The Phoenicians

The Power of  Words

"and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." (John 1:14)

When I came across this- about words,  I remembered along this vein about the origin of the alphabet. During my time, there was a textbook, The Modern Times and the Living Past and Prose and Poetry. Later these were taken out of the curriculum which I don't know the reason why.

The Modern Times and the Living Past talked about the "Phoenicians, the greatest traders of antiquity that brought the greatest gift to the Greeks which was the alphabet of 22 letters, and also invented money the currency system (which is still the basis of our monetary system). Meanwhile, the Greeks took over and elaborated it to 26 letters, and later the Romans took it over from the Greeks".

"So from the alphabet came the words that were written in ancient Babylon around 3100 B.C. done on clay tablets which were not most portable of formats for written literature. However, the Egyptians made a leap forward with the papyrus, thin sheets made from the papyrus plant. Knowledge could be preserved on scrolls which is easier to transport, but still bulky. Paper itself was invented in China around the end of the first century A.D. but didn't reach Europe until after the fall of the Roman empire."

"While at the same time paper was being invented in China, the Romans invented the codex. For the first time, sheets of uniform size were bound together along one edge, in between two larger, stronger protective covers.

The invention of the book enabled much easier the sharing of complex ideas, including everything from Christianity to annals about emperors." ( Jim Duducu, author of The Romans in 100 Facts)