Ballpen, Kala Bakra

Writing Implements, manual devices used to make alphanumeric marks on or in a surface. Peculiar to inscription is the removal of part of a surface to record such marks. The writing tool is usually controlled by movement of the fingers, hand, wrist, and arm of the writer. The development of writing implements in the West has been determined by the interplay of the demand and skills of the writer and the writing materials available.

Writing found on ancient Greek pottery was done with a small round brush, and early Greek letters were incised on stone with a metal chisel driven by a mallet. Neither form of Greek writing shows any variation in the thickness of the lines of individual letters; the Romans, using broad-edged tools, introduced variations in the width of alphabetic marks.

The rise and spread of Christianity increased the demand for permanent written religious documents. As the size of writing became smaller, both writing tools and surfaces changed. Vellum or parchment books replaced the papyrus roll, and the quill replaced the reed pen. Although quill pens can be made from the outer wing feathers of any bird, those of goose, swan, crow, and (later) turkey, were preferred. The earliest reference (6th century ad) to quill pens was made by the Spanish theologian St. Isidore of Seville, and this tool was the principal writing implement for nearly 1300 years.

The ink was waterproof and almost unerasable; the pen could write on many kinds of surfaces and could be held in almost any position for writing, and the pressure required to feed the ink was ideal for making carbon copies.

It was ideally suited to the strokes of Japanese writing, which is traditionally done with a pointed ink brush. Unlike its predecessors, the fiber-tip pen uses dye as a writing fluid.

One of the most popular tools for ephemeral writing is the pencil. Pencil marks, unlike those made by writing implements using fluids, can be easily erased. Although commonly called lead pencils, they do not contain any of that metal but are composed of a mixture of graphite (a form of carbon) and clay (see Carbon; Graphite).