Manuscript books are so-called from the Latin words manu scripti, meaning “written by hand,” and the initials of these two Latin words are frequently used for the word manuscript, i.e., “MS.”
The materials upon which books were written have at various times been clay, stone, wood, lead, skin, papyrus and paper.
ASSYRIAN CLAY TABLET
Showing the cuneiform (arrow-shaped) writing
Looking back six thousand years to the beginning of recorded time we find the Chaldeans (Babylonians and Assyrians) writing arrow-shaped characters with a sharp tri-pointed instrument upon damp clay, which was then made permanent by baking. In 1845 a library of baked clay tablets was discovered among the ruins of Nineveh. Thousands of these tablets have been collected in the British Museum, the most interesting of which is one which had been broken in eighteen pieces, containing an account of the Flood.
Twenty-five hundred years before the Christian era, when the great pyramids were being built, the Egyptians wrote upon papyrus, a plant growing on the banks of the Nile. The inner portion of the plant was stripped, the strips laid across each other, pressed and dried. The squares of material thus made were then joined together to form a long strip which was rolled around a rod.
Upon papyrus is written one of the oldest “books” in the world, “The Book of the Dead,” now in the British Museum. This is a literary work of a semi-sacred character, and copies were placed in the tombs with deceased Egyptians, whence its name. A reproduction of a portion of this book is given on page three.
Supposedly under the patronage of the Egyptian ruler, Rameses II., about thirteen hundred years before Christ, many books on religion, law, medicine and other subjects were written, and a great library was accumulated.
The Chinese wrote with a stylus or brush upon tablets of bamboo fiber. It is impossible accurately to determine the antiquity of Chinese methods, as the extravagant and often unsubstantiated claims of historians antedate those of modern discovery. Ink, paper, and printing from blocks were all supposedly invented by the Chinese early in the Christian era, and even the first use of separate types is credited to Pi-Shing, a Chinese blacksmith. It may be relevant to suggest that the old-time “blacksmith” joke and the printing-term “pi” are derived from this source.
Dressed skins and palm leaves were used by the Hindoos, and writings in Sanscrit were probably done in the temples by the Brahmins, the priests and philosophers of early India. The Vedas, sacred writings as old as 2000 B.C., formed a big portion of the Hindoo literature.