot in a handkerchief
to remind us that something has to be done. We find that this was
a very common means in ancient days of recording facts, or even
dates. When a messenger was sent from one place to another, with
so many instructions to be carried, a knot to represent each instruc-
tion was tied on a cord, and the messenger used the knots on his
cord to remind him of each message. He couldn’t write, and so had
to depend entirely on his memory. Beads were used in the same way
until fairly recently, by the American Indians. The beads were
strung on to a belt and used as amnemonic exactly like a rosary.
All this shows the need felt by mankind for a means of expres-
sion—to communicate with absent people—to mark articles owned
by certain people—for reference to past events, etc. In fact it shows
the need for a written language—and the written language came.
The Egyptian hieroglyphics or picture-writings are the first
real writings of which we know. The term “‘hieroglyphics’’ is
used to describe the sacred characters of the ancient language of the
Egyptians in its classical phase. They were really composed of the
drawings of birds, animals or other objects, then they came to
denote not only the article represented, but the subsequent idea these
called forth.

From the Egyptian hieroglyphics to the first alphabet of the
Phoenicians is a period of which we know very little, but in the
time of the Phoenicians ‘‘the alphabet’’ was born which has unsealed
the lips of our fingers and allowed us to learn of past ages or to talk
to legions yet unborn. The Greeks developed this alphabet—the
Romans perfected it, and our present alphabet of to-day is the same
as that used by the Romans in the first and second centuries A.D.
Nothing finer has ever been accomplished than the beautiful letter-
ing to be found on the Trajan Column—built in 114 A.D. to
commemorate the victories of the Emperor Trajan in Dacia—this
column still stands intact in Rome.
From this period until printing was invented in the 15th cen-
tury was the scribes’ time of glory, when whole Bibles were written
by hand, and exquisitely illuminated on parchment and vellum.
These Bibles were written and decorated by the monks and
nuns of European monastries where individual styles and schools
were founded.

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