The first written documents were found in Mesopotamia. Sumerian clay tablets were covered with pictograms. They were the prototype of the later Babylonian cuneiform writing. For almost 2000 years, tablets were the only medium of information until in ancient Egypt they learned how to process papyrus.
Format of old scrolls
In ancient times, the location of the text depended on the content. To write literary works, horizontal scrolls were used. The text was grouped into columns. The height ranged from 20 to 40 cm, and the length could reach several meters. The narrowest scrolls were used to write verses.
Documents had a vertical orientation. On ancient engravings, one can see heralds with a scroll in their right hand, who hold the lower edge with their left and read out an important decree. Information was recorded in solid text without paragraphs. Finding the right piece was extremely difficult.
The papyrus was very expensive, and its area was used irrationally - the reverse side of the scrolls remained empty. The ancient publishers came up with the idea of cutting papyrus into pieces and connecting them with a binding. The cover was usually made of leather. Prototypes of modern books were called codes. In fact, it was a collection of several separate documents in one cover. Despite the apparent convenience, codes were not as widespread as scrolls. Papyrus broke when turning pages. The book acquired a modern look only in the early Middle Ages, when parchment was invented.
Scrolls were made not only from papyrus. In India, banana leaves were used, in ancient Russia - birch bark. The most famous of the old scrolls is the Book of the Dead and Thor. It is worth telling more about them.
Book of the dead
A masterpiece of ancient Egyptian writing is kept in museums around the world. Ancient papyruses were found during excavations of temples in Thebes - the religious center of the empire of the pharaohs. According to historians, the book was created several centuries.
This fundamental treatise describes burial rituals. Earlier fragments contain only prayers, but later vivid illustrations and discussions on the topic of morality appear.
Torah: a sacred text on the skin
In 2013, the oldest records of the Pentateuch of Moses were discovered in the storerooms of the University of Bologna. By mistake, the employee for a long time the artifact was attributed to the XVII century. Radiocarbon analysis showed that the document is at least 850 years old. A photo of an old scroll appeared on the pages of newspapers around the world.
Ancient manuscript made of sheep skin. The scroll is 36 meters long. Sacred texts are written in Hebrew columns. In speech turns there are words that refer to the ancient Babylonian period. Some fragments have been banned since the 12th century.
From ancient Sumerians to the present day, the form of books has undergone significant changes. The knowledge stored in the huge library of Ashurbanipal today fits on one removable medium. But the importance of written monuments can hardly be overestimated: they allow us to trace the development of human thought from the archaic era to the era of digital information.