Alpha Beta
How 26 Letters Shaped the Western World
Chapter One
THE TROUBLE
WITH PICTURES
In the fifteenth century, when a few philosophers
began to wonder about the mysteries left by
ancient peoples in the Nile valley, the idea arose
that the pictures on Egyptian tombs were the
purest form of communication. It was an odd notion,
given that no one had a clue what they meant, but it was
based on what classical authors had written centuries
before, and that had the smack of authority. So it was
assumed that in these pictures, Nature herself had been
captured in a mystic code, and would address the elevated
soul in her own pure tones, without the necessity
for anything as base as script which, like language,
reflected mere babble, in its biblical sense — the confusion
imposed by God on mankind by the destruction of the
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