Man is a social being, he always wanted to communicate and transmit information not only to his immediate environment - here and now, but also at a distance and in time. In fact, all the inventions of the past in the aforementioned sphere, be it Indian Wampums or Egyptian papyri, pursued the same goal.
Mysteries of hieroglyphs
The transfer of information using a variety of subjects, with which mankind began to communicate, was not particularly perfect, since the interpretation of mysterious “premises” often left much to be desired. An important step towards the creation of writing is the invention of hieroglyphs.
Today it is well known which civilization belongs to the
honor of this invention, on which the Egyptians wrote, and how the beginning of a new thought stood out on papyrus, but when scientists first saw the mysterious badges on the walls of ancient temples and scrolls, they found a good reason to use their abilities.
European writing has a direct bearing on spoken language. Each letter means sound - you can pronounce it. The ancient Egyptians clearly did not seek to simplify the complex. Hieroglyphs could mean whole words, syllables, and sounds (moreover, vowels were not taken into account at all). To learn writing, it was necessary to show remarkable ingenuity and patience, therefore there was nothing to dream of universal literacy in Ancient Egypt.
Understand the ancient egyptians
In order to understand how the beginning of a new thought stood out on papyrus, it was necessary to first decipher at least a certain number of hieroglyphs, but nobody succeeded. Assumptions multiplied, some guesses were later even confirmed (for example, that the proper names were surrounded by an oval frame), but all efforts were lost in vain.
In 1799, a soldier of the Napoleonic army found a stone in a small Egyptian settlement, later named Rosetta (after the village). On it were inscriptions in Greek and Egyptian languages - this was the key to decoding. True, genius was also required for the final victory over the “Egyptian letter”.
Is the red line an Egyptian invention?
In the end, as a result of painstaking hard work, the brilliant French linguist J.F. Champollion conquered the secret of hieroglyphs. He not only managed to read what was written, but even penetrated the secrets of ancient Egyptian grammar. After that, it was no longer difficult to understand how the beginning of a new thought stood out on papyrus.
Each Egyptian clerk had a special pencil case for writing instruments, equipped with black and red paint, which, in fact, was used to designate a phrase that was new in meaning. I must say that in the ancient Slavic texts such a tradition also exists - hence the name “from the red line” came from. And the ancestors themselves thought of it or just someone liked how the beginning of a new thought stood out on papyrus, and he spread this custom in a certain direction - we will never know.