Moreover, the appearance of writing in Egypt was not so sudden an event as it is often represented. The buff-coloured pottery of predynastic times, with its red line decoration, proves that the Eygptian had a natural faculty for drawing men, animals, plants, boats and conventional designs. In these picture-drawings of the predynastic period we may see the basis of the hieroglyphic system of writing, for in them the use of symbolism is already developed. The employment of fetish emblems, or symbols, to represent the different gods,[8] is in itself a rough form of ideographic expression, and, if developed along its own lines, would naturally lead to the invention of a regular ideographic form of writing. There is little doubt that this process is what actually took place. The first impetus may have been given by the necessity for marks of private ownership, and by the need for conveying authority from the chief to his subordinates at a distance. Symbols for the names of rulers and of places would thus soon be added to those for the gods, and when a need was felt to commemorate some victory or great achievement of the king, such symbols would naturally be used in combination. This process may be traced on the earlier monuments of the First Dynasty, the records on which are still practically ideographic in character. A very similar process doubtless led to the invention of the cuneiform system, and there is no need to assume that either Egypt or Babylonia was indebted to the other country for her knowledge of writing.