The Book Before Printing: Ancient, Medieval and Oriental

Yetts.

CHAPTER I

THE BOOK IN EMBRYO

IT is significant that man’s intellectual progress and, particularly, the recording of his achievements—history in fact—are very late developments in his story as a whole. The modern anthropologist regards the human race as having had probably a million years’ existence on this earth. Of this million years, only a small fraction —the last five thousand years or so—are recorded in any contemporary form.

Indeed, the earliest known books or their equivalents are the inscribed clay tablets of Mesopotamia and the papyrus rolls of ancient Egypt, both of which, in their primitive origins, are reputed to date at least from the early third millennium B.C.

If one goes further back, however, one might by a stretch of imagination regard as very nebulous beginnings of the book the Old Stone Age cave paintings—such as we find at Altamira or Lascaux—and other prehistoric or more recent picture-writings, as well as the oral tradition, aided by gesture and song, of prehistoric or other primitive peoples. Moreover, since so little is known of the origins and the early history of the book, it may be useful to follow up some clues afforded by language, which tenaciously preserves various terms originally denoting primitive writing materials. These primitive writing materials were not necessarily used earlier than the Mesopotamian clay tablets or the Egyptian papyri.

The present chapter dealing with such prodromes of the book, is thus divided into three sections, which will treat the following subjects: (1) oral tradition; (2) primitive human records and pictographic representations of stories; and (3) primitive writing materials, especially as evidenced by some modern terms. Numerous statements from classical and other early writers are included without any expression of opinion regarding their validity, because the beliefs of such men as Theophrastus or Livy or Pliny are of interest in themselves.

Fig. I—1

a, Chinese gestures (1—2, command; 3—5, vow, oath; 6—9, refusal; 10, refuse to marry; 11, usurpation). b, Knot-records and notched sticks (1, Peruvian quipu; 2, knot-record from Riukiu Islands; 3, notched stick from Laos, Indo-China; 4, geographical map from Greenland; 5, Makonde knot-record, Tanganyika Territory; 6—7, notched sticks from North America; 8, Australian notched sticks). c, The famous Pennwampum of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Oral Tradition

Unable to write, prehistoric man (like primitive men of today) relieved his soul by means of the spoken word aided by gesture—see Fig. I—1, a—and song. Whatever lore of nature and of well-being had been gained by one generation, was related by the pater familias or by story-tellers to the children, and lived with other traditions in their memories. Medicine men and story-tellers were selected for their personalities and exceptional gifts of memory. The first hymns, chants, jingles and tunes were invented by the story-teller to assist his memory in relating the general epics of the tribe, or by the medicine man for instruction in the mystic rituals.

Story-telling is thus one of the oldest cultural manifestations of man. From very early times, before the dawn of recorded history, man endeavoured to educate himself and his children, and told them of his and his father’s adventures, of the lives and struggles of their gods and witches. His community was, of course, very much smaller than even many present-day villages. The feeling of community would be shared by all who would gather together in a convenient place of assembly, for instance, around a camp fire, where they would listen to the gifted story-teller relating the ancient traditions. The story-teller may have been a gifted singer who could recite his story in simple verse, and all would join in. Probably the story-teller or bard, growing old, would find a likely successor and pass on to him his store of stories, ballads or songs. Thus, for instance, Polynesian story-tellers trained their own memories and that of their sons so that they were able to hand down to posterity by word of mouth their people’s history, especially their valuable migration traditions.

ORIGINS OF MYTHS

It is notable that in the oral traditions of primitive people there is no conception of accuracy or originality or plagiarism; lines or passages would be added or omitted, or other changes introduced. Generally, the importance of events was exaggerated; various episodes were connected with some great natural phenomenon or historical event (such as the Flood or the Trojan War), or with some mighty names (such as Gilgamesh or Samson or Ulysses or King Arthur). The natural surroundings, the phenomena of nature, the celestial bodies, the gods, the legendary heroes, the living spirits hidden in nature, all were given the attributes of human beings.

The mythology thus shaped and preserved by the minds of these primitive tribes is an ocean filled with pearls, but it is far from sufficient for the reconstruction of prehistoric life. It is surprising, indeed, in how short a time all memory may be lost of events which are not recorded in some form of writing. Thus, it may be safely affirmed that no ancient civilized people or modern primitive tribes preserved any distinct recollection of their own origin. All experience shows that what may be transmitted by memory and word of mouth, consists mainly of heroic poems and ballads in which the historical element is so overlaid by mythology and poetry that it is not always easy to distinguish between fact and fancy.

Even with myths of relatively recent times, such as the Arthurian legends, it is difficult to know what measure of history they represent; there may, indeed, have been an historical Arthur, perhaps a chief of Christianized Romano-Britons, who led a gallant resistance to the flood of Anglo-Saxon invasion, but he is certainly not the hero of romance that Medieval Ages have made him out to be.

REAL HISTORY IS BASED ON WRITTEN DOCUMENTS

To write real history, we require something very different—apart from the special qualities of the historian, with his powers of imaginative insight and keen analytical understanding; we require actual and reliable record. This, indeed, may be an ideal requirement, particularly if we include the idea of continuity in the record; but there is no doubt that we cannot entirely rely on a purely oral tradition, fostered as this would normally be by tribal feeling and pride, rather than by a concern for historical accuracy. At the very least, we require contemporary written documents.

As Professor R. A. Wilson points out, the world of mind advances by accumulative movement. The library of the British Museum would illustrate adequately this cumulative movement of reason, where the various phases through which the world has passed in its previous evolution, themselves now vanished in time, are preserved in a permanent present, a pure world of mind though stored in the sensuous material of paper and ink. If we think of what a university, say, would be without a single book, and without blackboards, or notebooks, shut off from a vanished and irrecoverable past, we should have a picture of the limitations which time sets upon oral speech alone as instrument of conscious mind.

Primitive Human Records

G. H. Bushnell may be right in suggesting that presumably the first writing was done on soil by means of a human finger, followed by scratching upon trees and rocks, but, of course, there is no evidence to support any such suggestion and probably there never will be.

We do not know how the book began any more than we know how writing or language started. If we take the book to mean any kind of literary production, including story-telling, there is no people in all the world without books. If, on the other hand, we mean by book the handsome volumes we see in our modern libraries, we must realize that this use of the word is a relatively recent development.

Prehistoric Man probably did not think about true writing; even nowadays there are primitive tribes who can do without it. Indeed, various acoustic and optical devices (such as war-cries, signal horns, drums, gestures, and smoke-and-fire signals) suffice for their communication needs.

PRIMITIVE DEVICES OF COMMUNICATION

As man emerged from his primitive state, he must have felt a need of recording his knowledge in some permanent form, or of helping his memory in conveying important messages. Crude systems of conveying ideas or mnemonic devices are found extensively. (See The Alphabet, 2nd ed., 1949, pp. 21—31.) In these primitive devices of communication the symbols employed—see Fig. I—1, b and c—are mere memory aids and need the interpretation of the messenger; they may, therefore, be considered a preliminary stage of writing.

STONE-AGE PAINTINGS AND CARVINGS

It is probable that the earliest examples extant of human attempts to scratch, draw or paint highly naturalistic or schematic pictures of animals, geometric patterns, crude pictures of objects, on cave walls or rocks or bones in the Upper Palaeolithic period and successive ages, belonging perhaps to 20,000—5,000 B.C., are also to be considered a preliminary stage of writing (see Fig. I—2). These carvings and paintings may have had religious significance, or may have served as fetishes or charms, such as hunting charms.

The marvellous cave paintings—some of them astonishingly vivid and lifelike and wonderfully distinct in detail—of Altamira, Northern Spain; of Cambarelles, and Font-de-Gaume, Southern France; and of various other places in Northern Spain and Southern France, are generally situated in the deep recesses of limestone caves, whither no daylight can penetrate. No families have ever lived in these fastnesses; they are often very difficult of access. And in executing the drawings the artist had often to adopt most uncomfortable attitudes, lying on his back or standing on a comrade’s shoulders in a narrow crevice (Prof. Gordon Childe).

Fig. I—2

Prehistoric conventionalized figures, geometric signs, and so forth, painted or engraved on stone, from a, Spain; b, Portugal; c, Italy; d, Palestine; e, Crete; f, Egypt; and g, North Africa

These paintings show animals standing, and are merely portraits of those which the Palaeolithic Man hunted.

SYMPATHETIC MAGIC

It is not likely that any cf these splendid paintings were made just for show or for the purpose of decorating these dark recesses. Sometimes they are executed one on top of the other, without any apparent order. What, then, is their meaning and purpose? Even in modern times and in civilized countries, the burning of images of enemy leaders is not unfamiliar; somewhere there remains the primitive feeling that what one does to the image, is done to the person it represents; it is a remnant of those ancient superstitions which still survive amongst many primitive tribes of Africa, Asia and Australasia. Medicine men and witches have been known to try to work magic in this way; they make an effigy of an enemy and then pierce it through the heart, or burn it, hoping that the enemy will suffer a similar fate. It would seem probable, indeed, that all these prehistoric paintings were done neither for purposes of art nor for transmitting records, but for performing magic.

Pictographic Representations of Stories

Pictography or picture-writing, which is the most primitive stage of true writing, may be subdivided into the following three classes:

(1) Iconography, which gives a static impression; the pictures, known as pictograms, represent the objects in a motionless state: the sketch of an animal would represent the animal, and, for example, a circle might represent the sun. Today with our action photographs and films, our comic strips and illustrations, the putting of action into pictures seems a small thing; actually it was a tremendously important development when the artist began to write picture-stories, i.e. when he began to make pictures tell stories—see Fig. I—3. It was, perhaps, the true beginning of the book.

Fig. I—3

Picture stories of native tribes: a, ideographic document of North American Indians; b, symbolic proverbs of the Ewe (West African people); c, sad love-story of a Yukaghir girl; d, Dakota winter-count chronicle (drawing by Kedma Diringer). For full explanation of a, b, and c, see The Alphabet, pp. 34—35.

(2) Thus, at any rate, arose synthetic or ideographic writing. This can best be studied in the relatively recent pictographic scripts of primitive peoples of Polynesia, West Africa, Central America, South-Western Asia, and among the Yukaghirs of N.E. Siberia (see The Alphabet, pp. 31—5), but the most famed among the pictorial documents are those of North American Indians, so beautifully described by Longfellow in The Song of Hiawatha, xiv.

A good example of these picture-books are the wan‘iyetu wo’wapi, or winter counts of the Dakota tribes: they count the times by winters, which, however, they do not number, but apply to them a name taken from the main event marking the given winter, e.g. plenty-stars-winter for the winter of 1833—4: a great meteoric shower occurred in the evening of 12.11.1833 (Fig. I—3, d).

Fig. I—3, d, shows the winter count of Shunka-ishnala (Lonely Dog) of the Yanktonnai tribe of the Dakotas, living in 1876 near the Fort Peck, Montana. The chronicle painted on a buffalo hide consists of ideographic pictures, each of them representing one winter or year, and starts with the winter (1800—1) representing the thirty-Dakotas-killed-by-Absarokas (or Crow Indians), indicated by a symbol made up of thirty vertical strokes in three rows. In spiral direction from right to left, the symbols represent the chronicle of the years 1800—1 to 1870—1. The second symbol —smallpox-used-them-all-up-again-winter—represents the winter 1801—2; the last symbol, showing the battle-between-Uncpapas-and-Absarokas-winter, is depicted at the top left hand, while the last but one represents the total eclipse of the sun (a dark sun with stars around it) of the winter 1869—70.

As to the spiral direction of writing, it is extremely interesting to compare this chronicle with the Phaistos disc—see p. 64 and Fig. I—4, a. No suggestion is made that the two documents, separated by over three and a half millennia of time and thousands of miles of space, have any relationship whatever. Curiously enough, as regards shape, the Phaistos disc can be compared with the stone calendar of the ancient Aztecs, these documents also being separated by thousands of years and thousands of miles; for the ancient Aztecs see p. 71 ff.

(3) Analytic Writing. Neither iconographic nor synthetic writing constitutes a complete system of writing, as does an analytic script, in which definite pictures, conventional and simplified, selected by custom from many experimental pictures, become fixed pictorial symbols, representing single objects or words.

Most of the important systems of writing may belong to this category: see next chapter. They are the Sumerian script, predecessor of the cuneiform writing, the Egyptian hieroglyphic script, the Cretan pictographic scripts, the Indus Valley script, the Hittite hieroglyphic, the Chinese, the Maya, and the Aztec scripts; perhaps also the Easter Island writing (The Alphabet, pp. 136—40) as well as some other medieval and modern scripts (ibid., pp. 141—51) belongs to this class.

Fig. I—4,

a, One side of the Phaistos disc; b, inscribed wooden tablet from Egypt (British Museum, 1455); c, two Egyptian wood-labels (obverse and reverse), written in demotic—note two lines of upside-down Greek: right hand side, below.

Not all these systems of writing, however, are purely pictographic and ideographic, although all of them may have been so in origin. In the later stages of development, Sumerian and cuneiform scripts, the Egyptian scripts, the Cretan and other systems are generally, but improperly, called ideographic, and are sometimes considered transitional, representing, as they do, the stage between pure ideographic writing and the pure phonetic system, and making use of the two, side by side. It is to be noted, however, that the term transitional is hardly appropriate to systems of writing lasting as long as three thousand years.

Nevertheless, from the point of view of the history of the book, some of these systems can be regarded either as primitive or prehistoric, or as transitional. While in their initial stages they were not employed for book purposes as we use our writing, and were thus in a certain sense prehistoric, in their later stages they were often used for writing books, although these had a quite different form from that of the modern book.

Primitive Writing Materials, especially as evidenced by some Modern Terms

Since so little is known of the origins and the early history of the book, it may be useful to follow up some clues which language affords us. A study of words reveals that many familiar expressions in our language, no less than in other languages, are used in senses other than those in which they were used originally.

Inference from the presence or absence of certain words is a common practice known for many years to critics and historians of literature, and is often used for what is known as internal evidence; but in general very little use has been made of language itself, that is to say, of the historical forms and meanings of words as interpreters of the distant cultural past.

It has only just begun to dawn on us that in modern languages the past history of humanity is spread out in an imperishable map, which preserves the inner, living history of ancient man’s soul. Indeed, in many common words, words we use every day, the souls of past peoples, their thoughts and feelings, stand around us, not dead, but frozen into their attitudes like the courtiers in the garden of the Sleeping Beauty. These words reveal in their analysis a story of the deepest interest; they represent a kind of fossil history. But already, before these words originated, throughout much of Asia and Africa, and partly also in Europe, there were in existence different civilizations in various stages of development. Even so, such words represent early stages of cultural life, although in point of chronology they are much later than the earliest books, or their equivalents, of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.

What information can be deduced, for instance, from such words as book, write and library?

THE WORD BOOK

What is a book? Dr. Johnson is supposed to have said that, though he could not define an elephant, he knew one very well when he saw it. Nowadays various definitions can be given to the word book, which—in spite of their common root idea—differ very much from one another. Here, needless to say, we are concerned not with the book which some reader may have built up for himself in his trade or profession, or with the kind of book kept by the book-keeper, or with the word as used by those who book tickets for a theatre or a journey, or who have left their money with a bookmaker. We are dealing with the books which in all their variety offer the means whereby civilization may be carried triumphantly forward (Winston Churchill). In this sense, the term book may indicate (1) a collection of paper leaves bound together; (2) a number of written or printed sheets fastened together at the back by means of some kind of cover known as binding; (3) a literary treatise, usually written or printed in one volume, but sometimes in several volumes if forming a single work; (4) a literary work; (5) main parts of a literary production (e.g. the Iliad consists of twenty-four books).

The actual origin of the word book has been the subject of dispute, but it is commonly believed that it is etymologically connected with the name of the beech tree. The numerous ancient English forms of book (bóc, boc, bok, bock, boke, booc, boock, booke, buk, buke, buik, buick) show that this word is derived from Old English bóc (pl. béc), connected with Old Frisian and Old Saxon bôk (pl. bôk), Old Norse bók (pl. boékr), Old High German buoh (pl. buoh). (Middle High German, buoch, Modern German, Buch.) The Old English word for beech tree was bóc, Old Norse bók.

The exact connection between book and beech tree, however, is not known. According to some scholars, the English monks wrote their books on white beech tablets; according to others, beech bark—for writing on bark see p. 34—was originally used for writing; still others have suggested that originally inscriptions were scratched on beech tablets.

More probable is the following theory: Old English bóc means charter, and its plural means tablets, writing tablets, written sheets; hence, supposedly book. The word book or bóc seems, indeed, to have been introduced into this country in Anglo-Saxon times by the ecclesiastics, who applied it to the written charters, also introduced by them; these afforded a more permanent and satisfactory evidence of a grant or conveyance of land than the symbolical or actual delivery of possession before witnesses, which was the previous system of transfer. This meaning of book is clearly shown in the legal term b c-land (or book-land), property held under the express terms of a written document, and in the term b c-hord, a place where charters or other written records were kept. Also Shakespeare uses book in this meaning: By this our book is drawn; we’ll but seal, . . . (The First Part of King Henry IV, Act III, Scene i).

The Gothic language, however, has no similar form for book, though there is bôkôs, plural (derived probably from bôka, letter), which in the opinion of some scholars derives from the original use for writing on beech-sticks (Buch-Stab, in German). Curiously, also in Russian there is the word bookva, for letter, but book is kniga. Finally, according to some scholars, the term book derives from—it would be more accurate to say is parallel to—the German word Buch, meaning beech, and is connected with the fact that, in early days, beech wood was largely used for binding books. The beechen covers were light, decorative, and very carefully dried and seasoned. It is remarkable how flat such old boards are, and they were no doubt very highly valued as they often have upon them the stamp of the monastery in which they were used (C. Davenport). While, then, there is not sufficient evidence for a complete solution of the problem, there is at least a great probability that the ancient Germanic tribes used beech tablets or beech bark for writing.

THE WORD TO WRITE

This theory finds support in the etymology of another English word, write. It is derived from the Old English wrítan, connected with the Old Frisian wrîta (to scratch, to write), the Old Saxon wrîtan (to cut, to write), the Old Norse ríta (to scratch, to write) (Norwegian, vríta or ríta, and Swedish rita, to draw), and Old High German rîzan (to tear, to draw: cf. Modern German ritzen, to scratch, and reissen, to tear) ; it is thus obvious that the ancient Teutonic conception of writing corresponded to the conceptions of scratching and drawing (i.e. on wood).

Fig.I—5

Roman wooden cliptych (6 inches by inches): waxed tablets, dated to the seventh year of Septimius Severus (A.D. 198). The text, in Latin cursive, and a woman’s signature, written for her, in incorrect Greek, occupy the two sides of the interior of the diptych. which are here represented (above, page 2 of the diptych; below, page 3). Bodleian Library, at Oxford. MS. Lat, Class,. I. 9 10.

It is known, too, that the ideas of writing and drawing were identical in pre-historic Egypt and in Early Greece, as is shown by the Egyptian word s-sh and by the Greek grapheîn, both of which mean writing and drawing. The word grapheîn gave us the main component of many words connected with writing or description, such as epigraphy, palaeography, ideography, pictography, stenography, geography, and choreography.

The Hebrew verb katab means to write as well as to incise.

USE OF WOOD AS WRITING MATERIAL IN GREECE, EGYPT, AND ROME

Wood was the main writing material not only of the ancient Germanic tribes. Pliny says that in Greece table books of wood were in use before the time of Homer.

(Pugillarium enim usum fuisse etiam ante Troiana tempora invenimus apud Homerum: "We find, however, in Homer that the use of pugillares (wood-tablet books) existed before the Troian times. . . .": Pliny, Nat. Hist., xiii, 69.)

This information however, is hardly reliable, as it is mainly based on Iliad, vi, 168, referring to Bellerophon (he in the gilded tables wrote and sent); see p. 29. According to uncertain information given us by Plutarch (A.D. c. 50—c. 120) and Diogenes Laertius (third century A.D.), Solon’s laws (early sixth century B.C.) were inscribed on tables of wood. This tradition is also mentioned by Aulus Gellius (born c. A.D. 130): in legibus Solonis illis antiquissimis, quae Athenis axibus ligneis incisae sunt (ii, 12). This information, too, is not altogether reliable.

Tables of wood as writing material, however, are also mentioned by Sextus Propertius (second half of the first century B.C.), iii, 23.8; by Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 B.C.—A.D. 17), i Eleg., 2, and by many other Roman writers.

Actually, plain wooden tablets were used in Egypt (Fig. I—4, b—c) and in Greece—where they were called déltos, pínax, or pyxíon— as early as the fifth century B.C. or earlier, for such purposes as the keeping of accounts, and the writing of models for schoolboys to copy (Herodotus, vii, 239). It should also be noted that in Iliad, vi, 169, the message carried by Bellerophon (sémata lygrá) plainly refers to a wooden tablet.

Fig.I—6

Roman ivory diptych, representing the Christian miracles; each leaf measures 12 inches by inches; fifth-century production from Italy. Victoria and Albert Museum, No. 51,391 (Victoria and Albert Museum Crown Copyright).

In Egypt, reed was also employed as writing material; for instance, a large split reed with a Coptic inscription written in ink on the inside, is reported to be in the Cairo Museum.

TABLETS: PUGILLARES

Wooden tablets (tabellae or tabulae) were commonly employed in ancient Rome; hence, the modern term tablet (from Latin tabula, meaning board). These wooden tablets were also called by the Romans pugillares, notebooks, literally handbooks; perhaps they were so called because their small dimensions allowed of their being held in the hand or fist, pugnus, pugillus.

The writing was at first upon the bare wood, which was cut into thin tablets, and finely planed and polished. Later, waxen tablets were used; these were made either of common wood (such as beech, fir, box, and so on) or of more expensive material—such as cedarwood—and were thinly coated with wax (in Greek k rós or málth , máltha; in Latin, cera), usually black—see Fig. I—5, Fig. I—7, Fig. I–8. Sometimes, however, they were coated with a thin layer of gesso, which was polished.

The tablets were used singly, or in twos (known as diptychon, diptych, i.e. double-folding [waxen tablets]: see Fig. I—5) or in threes (triptych, Fig. I—7, below); or more (polyptych) leaves (cerae) were hinged together—such sets of tablets being known as codices (see p. 35).

The writing was incised in the wax by means of a pointed implement, known as a stilus or graphium (see p. 553); it was so done particularly in the scriptio interior (i.e. in the writing on the internal sides). The scriptio exterior (i.e. the writing on the external sides) was sometimes done with ink (atramentum). The matter written (especially that scratched with a stilus) upon the waxen tablets was easily effaced, and by smoothing the wax (in the case of gesso tablets the writing could be washed off) new matter might be substituted for what had been written. Such tablets were, therefore, suitable for ephemeral notes, accounts, memoranda, lists of names, and so forth. They were particularly used by schoolboys.

The majority of the tablets measure 14 or 14.5 by 12 cm., but some measure 18 by 16 cm. and even 27.5 by 23.5. G. Pugliese Carratelli remarks, however, that the pentaptych and the octoptych (Fig. I–8, below) 6 and 13.5 by 7 cm., respectively. The tablets, especially those made of box wood, were sometimes (as already mentioned) very thin and highly polished. So, for instance, the thickness of the external tablets of both the pentaptych and the octoptych is given as 0.6 cm., and of the internal tablets as 0.4 cm., the speculum of wax being reduced to 0.1 cm.

Fig. I—7

(Above) Roman inscribed wooden tablet; (below) Triptych from Pompei, dated 10.5.A.D.54.

The outside of the codices, especially of the diptychs, was made of different materials, such as wood, ivory, or parchment—see Martial, xiv, 3—7. Originally the diptych cases were small, unornamented, and usually made of wood, but from the second century A.D. onwards they became larger and were mainly made of ivory. See Fig. I—6. Ivory diptychs, elaborately carved, were in later times used for Byzantine bookbindings—see the forthcoming book on Illumination and Binding.

The Greeks and Romans continued the use of pugillares long after the use of papyrus (or even parchment) became common, because they were so convenient for correcting extemporary compositions. From the pugillares they transcribed the final text on to papyrus rolls (or parchment), and when the work was to be published, the transcription was done by the librarii (see p. 34). Writing on pugillares is particularly recommended by Quintilian (Fabius Quintilianus, A.D. c. 35—95), Institutio Oratoria, X, Chapter 3.

See also, for instance, Ovid, Metamorphoses, ii. 522—5: (Cf. Fig. XI—3, a).

Dextra tenet ferrum, vacuam tenet altera ceram. In her right hand she holds her stilus, in her left an empty waxen tablet.

Incipit et dubitat; scribit damnatque tabellas; She begins, then hesitates; writes on and hates what she has written.

Et notat et delet; mutat culpatque probatque; Writes and erases; changes and condemns and approves.

Inque vicem sumptas ponit positasque resumit. By turns she lays her tablets down and takes them up again.

The pugillares, as mentioned, were generally used in schools (like slates in modern times), and sometimes for letters, the replies being written on the re-spread wax; they were particularly used for judicial and administrative purposes.

Several specimens are preserved in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 33270, 33293, 37533, and others), one of the most interesting being Add. MS. 33270, consisting of seven wooden tablets, or heptaptych, belonging to the late third or early fourth century A.D. (Fig. I–8, above).

Fig. I–8

(Above) Page from a heptaptych (British Museum, Add. MS. 33270); (below) Octoptych from Herculaneum, as reconstructed by M. Paolini.

Amongst the numerous codices found at Herculaneum (see pp. 251—258), there are a few polyptychs found in the Casa del Bicentina-rio, the best preserved specimens being a pentaptych (i.e. consisting of five tablets) and an octoptych (consisting of eight tablets). A reconstructed design of the latter is represented in Fig. I–8, below.

Some specimens of ancient Roman tablets were found in the Alburnus Major (Voeroes Patak) gold mines in Dacia (Transylvania). One is of fir wood, and one of beech, each consisting of three leaves. They are about the size of a modern octavo book. The outer parts exhibit a plain surface of wood, the inner parts are covered with a layer of wax surrounded by a raised margin of the wood; the edges of one side are pierced that they may be fastened together by means of a thread or wire. The wax is so thin that the stilus used by the writer cut through it into the wood below. The writing still remains and on one the name of the consul is given determining the date to be A.D. 169. Another document belongs to A.D. 139. The earliest extant examples of Roman tablets, dated A.D. 53 and 55, may be seen at the Naples Museum of Antiquities (they came from Pompeii).

The use of wooden tablets as writing material lasted into the modern age. In Luebeck, there are preserved fifteenth-century waxen tablets; in outlying regions they were used for making occasional notes or accounts down to our own times.

LIBRARY

A few English words still remind us of the Roman use of wood as a writing material; for example, the word library (the building or room where books are kept, or else the collection or shelves of books), from the Old French librairie; libretto (book containing the text of an opera), from Italian; libel (a false defamatory statement, a formal document, but also a little book, a short treatise or writing), from Latin libellus, the diminutive form of liber, little book, pamphlet—the term libellus was frequently used in classical times (see Cicero, Orationes, i, 21; Horace, Satires, i, 10, 92; Suetonius, Julius, 56).

These and a few other words are derivations from the Latin word liber, book, believed to be connected etymologically with liber meaning bast, rind, or the inside bark of a tree—the bark of trees having, according to Roman tradition, been used in early times as a writing material. It has nothing to do, however, with the material of which paper or papyrus was made, i.e., charta (from Greek khárt s), the pith of the papyrus plant (see Chapter IV).

BARK USED AS WRITING MATERIAL

It may, instead, be assumed that in very ancient times the finest and thinnest part of the bark of such trees as the tilia, the philyra, a species of linden, the lime, the ash, the maple, and the elm, was used as writing material, just as the Sumatran (Fig. I–10, and Fig. I_11, above), Central Asian, and Indian peoples (see pp. 354, 361, 379 and passim), and also the American Indians used similar substances in comparatively modern times.

A specimen of Latin writing on bark is preserved in the Cottonian collection of the British Museum. The National Library, at Madrid, is in possession of a charming book printed on bark, which the present writer examined during a recent visit to Spain.

Romance languages (French librairie; Italian and Spanish libreria; Portuguese, livraria) maintain the late Latin meaning of libr ria (sc. taberna) as bookseller’s shop, but actually the Latin adj. libr rius, and subst. libr rium, mean connected with books. The Romans had their librarii and librarioli; the former multiplied books by transcribing manuscripts, and the latter illustrated them by ornamenting the title-pages, margins, and terminations.

BIBLE-BIBLIOTHECA

The Romance and other languages employ for library a word such as late Latin bibliotheca, Italian and Spanish biblioteca, French bibliothèque, German Bibliothek, and Polish bibljoteka. These terms have derived from Greek bibliothék , connected with the Greek common word for book, biblíon, diminutive of bíblos, the inner bark of the papyrus (see Chapter IV).

This word gave to English and to all the other modern languages the name Bible. The Greek plural neuter ta biblía, the books, became Latin fem. sing. biblia, passed over to Italian, Bibbia, Spanish and Portuguese, Biblia, Provençal, Bibla, French, Bible, German, Bibel, Dutch, Bijbel, Polish, Biblja, etc. Curiously the word biblioth ca was originally used (so Jerome) for the Sacred Scriptures: in Old English we find bibliothéce, and in Anglo-Latin, biblioth ca, sometimes employed instead of the word Bible.

In modern English we find numerous words connected with Greek biblion, such as bibliography (history, or lists of books and their editions), biblioklept (a book thief), bibliolatry (book worship), bibliomania (mania for possessing books), bibliopegy (art of bookbinding), bibliophile (book lover), bibliophobia (aversion to books), bibliopoly (book selling), bibliotaph (book burier), and many others. Some of these terms have preserved their meaning from ancient times. The Romans had their bibliopegi (bookbinders), who employed their skill on the embellishment of the exterior of the manuscripts, and the bibliopola (booksellers), who were engaged in the disposal of the books when finished.

Codex

Another Latin word connected with the employment of wood as writing material was caudex or c dex (originally it meant the trunk or stem of a tree), signifying anything made of wood, as, for instance, a wooden tablet (see p. 29 ff.).

Later, the term was used for wooden tablets coated with a thin layer of blackened wax, commonly known as pugillares, or (see p. 29), for a set of two, three, or more (four, five, six, seven, or eight) tablets strung or bound together in a primitive and simple manner, of which our modern loose-leaf system may be said to be an elaborated revival. As already mentioned, the inside tablets had raised margins (alvei); they had also a slight projection, generally square, to prevent the wax of one tablet from rubbing against the other (which might deface or destroy the written notes): see, for instance, Fig. I–8. Finally, codex came to denote the set of tablets not only as writing material, but also as a book in the modern sense of the word.

When at a later period parchment and other material were substituted for wood and put together in book shape, the term codex was often used as synonymous with liber, but it was the name more particularly given to an account book, or ledger (codex accepti et expensi). In the time of Cicero it was also applied to a tablet on which a bill was written, and in still later times to any collection of laws or constitutions of the emperors, such as Codex Theodosianus or Codex Iustinianeus.

For literary compositions, the term codex was used by Christian writers, beginning with the codices of the sacred writings. The term was occasionally used by other writers at the end of the third century, but did not become popular till the fifth century, when the codex form of the book was firmly established (see Chapter V).

The Latin word codex passed into all the modern languages, where it is used for a volume of a biblical or classical text in manuscript. English words derived from codex are codify, code, and codicil.

WOODEN WRITING MATERIAL IN GERMANIC LANDS

The use by the ancient Germanic tribes of wooden tablets as their main writing material has already been mentioned. Another proof of this practice may be seen in the shapes of the runic letters (see The Alphabet, pp. 507—24), which can be considered as the national writing of the ancient Germanic peoples. The thorny, elongated and angular shapes of these letters, which even in inscriptions of the thirteenth and later centuries A.D. look as though they belonged to the seventh or sixth century B.C., show that this script was used chiefly for inscriptions. Indeed, there is no evidence whatever of wide literary use of runes in early times.

From our point of view it does not matter much whether the runes were originally employed simply for magical purposes or as a normal means of communication (the former theory being more acceptable), or whether they were originally used mainly for drawing and painting on clay and wood, so that the angular shapes might be due to the script from which the runes descended; the most probable theory being that they were originally carved on wood, so that the straight strokes and the angular shapes, which could be carved with ease, were preferred to curves. Sir Ellis Minns suggests the following explanation of the absence of horizontal strokes in the runic letters: Runes must have been developed for carving on round sticks. Then every letter can be very quickly made with a knife.

Whatever their origin, the fact that the employment of these thorny letters continued for so many centuries, indicates that they were used mainly for writing on wood, or on other hard material.

FAR EAST AND INDONESIA

Wood and bamboo sticks were used as writing materials in ancient China (see p. 390, 398 ff.). About fifteen wooden tablets (known as kohau rongo rongo), covered with pictographic writing, still undeciphered, are the only documents extant of the mysterious script (unique in Polynesia) of ancient (?) Easter Island—see Fig. I–9, b and c.

SUMATRA

The Bataks, living in Sumatra, sometimes use as writing material long strips of bamboo, welded by beating them together, then folded together, accordion-like, between wooden covers, and bound together with a string of woven rushes. Often long strips of the thin bark of trees—such books being known as pustakas (see p. 379 f.)—are used.

One such book is in the Sloanian collection of the British Museum; it is on a long piece of bark folded up as in Fig. I–10, b. Another specimen of writing on bark, from India, is a Nabob’s letter, on a piece of bark about two yards long, and richly ornamented with gold. It, too, is preserved in the British Museum. Fig. I–10 c, and Fig. I—11, above, reproduce Batak books on tree bark. The people on the Malabar coast also frequently wrote upon bark with a stilus: several specimens are preserved in the British Museum and in many other collections, public and private.

Some ancient books of the Bataks were written in brilliant ink on paper made of bark. The Lampong and Rèndjang tribes, also inhabiting Sumatra, scratch their messages and books on bamboo —see Fig. I—11, below—tree bark, or certain kinds of leaves. See also p. 377 ff.

THE PHILIPPINES AND ELSEWHERE

The pagan tribes of the Philippines Hanunóo (southern Mindoro) and Tagbánuwá (central Palawan) employ for purposes of writing the shiny surface of bamboo tubes and a small knife (see Fig. I–12).

Wooden writing material was also employed in many other countries to which reference has already been made. Its use in ancient Mesopotamia is mentioned by G. R. Driver (Semitic Writing, p. 16). A Kharoshthi book on wood from Eastern Turkestan is reproduced in Fig. 9, a. Amongst many primitive tribes, wood is still used as writing material.

For the amatl paper used in pre-Columbian America and even in modern Mexico, see p. 429 ff. and Fig. IX–13. In the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, there is a Mexican book on bark.

PALM LEAVES AS WRITING MATERIAL

The substances used for the reception of writing in the ancient world, as well as in modern times in some outlying regions, were numerous. Indeed, whatever was most conveniently available for the purpose was used.

Fig. I–9

a, Kharoshthi book on wood, found at Niya (Ruin XXIV, vii) by Sir Aurel Stein in his second expedition to Chinese Turkestan (1906-08); b, and c. specimens of kohau-rongo-rongo tablets (inscribed wooden tablets from Easter Island).

Fig. I–10 a, Forms of Oriental books; b, Batak divination bark-book in the form of a folded roll (drawings by Ella Margules); c, written page (left) and cover (right of a Batak MS. written on the inner bark of terap tree, known as Artocarpus kunstleri (Cambridge University Library, Or. 930).

Among the various forms of perishable writing materials previously in use in Central and Southern Asia (and probably also in other parts of the world) we may place first the leaves of plants or trees; in Central and Southern Asia there were the Talipat palm and the Palmyra palm—see Chapter VIII.

Fig. I—11

(Above) Another Batak divination book written on bark: represents part of the divination table for the thirty days of the month; (below) portion of a Story of Creation, written on bamboo in Malay language and Rèndjang characters employed in the South-Sumatran mountainous region in the districts of Palembang and Benkulen: the four sticks here seen are numbered (on the left side) with the letters ta, pa, la, and sa. (Explanation by Dr. P. Voorhoeve, University Library, Leyden).

Fig. I–12

Bamboo used as writing matyerial by the Hanunóo tribe of the Philippine islands (left) Bamboo manuscript. small nknife used for writing, and sheath for the knife; (right) left-handed Hanunóo boy writing with a knife on a bamboo tube.

Pliny, speaking particularly of the Egyptians, says that men at first wrote upon the leaves of palm trees.

Pliny’s passage is also important for the other writing materials he mentions. (In palmarum foliis primo scriptitatum; deinde quarundam arborum libris; postea publica monumenta plumbeis voluminibus; mox et privata linteis confici coepta aut ceris. First of all, people wrote on palm leaves, then on bark of certain trees, afterwards sheets of lead were used for public documents, then also sheets of linen or waxen tablets for private documents: Pliny, xiii, 69.) This statement—which induces Sir John Myres (Scripta Minoa, II, Oxford, 1952, p. 2) to write that according to Pliny the first Cretan writings were on palm-leaves-gives a clue to the long narrow shape of the inscribed Minoan clay tablets (see p. 63).

The Palmyra and Talipat palm leaves, which are thick, but long and narrow, were the only writing material for books in ancient Odra as in other parts of the coastal provinces of Southern India; they were also used to some extent in Ceylon, Burma and Siam, and in Northern India.

The British Museum, the India Office Library (Fig. I–13, VIII–13, VIII–15), the University Library of Cambridge (Fig. I–13, aboveto 3 inches broad—were cut out from the leaves, they were sometimes boiled in water or milk, when they were smoothed, with all excrescences pared off with the knife; and they were then ready for use.

The scribes, employing an iron stilus (a sharp-pointed implement) to scratch the letters, were compelled to avoid long straight lines, because any scratch along the longitudinal fibre, which runs from the stalk to the point, would split the palm leaf, which is extremely fragile. (This gave rise to the rounded shapes of the Oriya, Burmese, and other round current hands—see The Alphabet, p. 360 and passim.) In order to make the signs plainer, ink—prepared from oil and charcoal—or other pigment was rubbed over the surface of the leaf, and filled up the finely incised lines to make them visible, and so permanent that they cannot be effaced. The strips of leaves were then bound, by stringing them on cords or a piece of twine, and attaching them to a board: see Fig. VIII-16.

In Siam, sacred works were written on Talipat palm leaves, their edges being gilded or painted with vermilion, and the leaves threaded on strings and folded like a fan. See also Chapter VIII.

OTHER LEAVES

It is generally suggested that in ancient times leaves of other trees were also used for writing. This is probably true, but—except for literary evidence—proof seems out of the question. The material is, after all, perishable; specimens have never been discovered, and we can exclude the possibility of any such discovery in the future.

Fig. I–13

Palm-leaf books. (Above) Abhidhamattha-Sangaha, a Burmese Pali book, Cambridge University Library, Or. 953; (below) Illuminated Oriya manuscript—Gitagovinda by Yayadeva—preserved in the India Office Library—Commonwealth Relations Office.

However, there is ample literary evidence that both in Greece and in Magna Graecia as well as in Rome the use of leaves for writing was quite familiar. Diodorus Siculus relates (lib. xi, cap. 35) that the judges of Syracuse were anciently accustomed to write the names of those whom they sent into exile upon the leaves of olive trees. This sentence was termed petalismos, from pétalon, a leaf. The Sibyl’s leaves are referred to by Virgil (Aeneid, iii, 58), and Juvenal writes Credite me vobis folium recitare ,Sibyllae. Also the terms folio, foliate, foil, and so on, from Latin folium, a leaf, as well as the word leaf itself, may indicate that leaves were used as writing material.

OTHER WRITING MATERIALS

Of the principal ancient writing materials, clay tablets, papyrus, leather and parchment will be dealt with in the following chapters, ink and pens will be treated in the Appendix to the present book, while paper will be discussed in a forthcoming volume on The Printed Book.

Here mention may be made of somewhat unusual writing materials. In some countries not only the skins and intestines, but even the shoulder blades of various animals (the shoulder blade of a camel with a Coptic inscription in ink is in the Cairo Museum), as well as the skins of fishes and the intestines of serpents were pressed into the service of the scribes. See also p. 48.

The most famous instance is that of the original writing materials used to record the revelations Bckr, at the suggestion of Omar, ordered the collection of the scattered fragments of the Koran. Zaid ibn-Thâbit, one of Mohammed’s ansars (helpers), appointed to carry out this task, gathered together all his material from date leaves and tablets of white stone, and from the breasts of men (Bagawi, Mishkât al-Masabih, i, p. 524; Engl. transl. B. viii, 3, 3.) According to other versions, the material was collected from bits of parchment, thin white stones, leafless palm branches and bosoms of men. From these and other stories it is easy to understand that all sorts of material readiest to hand—such as shoulder blades, palm-leaves, and stones—were used to write down what later became the Koran.

LINEN

Linen for writing upon was in use among the Romans in very early times. Libri lintei (linen books) are mentioned by Livy not as existing in his own time, but as recorded by Licinius Macer (the democratic tribune and historian who died in 66 B.C.), who stated that linen books were kept in the temple of Juno Moneta. They were not books in the modern sense, but simply "very ancient annals and libri magistratuum (books of magistrates)".

The Sibylline Books were generally imagined to have been libri lintei, though by some, palm leaves were thought to have been their material. The old story of the Sibylline Books bought by Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (534—510 B.C.) which relates that the king twice refused to purchase the venerable volumes from the old woman who offered them to him, but afterwards provided a stone chest and two keepers to take charge of the three not very large volumes of magical formulae, may indicate that linen books were known to the Romans at that early date.

Livy speaks of a Samnite ritual book as liber vetus linteus, an ancient linen book (Livy, x, 38); he also mentions that when Augustus ordered the reconstruction of a ruined temple of Jupiter, he found there a book of linen. Even in a much later period, we hear of Roman linen books; the Emperor Aurelius is said to have used linen as writing material for his official diary. Also Varro (M. Terentius Varro, 116—27 B.C.) and the Roman jurist Ulpian (Domitius Ulpianus, A.D. c. 170—228) mention book rolls of linen, though it is doubtful whether they saw such books. However, linen seems to have been the substance on which the sacred books and the ancient records of Rome were written.

Apart from ancient Rome, it is well known that the ancient Egyptians wrote books on linen and on linen mummy wrappings (remains of a Sixth-Dynasty book are preserved in the Cairo Museum), that in Further India until recent times black cotton rolls were used for writing—writing being done with a white chalky material—that the Parthians sometimes wove their writings; the Arabs, too, used linen as writing material. The most remarkable ancient book written on linen is undoubtedly the Agram linen wrapping,