From hieroglyphics to emojis: Behrend course explores ancient writing systems

ERIE, Pa. — As Leigh-Ann Bedal, associate professor of anthropology at Penn State Behrend, handed each of her students a bamboo brush, she instructed them to hold it perpendicular to the rice paper at their desks.

The characters the students would write required vertical precision, with each stroke flowing from shoulder and wrist, rather than the fingertips. But when the students touched their ink-filled brushes to the paper, they instinctively pinched the bristles like a pencil.

The struggle to adjust quickly became the lesson.

This kind of hands-on experience defines Bedal’s “Writing Systems of the World” class at Behrend. The honors course begins with picture-writing, pressed into clay tablets by ancient Mesopotamian scribes, and ends with a presentation on emojis and digital communication. Along the way, students discover something unexpected: a profound connection between themselves and the inventors of the world’s first writing systems.

“Most students have never given the Latin alphabet they read and write every day much thought,” Bedal said. “They’ve never learned its origin or history, nor that an alphabet is only one kind of writing system.”

By the time students complete the course, which is offered at Behrend every two to three years, they have physically inhabited the experiences of ancient scribes, working with the same materials and confronting the same challenges.

Learning by doing

Bedal’s students don’t just study ancient writing ― they recreate it. Students press wooden styli into clay, brush ink onto rice paper and paint hieroglyphs on papyrus.

“I believe it is always more effective to learn by doing,” Bedal said.

There’s a deeper reason she structures the course this way. Ancient cultures used materials from their natural environment when creating their scripts ― clay in Mesopotamia, papyrus in Egypt, rice paper in China ― and those materials directly shaped how the scripts developed, she said. Working with different, time-tested materials gives students a tactile sense of the challenges ancient scribes faced.

When students work with a clay tablet, Bedal said, they quickly discover that size, thickness and hardness matter. A scribe holds the tablet firmly in one hand, which limits both its size and the amount of text it can contain. Drawing with a pointed stick creates ragged lines ― something Mesopotamian scribes solved by pressing the stylus at an angle, forming small wedges that made up the script.

Ink on papyrus and rice paper reveals a striking contrast. These materials allow for fluid shapes and identifiable pictographs, demonstrating how the medium shapes the message in the most literal sense.

“Students better understand how ancient scribes needed to invent signs that were simple enough to compose documents in a timely manner, but distinct enough to convey a variety of information,” Bedal said.

Old skills, modern insights

The course begins with cave paintings, as an example of visual communication, and covers 10 different scripts and number systems. It ends with modern digital communication and emojis, bringing students back to present-day systems.

For many scripts, students learn to write their own names ― something familiar that helps them compare vastly different systems. The assignment seems simple until the students attempt it: Bedal has noticed that they often try to write too small, making their signs illegible.

“It’s hard for some to approach learning a new script as a kindergartner does ― big, clear, legible letters,” she said.

When students complete their first cuneiform table or hieroglyphic text, Bedal said, she sees something she treasures: pride in their accomplishment. That pride emerges from recognizing a tangible connection with ancient peoples who faced the same challenge to communicate ideas clearly and effectively.

“By learning to write ancient scripts and confronting the challenges of making signs legible, students gain a new respect for the care, skill and thought behind all writing systems — including their own — and come to appreciate modern writing and digital communication as part of a long, creative tradition of visual expression,” she said.