CHINESE: The art of writing known in China as early as the 3 rd millennium B. C.

1. CHINESE: The art of writing known in China as early as the 3rd millennium B. C. Materials on which the Chinese wrote included: Bones, tortoiseshell, bamboo stalks,wooden tablets,silk & linen. Writing instruments: The stylus, the squill, brush pen depending upon the particular writing material used.

2. Ideographic • style of writing involved the use of hundreds of characters. It is very difficult language to record and hence is held in reverence by the Chinese. • Tablets and the scroll-were the book forms.

3. Tales of the Origin of Writing The Chinese believed that the four-eyed dragon man saw patterns in the stars and from them created written characters. The god Thoth-who had the head of a bird, was said to have originated Egyptian hieroglyphs or a “ sacred writing”

4. The Greeks Crete-( early part of 2nd millennium B.C) became the center of highly-developed civilization which spread to Mainland Greece. Pictographic system- the art of writing developed by the Cretans. Later it was developed to “ Cursive form now called “ linear A” and in 15th century B.C, this art of writing developed to “ Linear B”.

5. Classical age • 4th-3rd century B.C. works of Plato and Aristotle were: drama, poetry, oration and music. Papyrus-6th century B.C, brought by Phoenicians from Egypt was the usual writing material. Parchment and Vellum-in Hellenistic Greece came into use.

6. Parchment proved to be a better medium for writing than Papyrus because it was smooth on both sides and was less likely to tear. BOOKS: The Roll, The Wax and The Codex-were the Greek books forms in which the Papyrus or the Parchment leaves of the manuscript were fastened together as in a modern book. The subject matter includes: Literature, History, Science, Mathematics, Philosophy, Religion and Politics.

7. Libraries: • The greatest libraries were: • 1. Alexandria in Egypt-The museion, founded by Ptolemy ( 323-285 B.C)-reported to have reached 200,000 rolls within 5 years. • 2. Serapeum ( founded by Ptolemy III)246-221 B.C) located in the temple of Serapis, grew more than 100,000 volumes.

8. The Romans • The Romans continued the Greek tradition in books. Rome had early adopted the Greek alphabet and Greek culture became important. • Materials which the Romans used for writing were: papyrus, parchment, vellum, wood tablets coated with wax, the stylus, the split-point reed, ant the split-feather quill.

9. BOOKS The forms of books in ancient Rome were the following: • The Roll • The Wax Tablet • The Diptych • The Codex- known to have been in use among the Christians in the second century after Christ.

10. The Roman books included all known fields of knowledge: Law Literature Science Religion Mathematics Philosophy Politics

11. Library • Ulpian Library ( founded by Trajan) - a scholarly collection housed in two structures: one for Latin , one for Greek works. In Roman Library, Greek works were kept on one side, they were arranged according to subject on shelves or in bins. Except in rare cases, books had to be used in the reading rooms.