 | A series of talks on the history of the written word 13. Materials |
16 September 2020
World Book Heritage. 13. Materials and formats
Oral tradition. Stories and songs were passed on by word of mouth. Metre and melody were an aid to memory, but stories could become garbled in transmission. This leads to legendary history as is found in Homer or the Arthurian cycle. For history and technical or commercial information permanent records are required. Reliance on memory limits scientific and social advance.
Primitive records can be used to jog memory. Cave paintings could be considered a way of transmitting ideas, although their main function was probably linked to ritual and magic. Quipus or tallies could be used to store information but their scope is limited. More sophisticated records need special materials.
Materials of the primitive book have their evidence in language.
Wood. The word book comes from beech; compare German Buch=book, Buche=beech tree. The word Buchstabe – bookstave – means a letter. The word writing is cognate with German reissen, to tear or scratch, as on wood, and the shape of runic letters is suggestive of this. Wood was used by the Greeks and Romans as well as Germanic peoples. Solon's laws were written on wood around 590 BCE. In Rome tablets (tabula=board) were used as notebooks, sometimes knownas pugillares (fist books). At first they were plain tablets, later they were coated with black wax. Often two or more boards were laced together to form a diptych, triptych or polyptich. A metal or bone stylus was used with the pointed end for writing and the flat ends for erasing. The size was typically 30 cm by 32 cm and the thickness was less than 1 cm, although these dimensions could vary. The outer boards were often of a different material, such as ivory, a style that was later adopted for Byzantine bookbindings. The format survived the codex, as it was useful notes, correspondence or school use. It was easy to erase – Ovid maintained that a good writer used the flat end of his stylus more than the pointed end. Many of the tablets found at Vinolanda use thin sheets of wood rather than tablets.
Bark. The word library comes from Latin liber which means both book and bark, indicating that it was probably an early Roman material and its use is also encountered in Indonesia and Mesoamerica. The word codex originally meant the trunk of a tree and was applied to polyptyches and later to the stitched book. In Latin the term was especially applied to accounts and law books (e. g. Codex Theodosianus).
Bamboo. The Sumatran Batak people used strips of bamboo beaten together and folded in zig-zag.
Palm leaves. Pliny mentions their use in Egypt. In India the talipat palm is used and in Malaya the lontar palm. In Bali books are known as lontars. The strips were cut, boiled and smoothed and written on with a sharp stylus avoiding straight lines, hence the curved scripts of this region. Ink was then rubbed into the recesses. The long strips were held together by cords.
Other leaves were also used as is revealed by the use of folio for a sheet of paper. Inscribed olive leaves were used to draw lots in ancient Greece.
Bones, especially shoulder blades were widely used. Many of the sayings in the Quran were gathered from stones, leaves and breastbones.
Linen. Libri lintei are mentioned by Livy and were used by the emperor Aurelius for hi official diary. Egyptian linen rolls used from mummy wrappings are the source of the longest Etruscan text. The Bayeux Tapestry could be considered a pictorial scroll embroidered on linen.
Stone and metal were mainly used for commemorative and dedicatory texts as well as public tests of laws and other notices.
Clay tablets. These survive where many contemporary texts on less durable materials have perished and so are some of the oldest surviving written records. Many hundred of thousands survive on a wide variety of subjects and archaeologists have excavated them since the 1840s, Layard being a pioneer in Nineveh.
Inscribed tile from Exeter
- Wood: Used in China before paper invented. Vindolanda tablets on Hadrian's Wall 1st cent. Clues in English language: book cognate with German Buche (beech tree), write with German reissen (scratch).
- Textiles: silk used in China.
- Parchment or vellum: traditional origin Pergamon in Asia Minor. Used for library there when papyrus supplies cut off. But previously used by Hebrew scribes.
- Leaves and stems: palm leaves used in Asia, papyrus in Egypt - stem of papyrus reed, peeled into strips and laid crosswise.
- Paper:
Hunter, Dard. Papermaking: the history and technique of an ancient craft. New York: Dover, 1978
Hills, Richard L. Papermaking in Britain 1488-1988: a short history. London: Athlone, 1988
Paperonline paper history
International Association of paper Historians
14. The form of books
- Tablet: used in Mesopotamia, Crete etc.
- Scroll: used in Egypt, Greece, Rome.
- Screenfold: used in Asia and Mesoamerica. Revived for albums of views in late 19th century.
- Bundle: used in Burma, Sri Lanka (palm leaves held together between boards by cords), ancient Rome (tablets with recessed wax surface or thin sheets of wood held together by thongs).
- Codex: gatherings of leaves held together by sewing, probably developed from bundles in 1-2 cent A.D.
Form of the book. This is dictated by fashion and convenience and the materials available for its production. The scale and character of the contnts are affected by the form:
The scroll. The classical form of the book was usually short as a long scroll could soon become unwieldy.
The codex. This format could contain all the scriptures, made up of many books. Private meditation in the 13th century led to small format Bibles and books of hours. In modern times the three-decker novel is a specialised format dictated by circulating libraries. An awareness of the format of early texts can be important for textual criticism.
The scroll. The classical form of the book was usually short as a long scroll could soon become unwieldy.
The codex. This format could contain all the scriptures, made up of many books. Private meditation in the 13th century led to small format Bibles and books of hours. In modern times the three-decker novel is a specialised format dictated by circulating libraries. An awareness of the format of early texts can be important for textual criticism.
This page last updated 16 September 2020
