The Painting of the Voice – handbook

The Archaeological Museum
of Campi Flegrei
narrates the history of writing.

Where did this writing, based on a phonetic alphabet, come from when it landed 2800 years ago on the Cumanean shores, brought as a dowry by the populations arriving from Greece? What social, cultural and political effects did this innovation have on local communities? What happened afterwards? Where did the letters brought from the Island of Euboea spread to and under what guise? Voltaire suggests viewing writing as the painting of the voice. If the letters of an alphabet can be imagined as the colours of a palette – arranged and harmonically shaped into a linguistic and mental figuration – this exhibition uses the artefacts on display to illustrate the story of one of our most incisive “cultural inventions”.