OLDEST FORMS OF MEDIA

Oldest Forms of Media

Media: Communication by publication or broadcast

Noun

Announcement…communications…correspondence…expression…news…

List of TEN Older forms of Media that I found interesting: 

1)      Cave Drawings – circa 3300 BC –mainly Europe

2)      Sumerian/Cuneiform – circa 2000 BC - Modern Iraq

3)      Hieroglyphics -circa 2900 BC – Egypt

4)      Chinese characters/Hanzi – circa 1400 BC - China

5)      Aramaic – circa 800 BC – Central/East Asia

6)      Greek alphabet –circa  800  BC – Greece

7)      Homing Pigeons – circa 776 BC – Egypt

8)      Mayan Script – circa 300 BC – Guatemala

9)       Smoke Signals –circa 200 BC - China

10)   Gutenberg Press – circa 1450 AD – Europe

Now I will go more in depth on 3 of these different forms of Media…

Cave Drawings:

There have been about 350 cave that have been discovered in France and Spain, which have prehistoric art called Cave Drawings/Paintings. These painting have been dated by methods of sampling the pigments and torch marks on the cave walls. The different styles of painting help indicate the time period also, for example, in the Spanish cave of Cueva da las Monedas, there are paintings of reindeer which reference from during the last Ice Age. The oldest known cave are is in Chauvet, which is in France. These cave paintings date back to about 33,00 BC.

Mayan Script:

Mayan Script is personally one of my favorite ancient forms of media, I remember learning about this writing when I was in 5^th grade at Hermantown upper Elementary School- BEST CLASS EVER! The earliest forms of Mayan Script dates back to 300 BC, and lasted until about 300 AD. Most of their script, or hyierogliphics were created on stone or ceramic. The intricate symbols and script are designed in perfect squares, and took centuries for scientist to decode. In the 1950s the code was cracked and we are now able to better understand the 1,000s of different signs. The Mayans were very observant and intelligent, their writing told of future and historical events in astronomy, calendars, and prophecies.

Gutenberg Press:

The Gutenberg Press was a printing press the revolutionized the way media was expressed and copied. The Printing Press was a device that had inked stamps that could be transferred on to some form of paper, this process made it possible to print precisely and rapidly.