STYLUS -- What is a stylus?

A stylus is a pointed tool used primarily as a writing instrument. In Mesopotamia between 3300-3000 B.C. the people of Sumer developed "the earliest known system of writing" (Stokstad 66). Sumerians fashioned writing instruments from reeds with one end hewn to a point and, by about 2500-2400 B.C., the other end carved into a triangle roughly the shape of a wedge. People wrote by making cuneiform (literally "wedge-shaped") marks in clay, which was then dried to preserve the text (Spielvogel 14). Ancient people also used wooden styli to write on wax and other impressionable materials. Many museums with ancient artifacts have cuneiform tablets or fragments. Click here for a sample on display at the British Museum.

We are still using styli today. Rather than a mouse and keyboard, for example, the common modern handheld computer has a slender plastic pointed stick—still called a stylus—with which to point, select, and write. Blind people can use a stylus to write in Braille by hand. Most of us are familiar with styli in the form of pens and pencils.

Works Consulted

"Perspectives 7."  M. C. Carlos Museum. Office of Educational
       Programs.  Emory University. Apr. 1997.
       <http://www.emory.edu/CARLOS/teacher07.html>.

Spielvogel, Jackson J. Western Civilization. Vol. 1: To 1715. 3rd ed.         New York: West Publishing Company, 1997.

Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. Vol. 1. New York: Prentice Hall and
       Harry N. Abrams, 1995.