In Egypt nothing was done without writing. Scribes were employed on all occasions, whether to settle public or private questions, and no bargain of any consequence was made without the voucher of a written document' (Wilkinson, vol. i. p. 183). On a tomb said to have been built about the time the Pyramids were erected, is seen the representa tion of a steward giving, an account of the number of his master's flocks and herds (vol. iv. p. 130. The scribes and stewards, who were employed in domestic suits, conveyancing,, and farming, could not have used the sacred characters for then- affairs, nor could they have been understood by the people generally if they had ; it may therefore be con cluded that the enchorial writing was that in popular practice.
Pliny is in error in saying that papyrus was not used for paper before the time of Alexander the Great, for papyri of the most remote Pharaonic period are found with the sante mode of writing as that of the age of Cheops (Wilkinson, vol. iii. p. 15o). A papyrus now in Europe, of the date of Cheops, establishes the early use of written docu ments, and the antiquity of paper made of the byblus, long before the time of Abraham (Ancient Egypt.
p. 13). As papyrus was expensive, few documents of that material are found, and these are generally rituals, sales of estates, and official papers (papyrus was used until about the 7th century of our era). A soldier's leave of absence has been discovered written upon a piece of broken earthenware.
No 'one can dispute the extreme antiquity of Egypt as a nation, nor that, at the tirne of Moses, its inhabitants were in a state of advanced civilis ation. From the researches of travellers and hiero glyphists in late years, it is proved beyond doubt that many of the hieroglyphical inscriptions were written before the exodus of the Hebrews, and that writing must therefore have been in use at or before that period ; but it yet remains to he said from whence the art was derived.
The earliest and surest data' (respecting al phabetical language) are found in the genuine pakeographical monuments of the Phoenicians.' Amongst the most ancient coins yet known is one supposed to be B. C. 394' [ALPHABET] ; but these ancient specimens of engraving or writing prove nothing as to the or2;:rin of the thing itself. It is possible that written characters can be traced no higher than from a Phcenician stock, for they were the immediate posterity of Noah's family. The
argument here stated, as to the credible supposition that writing was given with language, is not at all invalidated by gems or coins which exhibit the oldest or most primitive form of written characters known.
The Hindoos and Chinese profess to have had amongst them the art of writing from time imme morial ; but although they cannot establish the truth of their endless chronologies, yet it is highly probable that they have been acquainted with that mode of communicating and transmitting ideas from remote ages. Eight Chinese bottles have been found in different tombs at Thebes ; on five of them is written the same inscription, The flower opens, and lo ! another year.' In China writing is still symbolical, there being So,000 characters, to which there are 214 radical keys.
Letters are generally allowed to have been intro duced into Europe from Phoenicia, and to have been brought from thence by Cadmus into Greece, about fifteen centuries before Christ, which time coincides with the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty ; but whilst none may deny such to have been the origin of European alphabetical characters, it does not prove the Phoenicians to have been the inventors of writing. That people occupied Phoenicia in very early times after the Deluge, and if the patriarch and his sons possessed the knowledge of letters, their posterity would doubtless preserve the re membrance and practice of such an invaluable bequest, which would be conveyed by their colonists into Greece and Africa. In the New World it was found that the Peruvians had no system of writing, whilst the Mexicans had made great advances in hieroglyphical paintings.
The Aztecs, who preceded the Mexicans, had attained much proficiency in the art, such as was adequate to the wants of a people in an imperfect state of civilisation. By means of it were recorded all their laws, and even their regulations for do mestic economy ; their tribute rolls, specifying the imposts of the various towns ; their mythology, rituals, and calendars, and their political annals carried back to a period long before the foundation of the city. They digested a complete system of chronology, and could specify with accuracy the dates of the most important events in their history, the year being inscribed on the margin against the Particular circumstances recorded' (Prescott's Con quest of Mexico, i. SS).