During this conference, Gérald d’Andiran, pneumologist and former teacher, makes us aware of the sources and the beauty of the invention that marks most civilizations.

The end of Prehistory is marked by a cognitive revolution that results in a better expression of thought through speech: two of the conditions for the development of writing are materialized in the elaboration of paintings and signs. Then urbanization and social hierarchization resulting from sedentarization and agriculture are accompanied by a central power and uses that require writing. It was invented before our era in Sumer (3300 BC) and Egypt (3200 BC), before appearing in Elam, the Indus, Crete, Anatolia, China, India and Central America. In the 15th century, the Voynich manuscript inaugurated the enigma of the undeciphered scriptures.

Biography
Gérald d’Andiran, a pneumologist and former teacher, is General Secretary of the Medical Society and President of the Association of Friends of the Martin Bodmer Foundation (BKW). With the history of writing, he makes us aware of the sources and the beauty of the invention that marks most civilizations. He has spoken several times on this theme, and is preparing another, devoted to the perception of the body through the ages, at the invitation of the Museum of Fine Arts in Lausanne. Curator of “La médecine ancienne, du corps aux étoiles” (FMB, 2010-2011) whose catalogue has been entered, among others, in the Biblio-thèque de l’Institut (Paris) and the Countway Library of Medicine (Boston), He was a guest of the RSR (“Babylon”, “Histoire vivante”) and France Culture (“Avec ou sans rendez-vous”), and a guide-lecturer at the exhibitions “Wagner, l’opéra hors de soi” (BKW, 2013-2014) and “Alexandrie la Divine” (BKW, 2014).

Conference in French