History of books

The history of books starts with the development of writing, and various other inventions such as paper and printing, and continues through to the modern day business of book printing. The earliest history of books actually predates what would conventionally be called "books" today and begins with tablets, scrolls, and sheets of Papyrus. Then hand-bound, expensive, and elaborate books, called codices, appeared. These gave way to press-printed volumes and eventually lead to the mass printed tomes prevalent today. Contemporary books may even have no physical presence with the advent of the e-book.

Clay tablets were used in Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC. The calamus, an instrument in the form of a triangle, was used to make characters in moist clay. The tablets were fired to dry them out. At Nineveh, 22,000 tablets were found, dating from the 7th century BC; this was the archive and library of the kings of Assyria, who had workshops of copyists and conservationists at their disposal. This presupposes a degree of organization with respect to books, consideration given to conservation, classification, etc. Tablets were used right up until the 19th century in various parts of the world, including Germany, Chile, Philippines and the Saharan Desert.

After extracting the marrow from the stems, a series of steps (humidification, pressing, drying, gluing, and cutting), produced media of variable quality, the best being used for sacred writing. In Ancient Egypt, papyrus was used for writing maybe as early as from First Dynasty, but first evidence is from the account books of King Neferirkare Kakai of the Fifth Dynasty (about 2400 BC). A calamus, the stem of a reed sharpened to a point, or bird feathers were used for writing. The script of Egyptian scribes was called hieratic, or sacerdotal writing; it is not hieroglyphic, but a simplified form more adapted to manuscript writing (hieroglyphs usually being engraved or painted).

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