Text From The Past

Written by: Ong Gek Xuen Elina (23-E3)

Designed by: Lee Chin Yi (23-E4)

You are probably reading this article on your phone. Pretty impressive. This device is a product of centuries of work, which all started with a single goal. Long distance communication. Before mobile phones, there were telephones. Before them were carrier pigeons. Even further back and you would find the crudest form of long distance communication. Hand delivered letters. Of course, there were several others that developed over the course of history, many of them having unique characteristics that catered to different groups and purposes. I hope to take you all with me as I explore some of the many ingenious methods our ancestors came up with, perhaps even leaving you intrigued afterwards.

The Ancient Speed Dial In emergencies, speed is key. But how did the ancients deliver urgent messages before the advent of technology? Through visual cues. The main signals they used were made with smoke or light. Smoke signals developed in various civilisations, independent of any outsider influence. This meant that depending on the community, the cues and corresponding messages would differ greatly. A warning signal in one community could be “It’s safe here!” in another! However, these smoke signals would have been barely visible come sundown. Their solution? Develop similar systems using light. They wielded fire in a similar way they did smoke signals, but some civilisations could use them to send more complex messages. These messages differed in the number of torches raised and how they were angled. Some sources also claim that mirrors may have been used to send messages in similar patterns and codes by reflecting light. Amazingly, even as these communities grew into cities and countries, these methods remained. Along the Great Wall of China, soldiers relayed smoke signals to alert others of invaders. In Ancient Greece, armies used fire beacons to signal to allied forces across battlefields. For quick simple messages, these methods were sufficient. But what if the sender wanted to give the recipient more information?

Where To Write? Let us look at the medium on which people wrote. You may be asking, “Didn’t they just use paper?” Of course they did. However, paper was a luxury in ancient civilisations, if it even existed at all in the time period. Instead, the first civilisations used to carve their messages and passages into clay tablets with reed styluses. This is what we know today as cuneiform, or “wedge-shaped”. If these messages had to be kept as records, they could be baked – like pottery! In some countries, they were carved into bones rather than clay because they were more readily available. Unfortunately, these mediums were not the most portable. They were thick and heavy, making it difficult to transport or store a large number of them at a time. That is not to say it was not possible, but it certainly was less efficient. The invention of papyrus and paper provided people with a much lighter load and a more convenient medium to store. Both were similar in texture, flexibility and even materials. While papyrus predated paper, it was eventually phased out as paper was much easier to produce. We have Cai Lun to thank for inventing it. It is said that this Chinese court official had mashed mulberry bark, hemp and rags with water, pressed this paste into sheets, then left them out to dry. And voila! We have paper! As civilisations grew, so did their roads and paths to other civilisations. Paper spread to other countries and thus became a widespread writing material. With a more versatile writing material, correspondence was made much easier. With a little bit of creativity, one of the most well known forms of mail came to be.

Pigeon Mail Domestication has been a common practice for centuries. One product of this is the carrier pigeon, also known as the messenger pigeon or mail pigeon. As the name suggests, this method of delivery makes use of the homing instincts of certain pigeon species. The bird most commonly used was the domesticated rock dove. Those pigeons that you always see gathered around bread crumbs? Rock doves! These birds were selectively bred for their homing abilities. Their remarkable navigational skills can be attributed to magnetoreception, the ability to sense the Earth’s magnetic field. Using this, they are able to orient themselves and find their way home to the recipient based on these magnetic fields. The letters sent were rolled then placed in a tubular container to be tied around the leg of the pigeon. Pigeon mail eliminated the risks of human interference, be it through interception of confidential letters or loss of personnel in dangerous deliveries. This practice dates all the way back to the 8th century BC or even earlier. It was so effective, it lasted up until the advent of electricity and technology. These birds were used during World War 1, earning them the name War pigeons. They were employed when other forms of electronic communication had broken down, with many pigeons delivering messages even as they were wounded. So what were these alternate forms of communication that worked alongside pigeons for a period of time?

Telegraphs - . .-.. . --. .-. .- .--. …. … With electricity, came telecommunications. The most widespread were the telegraph and the telephone. Invented in the 1830s, the common telegraph worked by sending electric pulses along a wire to a receiver, typically in the form of Morse code,  – which encoded letters in a series of dots and dashes. These telegrams sent messages between telegraph stations, where the message would be decoded then sent to the actual receiver by post. More commonly used letters were given shorter and simpler codes. In fact, the SOS signal is only named so because S and O’s had simple codes and were the most suitable to be used as an emergency help signal. “… --- …” is how the SOS signal would look on text! The first message ever, “What hath God wrought!” was sent through a telegraph between the inventors Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail. Telegraphs were revolutionary, as they encouraged further development to make communication more efficient. Some of these developments included making a single device for both sending and receiving, transmitting messages from several telegraphs along the same wire and even expanding its range by constructing wires across large distances. These developments were later translated over to telephones during their invention. 

As time went on, we built our innovations upon their predecessors, further developing them to get to our current technological landscape. What we have now would be considered witchcraft by our ancestors. Long distance communication is now incredibly convenient, so much so that a lot of us take it for granted. What if these systems suddenly broke down? Perhaps the older techniques could be used as we awaited their restoration. To use such methods in today’s modern era would surely introduce a sense of novelty to our lives. Though, in our everyday lives, we should appreciate the internet that we have painstakingly brought into our world.