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Harold Adams Innis
Published by Good Press, 2022
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Writing on stone was characterized by straightness or circularity of line, rectangularity of form and an upright position, whereas writing on papyrus permitted cursive forms suited to rapid writing. ‘When hieroglyphs were chiselled on stone monuments they were very carefully formed and decorative in character. When written on wood or papyrus they became simpler and more rounded in form.... The cursive or hieratic style was still more hastily written, slurring over or abbreviating and running together ... they ceased to resemble pictures and became script.’[27] ‘By escaping from the heavy medium of stone’ thought gained lightness. ‘All the circumstances arouse interest, observation, reflection.’[28] A marked increase in writing by hand was accompanied by secularization of writing, thought, and activity. The social revolution between the Old and the New Kingdom was marked by a flow of eloquence and a displacement of religious by secular literature.
Writing had been restricted to governmental, fiscal, magical, and religious purposes. With increase in use of papyrus, simplification of hieroglyphic script into hieratic characters in response to the demands of a quicker cursive hand, and growth of writing and reading, administration became more efficient. Scribes and officials charged with the collection and administration of reserves and of rents and tributes from the peasants became members of an organized civil service, and prepared accounts intelligible to their colleagues and to an earthly god, their supreme master. After 2000 B.C. the central administration employed an army of scribes, and literacy was valued as a stepping-stone to prosperity and social rank. Scribes became a restricted class and writing a privileged profession. ‘The scribe comes to sit among the members of the assemblies ... no scribe fails to eat the victuals of the king's house.’[29] ‘Put writing in your heart that you may protect yourself from hard labour of any kind and be a magistrate of high repute. The scribe is released from manual tasks.’[30] ‘But the scribe, he directeth the work of all men. For him there are no taxes, for he payeth tribute in writing, and there are no dues for him.’[31]
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