This is the Rosetta stone. The top of the stone is written in Egyptian hieroglyphics, the middle is written in demotic, and the last part is written in Ancient Greek. All three of the languages on the stone say the same thing which enabled people to translate the Epyptian hieroglyphics. Heiroglyphics is one of the oldest forms of written rhetoric using images to tell a story. The Egyptians were the first ones to use symbols to make a written sentence back in 3400 bc. You could say that the Egyptians were the first ones to make a written form of rhetoric. Which we now use daily as a form of communication.
I have always found Egyptian hieroglyphs interesting. I think that we can see people use symbols still today as well through emoji , and maps and even writing itself.
The stone is a tax amnesty, but I also agree that rhetoric could have started with the Egyptian. Vico believed that ancient philosophers used rhetoric to make sense of things through the use of imagination, metaphors, and comparison. Since Vico had the support of twentieth century rhetoricians, I can definitely believe that Egyptians may have been the first rhetoricians.
This visual or graphic form of communication reminds me of Dr. Ayers talk yesterday in which he argued that we “read” history differently if it is represented not in words, but in pictures that reflect the entire landscape on a moment in time, not just a singular event decontextualized. His point raises questions for me about the limits of text as a form of communication. I’m curious why you pick this artifact in particular? –COL McDonald
I believe there were other forms of written language before the Egyptians, such as, cuneiform or the ancient Sumerian language.
Evidence that language was communicated through symbols goes back to times as early as the Stone Age. I definitely agree that hieroglyphics were a major foundation of rhetoric and probably one of the first widely known/ studied by a majority of civilized people, though.
I think it is really interesting to think about how rhetoric has evolved over time. The Egyptians used hieroglyphs as a type of picture/symbol to communicate (kind of like we do today with Pictionary, except back then each glyph had a definite and agreed upon meaning), with each picture/symbol translating to one meaning. But today one word can have thousands of different meanings. I wonder if Egyptians ran into the same problems writers have today where a reader interprets the work differently than was intended.
I agree with Andrew in that the hieroglyphics are very interesting and that that people are still using pictures to communicate whether it be anything from emojis to road signs.
I like how the Rosetta Stone made communication possible for people that were from two separate backgrounds. It also shows for communication to occur across separate communities there has to be a common ground.
I like how the Rosetta Stone was used to allow communication across separate communities from past to present. It also goes on to show that for that communication to occur there must be some common ground.
It’s interesting to see when and how written rhetoric began, and then notice how it changed over time. Oral rhetoric, for example, is almost impossible to point out when it began
I believe that this is one of the best forms of communication.
It’s an interesting thought to consider the process by which each translation was made. I imagine that it took a lot of patience and detail-oriented minds. The process of translation today can be as simple as opening your computer and typing a word you need to know for your spanish class. People had to work slowly and diligently for the stone to be effective.
I think this is a good example about how rhetoric can be limited by language or forms of communication. Since I think rhetoric can be described as your ability to communicate what you’re thinking, this is a good example of how the better you are at communicating, the better rhetorician you might be.