... belief that, through politics, death as well as life could be carefully controlled. A similar connection between strong political structures and careful funeral arrangements developed in Chinese civilization, though with quite different specific religious beliefs.   Ideas And Art Despite some initial inspiration, Egyptian culture separated itself from Mesopotamia in a number of ways beyond politics and monument building. ... The Egyptians did not take to the Sumerian cuneiform alphabet and developed a hieroglyphic alphabet instead. Hieroglyphics, though more pictorial than Sumerian cune...

• Word Count: 2162
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... signified numbers and were the forerunners of cuneiform script. As pictographs developed into cuneiform scrip the foundations of a written language were created and civilizations would now be able to communicate with one another through symbolic representation. The cuneiform system of writing contained more than 700 different signs and was an abstract picture language. The abstract script was in the form of ... the verb "to speak". Some other examples of simplistic ideograms would be "the head of a bull stands for cattle, an ear of barley for barley" (Roaf 70). The meanings of pictures ...

• Word Count: 1388
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography