The Book

Book is a stack of usual pages. It's made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper with one edge tied, sewn, or otherwise fixed together and then bound to the flexible spine of a protective cover of heavier, relatively inflexible material. In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its immediate predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf, and each side of a leaf is a page.

The intellectual content in a physical book need not be a composition, nor even be called a book. Books can consist only of drawings, engravings, or photographs, or such things as crossword puzzles or cut-out dolls. Some physical books are made with pages thick and sturdy enough to support other physical objects, like a scrapbook or photograph album.

There are many types of books as an account book, an appointment book, a logbook, an autograph book, a notebook, a diary or day book, or a sketchbook. etc.

The invention of writing marks the boundary between pre-history and history. The first written language that we know of was archaic cuneiform. It is believed to have appeared around 3400 BC. The earliest writings were on clay tablets and were probably administrative lists.

The World's Oldest Printed Book

The oldest book of the Bible, in Turkey

The first written story that has come down to us is The Epic of Gilgamesh. It is a mythologized account of a historical figure, Gilgamesh, a ruler of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk, between 2700-2500 BC. But the oldest book known is dated around 2100 BC. But some scholars believe that these could be transcriptions of earlier Sumerian texts. Integrated versions have been found dating from around 2000-1700 BC. The most complete “standard” version was written on 12 clay tablets sometime between 1500 – 1200 BC.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh