The characters we think of as lower case were starting to take familiar forms around the 3rd century, but they were just the handwritten form of the language. One set of letters with clear sharp lines that can be worked into stone, and another with curves that can be quickly handwritten.
Re:Uppestcase and Lowestcase Letters
by thaumasiotes on Friday April 02, 2021 @01:29AM
(#26669213)
> One set of letters with clear sharp lines that can be worked into stone
This was never a goal; look at B ϴ O P Φ Ψ Ω, or on the Latin end C G Q R S.
Inscriptions are very formal; you carve the letters you have no matter what they look like. There was never any difficulty carving curves.
Handwriting is informal; you write whatever you find easiest.
The way we write modern text is more modern than most people realize, I think. The letter 'j' wasn't really used as a separate letter indicating a separate sound until sometime around the 16th century I think! Case is older, but not ancient. I've seen some Greek on 3rd/4th century middle eastern ruins and I struggle to read the "all upper case with no spaces" writing sometimes, but that's just how it was! No "lower case" until much later...