We get a glimpse of another side of that ancient life in a tablet of Nile clay, preserved in the British Museum, which is one of the earliest specimens of writing now in existence. It is a proposal of marriage, and was written about 1530 B. C., more than thirty-four hundred years ago, by a Pharaoh asking the hand of a daughter of the Babylonian king. Forty years later, in 1491 B. C., the ten commandments were graven on tablets of stone.

♦The works of Homer♦

In the early efforts of men to find a means of preserving in lasting and convenient form the records of their lives and achievements, some queer materials were pressed into service. Plates of metal were used, even the precious gold and silver being employed for the purpose. Skins of animals, tanned to a sort of leather, found favor among many peoples, while their bones, and even their intestines, were by no means disdained. The works of Homer, preserved in one of the great Egyptian libraries in the days of the Ptolemies, were written in letters of gold on the skins of serpents. Ivory was used, also wood and the bark of trees. In the early days of Rome, the reports of notable events were engraved on wooden tablets, which were then exposed to view in public places, and citizens of all classes, mingling freely, according to custom, in the great Forum that was the center of the city’s life, were easily and quickly informed of the important happenings of the day. The greatest defect in this method was remedied when, later on, wax was used to form a surface upon the wood, thus admitting of corrections and erasures, and making it possible to use the same table indefinitely, simply by scraping off the coating after it had served its purpose, and supplying other coatings as they were needed. But the first real advance toward modern writing materials came in the use of the leaves of olive, palm, poplar, and other trees, which were prepared by being cut in strips, soaked in boiling water, and then rubbed over wood to make them soft and pliable.

♦Old materials necessarily discarded♦

It will be readily understood, however, that these crude materials and primitive methods could not long keep pace with the steady march of progress. The peoples of the earth were increasing rapidly; they were advancing in the arts and sciences, and in the experiences that inspire thought, poetry, and philosophy; they had a heritage of knowledge to which they were constantly adding, while business transactions, together with other deeds worthy of record, had greatly multiplied. It was but natural that the materials which had once been entirely adequate should now be discarded as cumbersome and unfitted to the new conditions. The sands in the hour-glass were beginning to run golden; time was taking on a value unknown before. A deed of land written in clay and put away to bake might answer the purpose when real-estate transfers were infrequent and attended with much ceremony. A clay tablet might serve in a marriage proposal by a king who had the power to meet and vanquish all rivals, but terra-cotta was not suited either for the record of numerous and rapid business transactions or for the writing of books. The biography of one man, or a single treatise in philosophy, would have required a whole building, while a library of modern dimensions, as to the number of books, would probably have left little room in a city for the dwellings of its inhabitants.

♦Discovery of papyrus♦

What was to take the place of the old and cumbersome materials? Even at a very early date men were asking this question, and it was the good fortune of Egypt to be able to give answer. Along the marshy banks of the Nile grew a graceful water-plant, now almost extinct, which was peculiarly fitted to meet the new demands, as we shall see in the succeeding chapter. The discovery of its value led to an extensive industry, through which the land of the Pharaohs was enabled to take high rank in letters and learning, and, to maintain a position of wealth, dignity, power, and influence that otherwise would have been impossible, even in those remote days when printing was still many centuries beyond the thoughts or dreams of men.

CHAPTER II
PAPYRUS AND PARCHMENT

♦The bulrush of the Nile♦