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In this era, the kitab-khana ("book house") was a term serving three definitions – first, it was a public library for the storing and preservation of the books; secondly, it also referred to an individual's own private collection of books; and thirdly to a workshop where books were made with calligraphers, bookbinders and papermakers worked together. [49]
- Etruscan Gold Book – c.600 BCE. Author: Unknown. Country of Origin: Bulgaria. Script: Etruscan. photo source: BBC News. Although not much is known about the Etruscan Gold Book, it is believed to be oldest book in the world as it dates back to around 600 BCE.
- Pyrgi Gold Tablets – c.500 BCE. Author: Thefarie Velianas, Kinng of Caere. Country of Origin: Pyrgi, Italy (modern-day Santa Severa) Script: Etruscan and Phoenician.
- Codex Sinaiticus (Sinai Bible) – c. 330 – 360 AD. Author: Copied by various scribes. Country of Origin: Sinai, Egypt. Script: Greek. photo source: Wikimedia Commons.
- Nag Hammadi Library – c. 3rd – 4th century AD. Author: Unknown (possibly Pachomian monks) Country of Origin: Nag Hammadi, Egypt. Script: Coptic. photo source: Wikimedia Commons.
- Spoken word and cave drawings. Before we had books, we had stories. Storytelling was a communal act: a retelling of daily life to teach a lesson, instil a warning or simply to entertain.
- Scrolls and "pages" The ancient Egyptians were the first society to use "pages", as such. They did this by weaving together stems of a papyrus plant, then flattening the woven stems by pounding them flat.
- The beginning of picture books. Around 600 AD, beautiful hand-sketched illustrations began appearing on parchment. These colourful, meticulously drawn pictures were called "illuminated manuscripts" and were wonderful to behold.
- The first ever books. Gradually, individual books, which were highly precious, were formed. Some of these books held highly important information or religious texts and others told glorious, wicked or wonderful stories.
The earliest surviving written literature is from ancient Mesopotamia. The Epic of Gilgamesh is often cited as the first great composition, although some shorter compositions have survived that are even earlier (notably the “Kesh Temple Hymn” and “The Instructions of Shuruppak”). Apart from its length, the Epic of Gilgamesh may be ...
Mar 20, 2024 · These scrolls, crafted from the papyrus plant, were used across ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. If you want to assign a specific number or year to the invention of books, it is mostly agreed upon that the first books were created around 500 BC, and they were handwritten scrolls. So, they certainly didn’t resemble today’s printed and ...
A Brief History of Books. Books have been a part of our daily lives since ancient times. They have been used for telling stories, archiving history, and sharing information about our world. Although the ways that books are made have evolved over time, whether handwritten, printed on pages, or digitized online, their need remains timeless.
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First Book in America, 1600 AD. When the Puritans arrived in the New World, within twenty years, they had a printing press brought over, and printed the first book in America, “The Bay Psalm,” in 1640AD. It contained the Book of Psalms from the Bible. To this day, only eleven copies of this book known to exist.
