Turning our attention to the Ancient Egyptian lands, we find logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements fused together to form their formal writing system, that of Hieroglyphs. Unfortunately, scholars have failed to decipher the Indus script and thus, the Harappans have remained silenced. In the realms of the Indus, depictions of animals and written symbols found themselves printed on seals made of steatite, tokens, ‘boards’ etc. With time, their system of writing ‘Cuneiform’ evolved to become complex and ‘phonetic-sized’. The scribes of Mesopotamia had mastered the use of stylus to be pressed into a wet clay tablet to produce wedge-shaped symbols. And to write on these new materials, ink, as we know it today, had to be invented.ĭuring the Bronze Age, the civilisations of Mesopotamia, Indus and Egypt had curated their own forms of writing. However, with time, the platform on which messages were to be permanently documented, were changed– we had to evolve from writing on rocks and caves to being able to make this means of communication both lighter as well as transportable, so that it could be used to keep records. These colours were the first type of ‘inks’, used to deliver messages, many of which still remain an enigma for us.

As they held twig-handles of brushes made of animal furs or semal (silk-cotton) and dipped them in the colours that they formed, they painted huge animals, realistic pots, stick-figures and abstractions, vivid and beautiful, on the rocks which became their canvas. Our prehistoric family, living near the Mesolithic rocks of Bhimbetka, used geru (iron oxide) to form red, limestone to paint in white and chalcedony to be used as green. One can perhaps suggest that the role of ink became pivotal the very moment there were ‘writings’ on the walls. The desire to communicate messages, ideas and stories through the means of visual depiction is a phenomenon, filled with the aroma of antiqueness.

India ink on canvas