Book History Flashcards
symbols in the Indus Valley Script used on seals at Harappa and Mohenjodaro in India and Pakistan
c.3500–1900 BCE
thousands of clay tablets impressed with cuneiform in southern Mesopotamian cities such as Uruk and, later, Babylon; earliest hiero- glyphic inscriptions, on Egyptian grave goods
c.3200 BCE
earliest surviving blank papyrus rolls in Egypt
c.3000
earliest known surviving inscribed papyrus scrolls and wooden writ-
ing boards in Egypt
c.2600
scrolls created from animal skins in Egypt; earliest known Chinese writing, on pottery and bronze containers
c.2500
waxed wooden writing boards used in Mesopotamia
c.2100
alphabets, simplifying hieroglyphs, incised on rocks in quarries in
Sinai desert
c.1800 BCE
writing on clay (Linear A and hieroglyphs) adopted in Crete; cunei- form tablets used across the Middle East, from Cyprus to Iran
c.1600 BCE
Vedas, Hinduism’s most sacred texts, composed in India
c.1500–1000 BCE
writing on clay tablets with writing in Linear B in Crete
c.1400 BCE
earliest surviving Chinese divination books on tortoiseshell from the city of Anyang; indirect evidence for bamboo strip books
c.1200 BCE
Olmec and Zapotec writing systems developed in Mesoamerica
c.900 BCE
presumed adoption of papyrus in Greece
c.690 BCE
letters and legal documents in Old Hebrew on leather and papyrus
c.670 BCE
Ashurbanipal’s library in Nineveh, Assyria
c.650
first writing on silk in China
c.650 BCE
Sanskrit Ramayana epic created
c.500–100 BCE
widespread use of alphabetic Aramaic on leather and papyrus across the Achaemenid Persian empire
c.500 BCE
earliest surviving bamboo and wooden strip books in China
c.450 BCE
composition of the Sanskrit Mahabharata, the world’s longest epic poem
c.400 BCE–400 CE
earliest surviving Indian and Sinhalese potsherds bearing Brahmi inscriptions
c.400 BCE
earliest surviving papyrus roll from Greece
c.340 BCE
creation of the Hebrew and Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls
c.300 BCE–150 CE
foundation of the Library of Alexandria in Egypt
c.300 BCE
invention of a South Asian writing system dated to the reign of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka and inspired by the promotion of Buddhism
268–232 BCE
birch-bark and palm-leaf books used in South Asia
c.200 BCE
increased use in China of pieces of silk for writing, partly replacing
bamboo
c.150 BCE
earliest known surviving fragments of paper (from the Han capital
Chang’an (Xi’an, China)
c.140–87 BCE
Libertas Temple in Rome hosted the first public library
39 CE
earliest known dated document from Roman Britain, a writing board
from London
57 CE
