Books Part I – Before the Printing Press Era
B1 – B2
Module 1
November 16
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SUMMARY
Here’s What
We Will Be
Learning:
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Books before the printing press era.
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Exercises
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VOCABULARY
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Cuneiform: Denoting or relating to the wedge-shaped characters used in
the ancient writing systems of Mesopotamia, Persia, and Ugarit, surviving
mainly on clay tablets.
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Hieroglyphic: A system of writing that uses pictures instead of words,
especially as used in ancient Egypt
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Chisel: A tool with a sharp flat edge at the end, used for shaping wood,
stone or metal.
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Hammer: A tool with a heavy metal head, mounted at right angles at the
end of a handle, used for jobs such as breaking things and driving in nails.
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Scribe: A person employed before printing was invented to make copies of
documents
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Stylus: An ancient writing implement, consisting of a small rod with a
pointed end for scratching letters on wax-covered tablets, and a blunt end
for obliterating them.
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Hellenistic: Relating to Greek history, language, and culture from the
death of Alexander the Great to the defeat of Cleopatra and Mark Antony
by Octavian in 31 BC.
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We begin with one of Dr. Seuss’s (author of some popular children’s books like
‘The Grinch Who Stole Christmas’ and ‘Horton Hears a Who’) famous quotes on
reading “The more that you READ, the more things you will know. The more
that you LEARN, the more places you'll go!”
However, have you ever wondered how and where reading has evolved from?
Do you ever ask yourself, how did people living in ancient times read?
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When writing systems were created in ancient civilizations, like
Mesopotamian and Sumerian around 5000 BC; a variety of objects, such
as stone, clay, tree bark, metal sheets, were used. At first the words were
not separated from each other and there was no punctuation.
Texts were written in cuneiform from right to left, left to right, or even
so that alternate lines read in opposite directions.
The Egyptians introduced ‘Hieroglyphic’ writing in 3000 BC which had
hundreds of symbols. A hieroglyph symbol represented a word, a sound or
even a silent letter.
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EXERCISES - PART I
Speak a Sentence on the following words:
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1)
Cuneiform
2)
Scribe
3)
Chisel
4)
Hammer
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CLAY OR WAX TABLETS: The most ancient forms of
writing and record-keeping were clay or wax tablets.
Symbols were carved by a chisel and hammer on the
clay tablets by special writers known as ‘scribes’.
The impressions of a writing instrument known as the A Mesopotamian clay tablet
‘stylus’.
with cuneiform symbols.
Ancient Egyptian papyrus scroll.
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SCROLLS: A little earlier than 2400 BC, Egyptians
started writing on papyrus scrolls. Papyrus plants
grow in abundance along the river Nile and the use
of papyrus bark to make writing scrolls has been
evident in history.
Papyrus is also the origin of a word we use
commonly today ‘paper’.
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Chinese Scroll: Towards the 10th and 9th
Century BC, scrolls were made from papyrus,
parchment and paper and were the dominant
form of book in the Hellenistic, Roman,
Chinese, Hebrew, and Macedonian cultures up
to the Christian Era (CE).
Ancient Chinese Scroll
CODEX: Around 300 AD, scrolls began to be gradually
replaced by ‘codices’ or in singular form ‘codex’. This has
been called the most important advance in book making
before the invention of printing. It was the first version of a
handwritten book.
Bamboo Codex
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MANUSCRIPT: The idea of reproducing handwritten documents into more than
one copy, took shape around the 9th Century AD. The earliest manuscripts were
all hand-written by people of the court, monks, priests and literary scholars.
Manuscripts were produced on papyrus, vellum, parchment, birch bark and
even palm leaves. Paper manuscripts became popular around the 14 th Century
and were introduced in Europe by China.
Birch bark manuscript found in
Veliky Novgorod, Russia
Palm leaf manuscript
from Nepal.
Armenian manuscript
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EXERCISES - PART II
November 16
1)
People from the ancient civilisations did not know how to read or write.
a) True
b) False
2)
The word ‘paper’ originated from which word?
a) Papyrus
b) Parchment
3)
The first hand-written ‘books’ were called manuscripts.
a) True
b) False
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