4 ms·
Interesting how clear the original, pre-200BC ones are to read, and how they get less legible in the interim until modern times. Guess what's old is new again
by rkagerer 1y ago
Interesting how clear the original, pre-200BC ones are to read, and how they get less legible in the interim until modern times. Guess what's old is new again.
- raldi 1y agoThey went from chiseling stone to writing on parchment.
- t-3 1y agoProbably more that the artifacts with the most ancient handwriting have been destroyed by time and so all we have left are the chiseled and carved samples. Monuments designed for display are going to have very clear and legible text which is hard to misread so that everyone knows that the person who commissioned it was really awesome, while handwritten cursive often only needs to mostly legible to one reader.
- jhanschoo 1y agoThe Roman cursive is illegible to modern eyes, as is the archaic script. You may think that the archaic script would be legible once you learn the correspondence, but don't be fooled by their geometric simplicity; they possess a lot of variation in forms (still geometric due to their inscriptional nature) across time and space. Likewise, the modern lowercase letters are likely illegible to ancient Roman eyes. The inscriptional Roman styles have remained legible, because Italic typesetters and printers (see Renaissance Antiqua) have consciously revived the monumental forms for the capitals. (Contrast the ornate capitals of Fraktur, or of English Roundhand).
- WillAdams 1y agoFra. Edward Catich (whose minimally credited research was used by Carol Twombly to make Adobe's Trajan) wrote extensively on this, and how brush work influenced the roman letters.