Busacca Gallery

Made for European Victorian writing and drawing. A Superb Antique Edwardian Solid Silver Inkstand/Inkwell. This is a Superb Edwardian cut glass inkwell with a hinged solid silver lidWhich seats on to fine solid silver standBoth are hallmarked forLondon, date letter g/h, for 1902/3Maker "Charles Stuart Harris"Retail mark for Silver dealer " Lowe Chester" which is still running/open todayConditionIn very good condition with just a couple of very small nibbles to the glass high points on one corner, hardly noticeableThis item will be very securely wrapped & boxed when shipped. Size / Stand is approx 9.5cm square Complete weight approx 216 grams

The cuneiform script is the earliest known form of written expression. Created by the Sumerians from ca. 3000 BC (with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium Uruk IV period), cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs. Over time, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract. Cuneiforms were written on clay tablets, on which symbols were drawn with a blunt reed for a stylus. The impressions left by the stylus were wedge shaped, thus giving rise to the name cuneiform ("wedge shaped"). The Sumerian script was adapted for the writing of the Akkadian, Elamite, Hittite (and Luwian), Hurrian (and Urartian) languages, and it inspired the Old Persian and Ugaritic national alphabets. The cuneiform writing system originated perhaps around 3000 BC in Sumer; its latest surviving use is dated to 75 AD. The cuneiform script underwent considerable changes over a period of more than two millennia. Originally, pictograms were drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with a pen made from a sharpened reed stylus, or incised in stone. This early style lacked the characteristic wedge-shape of the strokes. Certain signs to indicate names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc., are known as "determinants", and were the Sumerian signs of the terms in question, added as a guide for the reader. Proper names continued to be usually written in purely "ideographic" fashion. From about 2900 BC, many pictographs began to lose their original function, and a given sign could have various meanings depending on context. The sign inventory was reduced from some 1,500 signs to some 600 signs, and writing became increasingly phonological. Determinative signs were re-introduced to avoid ambiguity. This process is directly parallel to, and possibly not independent of, the development of Egyptian hieroglyphic orthography.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkwell

An inkwell is a small jar or container, often made of glass, porcelain, silver, brass, or pewter, used for holding ink in a place convenient for the person who is writing. The artist or writer dips the brush, quill, or dip pen into the inkwell as needed or uses the inkwell as the source for filling the reservoir of a fountain pen. An inkwell usually has a lid to prevent contamination, evaporation, accidental spillage, and excessive exposure to air. A type known as the travelling inkwell was fitted with a secure, screw lid so a traveller could carry a supply of ink in their luggage without the risk of leakage.