The hidden language of graphic signs : cryptic writing and meaningful marks / edited by John Bodel, Brown University, Stephen Houston, Brown University.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Bodel, John P., 1957- editor.

Houston, Stephen D., editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Writing--History.

Writing.

Inscriptions--History.

Inscriptions.

Signs and symbols--History.

Signs and symbols.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 320 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Summary:

A common belief is that systems of writing are committed to transparency and precise records of sound. The target is the language behind such marks. Readers, not viewers, matter most, and the most effective graphs largely record sound, not meaning. But what if embellishments mattered deeply - if hidden writing, slow to produce, slow to read, played as enduring a role as more accessible graphs? What if meaningful marks did service alongside records of spoken language? This book, a compilation of essays by global authorities on these subjects, zeroes in on hidden writing and alternative systems of graphic notation. Essays by leading scholars explore forms of writing that, by their formal intricacy, deflect attention from language. The volume also examines graphs that target meaning directly, without passing through the filter of words and the medium of sound. The many examples here testify to human ingenuity and future possibilities for exploring enriched graphic communication.

Contents:

Buried and camouflaged writing in early China / Haicheng Wang

Dazzled and absorbed : delayed reading in altered Egyptian hieroglyphic writing / Andréas Stauder

Impossible unities : full-figure glyphs among the Maya / Stephen Houston

Inscribe and de-scribe/cipher and de-cipher : a pious phrase in medieval Byzantium and Islam / Scott Redford

Script, pseudoscript, and pseudo-pseudoscript in the work of Filippo Lippi / Benjamin C. Tilghman

Numerals as letters : Ludic language in chronographic writing / Stephen Chrisomalis

Marking and writing in an Egyptian workmen's community / Ben Haring

The semiotics of signa and the significance of signs in Roman stamps / John Bodel

Late antique and early medieval monograms (c. 300-900) : from producers' marks to liminal graphic devices / Ildar Garipzanov

Crests and familial identity in medieval Japan / David Spafford

Where credit's due : making marks and counting labor in the Andes / Howard Tsai

From modeling to destruction : cyclicity and multi-sensoriality in learning catechisms in the Bolivian highlands / Bérénice Gaillemin.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 23 Aug 2021).

ISBN:

1-108-88265-X

1-108-88650-7