Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

A document comprising several sheets or pages bound together in a cover, intended as a material record for the preservation and transmission of immaterial, spiritual goods. In the European context, palaeographers typically distinguish between books and manuscripts, thus reserving the notion of a book for printed material. On the basis of this definition, the first books appear about the middle of the fifteenth century. Their production presupposed the technique of making movable type and paper. A wider definition includes other kinds of written records, in particular scrolls made of papyrus, vellum or parchment, as were used throughout the ancient Near East as well as in Greece and Rome; the palm leaves bound together with fine twine which the Hindus used for their sacred writings; and the Maya codices written on tree bark. The most ancient written documents recognizable to modern readers as books were indubitably in existence in China. Among the oldest attested Chinese characters found in oracle-bone script dating from the second millennium bce is one which to this day signifies a volume or book ( figure 8 ). The four vertical lines represent wooden or bamboo tablets inscribed vertically with a pointed stylus and later with a brush. The set of tablets was held together by leather thongs or silk cords as shown in figure 9 : such were the most ancient books. In later times the ... log in or subscribe to read full text