Ancient Media

Simply put, the media are the ways in which we communicate ideas. Whether you believe in creationism or evolution, the media date back to the dawn of mankind. Humans have always needed ways to share our thoughts and ideas, and things we consider the media are the ways people throughout history have come up with to impart these messages on others. Prior to Gutenberg’s printing press, various media were used to communicate ideas within a group or culture—there was not really one medium that was widespread among all societies. Rather three main categories of media developed: auditory, visual, and written. Each historic community fashioned an amalgam of the three that was unique to them based on their mythology, values, traditions, and style of innovation. However the reasons varied, many of the acts themselves were of the same nature.

Auditory media are not just the languages we speak. Music, in the form of both singing and instruments, has been around since before the invention of written language. It is believed that the first musical instrument, the human voice, mimicked spoken patterns in a more rhythmical fashion—we can never know for sure because this dates back to before writing so we have no surviving records to verify this. Aside from the voice, flutes and pipes were made from animal bones, reeds, and wood. Tunes would have special meanings so that a particular song could tell a village that hunters caught a big kill, that a baby was born, whether a battle was successful or disastrous, or other important news. Some tribes also believed that music was a medium to help them communicate with their god(s) or a spirit.

Visual media include every way people have tried to communicate information thatis understood by looking at it—simply messages we see. These media range from drawings to smoke signals, flags to fireworks. Some of the most interesting visual media to me are tattoos and piercings. In many ancient societies, earrings were used as a rite of passage to show whether someone was considered a boy or a man, a girl or a woman. Piercings could also indicate such things as fertility, as in nose rings traditionally worn by Indian Hindu women, or status as in the size of jewelry worn in the septum of some tribes in Alaska, New Guinea, and Central America. In China, tattooing the character for “prisoner” on a criminal’s or slave’s face was a common practice from 1045 B.C. until the 17^th century. Other cultures used tattoos to show accomplishments or a societal rank or class. Some tribes also used tattoos to indicate a warrior, with more extensive tattoos on more fierce or accomplished warriors.

Obviously written media includes written languages. This does not mean just alphabetic writing like we use today; it includes languages like Egyptian hieroglyphics that use pictures to indicate words, ideas, or phonetic sounds. The earliest language we are aware of is Sumerian cuneiform which dates back to around 3000 B.C. Cuneiform was a system of pictographs that included around 1,000 different characters early in its existence, but decreased to around 300 by around 1 A.D. The Phoenician alphabet, which is eventually what caused the decline of cuneiform by 2 A.D., was developed around 1000 B.C and used symbols to depict individual letters (no vowels) instead of words or sounds like cuneiform. Written media also includes the ways in which these languages were written—ie what they were written on, what they were written with, how they were used, and how they were circulated. This category thus includes carrier pigeons, Chinese bone writing, scrolls, and different mail systems throughout history.

Many people today often think that the media are just news stations, advertising companies, and the like, but the media are vastly more extensive. The media include any possible way we can transmit ideas to other people. Even such simple things as religions can be considered media because they convey a set of values a society deems respectable. Most people today do not give enough thought to the media and never notice that they influence our thoughts and behaviors.