History of the Pen: Difference between revisions

[[File:PaintedCaveArtCA.jpg|thumb|left|Cave paintings]]

At the start, with absolutely no technology whatsoever, pens were probably just an idea, but employed on simple items (rocks, sticks, etc.). Early mankind probably scraped rocks onto other rocks, or sticks onto rocks in an attempt to draw/write, or maybe even just for the fun of it. Cave paintings, a discovery just found recently, were paintings in caves (hence the name). Even though they seem simple to the average person, the sight of cave paintings is quite astounding. How so? Knowing cavemen actually had the technology and effort to create colorful and illustrative paintings on the walls of caves is something mind-blowing.

 

 

A small advancement was made to the early writing utensil in 1300 B.C., when the Romans developed a metal stylus (which were used for writing on wax tables). The metal stylus was thoroughly defined here: “''An iron instrument (Ov. Met. IX.521; Martial, XIV.21), resembling a pencil in size and shape, used for writing upon waxed tablets (Plaut. Bacch. IV.4.63; Plin. H.N. XXXIV.14). At one end it was sharpened to a point for scratching the characters upon the wax (Quintil. i.1 §27), while the other end being flat and circular served to render the surface of the tablets smooth again, and so to obliterate what had been written. Thus, vertere stilum means to erase, and hence to correct, as in the well-known precept saepe stilum vertas (Hor. Sat. 1.10.72; Cic. Verr. II.41)''”. In Asia (in the same year), scribes used bronze stylus.