The Pen :: Essays Papers

The Pen Mortality is a fact of life for everyone and has been since Creation. As humans, we have the intelligence to realize and understand this because we possess the ability to reason and to learn. This ability, when combined with the presence of Life that keeps us in existence, beckons us to secure the future in some way and for some reason(s). We need not only the chance at life beyond our own which comes with the birth of our children, but also to leave our own names, our own ideas and beliefs secured onto something more solid than the spoken word yet not as heavy as stone tablets. In the arid, desert climates this came in the form of parchment . In locations with more water and vegetation, it came from the papyrus plant. But in either climate, something was needed to stain the language onto this new device. That something was the first pen. The Dawn of Pen-kind As early as 2,800 years before Christ, the pen was beginning to appear as a writing implement in the world. Its first form was that of a dried reed, its tip cut at an angle so to create a line of ink instead of a blot. To write with it, simply dip the cut tip of the reed into an ink supply, then gently press the dipped tip against the paper . This was a simple means of writing that required raw materials ample in the environment. The degree of technology it used can be seen as only slightly higher than the scientific concept of the sharpened wedge (blade) used to cut an angle on the reed tip. The small effort needed to build a pen was far less than that of the ink needed. Nature grew the reed, humans merely plucked it from the ground and sliced off its bottom tip. During this period of Antiquity, the Egyptians had also constructed the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx. By no means was the pen as physically large and complex a creation as the wonders of the world, which were constructed with the sole purpose of being the final resting-place of the Pharaoh. However, the reed pen had a much more profound, a much greater effect on the world and the path our present-day history took. There are no records to indicate any one person or group as the inventors of the pen.