May 8, 2021 • 48 mins
Books are one of humanity’s greatest inventions, but where do they come from? In this classic Stuff to Blow Your Mind two-parter, Robert and Joe explore the history of book technology, from ancient clay tablets and papyrus scrolls to the codex and beyond. (Originally published 5/26/2020)
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're
going into the vault. This was an episode that originally
published on May and it is the first part of
our series on the invention of the book. Yeah, so
you know, it gets into the history of book technology,
going back to ancient clay tablets, et cetera. So it's
(00:27):
it's a fun journey. We hope you enjoy the repeat
of it. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production
of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow
Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
(00:49):
And today on Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we're gonna
be starting on an expedition into the history of books.
We're I guess this will be in the spirit of
our our previous show Invention. We're gonna look at an
invention and then I think the book is probably one
of the most underappreciated technologies. Obviously, it's not that people
don't appreciate books as things, but when we think about books,
(01:10):
I think there's a problem that we only appreciate the
contents of the books. We only think about them as literature,
and we don't think about what a marvelous technology the
modern book is. That's right. Yeah, we basically need to
take a step back here before we really get into
the idea of the invention of the book. Books are,
(01:32):
in the words of Carl Sagan, a means of storing
additional information that exceeds the information carrying capacity of the brain.
And I realized, that's that's kind of, uh, you know,
a simplified version of what they are. But it's also
kind of a useful overstatement of the obvious um. The
book is a tool. It is an extension of the
(01:55):
human body in the same way that a normal tool is,
but in this case it is more precisely in an
extension of the human mind, kind of an external hard
drive for the brain. Exactly. Yeah, I think this this
is an example where our our tendency to use computer
metaphors to understand our own minds, as you know, it's
actually pretty helpful. But of course books are more than that.
Two books are a way for one author, or a
(02:16):
group of authors, or even a legacy of authors to
think their thoughts directly into another person's brain. It's a
it's a way of not only storing information, but disseminating information,
and as such it's played the books have played a
vital role in the spread of information, where, for instance,
would Western civilization be if not for the influx influx
(02:38):
of Arab books into the medieval world. And that's just
one example. Oh yeah, but that's I think it's a
fantastic example because it books provide a way for lost
knowledge to be reclaimed. Even when knowledge sort of like
fades into obscurity within sort of the the oral culture
of a society, if there is a book that contains
that knowledge, that voice and and the book can be found,
(03:01):
suddenly all of that past knowledge can return. And I
think your example is a very good one. Now thinking
more about the metaphor of like the external hard drive
or the way of storing information outside the carrying capacity
of the brain. In some ways, I think that's a
really good metaphor, but there are also very important ways
that that doesn't quite capture everything that books can do.
(03:22):
For example, a book is a very different kind of
memory than a memory in the brain is. And I
would say one of the main issues is that books
are fixed physical documents, whereas memories in the brain are
not fixed. Memories are always changing. Every time you recall
a memory, you probably change it in some way. And
while you know it is possible, of course to remember
(03:44):
things in an accurate way, it is probably not possible
to say, remember the amount of exact numeracle figures that
would be recorded in a book list of assets or prices.
As many you know of the oldest books that they are.
You know, any of the oldest books we have are
basically trade documents of some kind, or to remember the
exact wording of of an epic poem describing a mythological foundation. Absolutely,
(04:11):
you know. Another take on this that I was reading about.
I was reading something from Andrew Robinson, author of the
Story of Writing, and he points out that you know
just how powerful books are and how how feared books
often are, particularly by usurpers of power and conquerors who
often burn books of oppressive regimes band books. Uh, you
(04:32):
know that they are powerful reservoirs of human thought and
and to your point earlier, I mean they endure in
ways that oral histories often cannot. Uh. Knowledge can be lost,
but then it can be regained through books, words and
the books that contain them. Um, they freeze our thoughts
as well, in a way that in oral history does not.
(04:54):
The myth that it exists within the minds and on
the tongues of the people will continue to change. But
that which has been recorded, uh, you know, retains all
of the you know, the curious edges that it had
when it was the first written down. And you know,
I don't recall the source on this, but I remember
us bringing up this idea of of words and in
(05:16):
a literature freezing thoughts in the past. You know that
it's taking what is happening in our mind and just
fixing it. Yeah. I think the example of the way
myths change over time is a great one here, Like
it calls to mind the recent episodes we did about
the evolution of the Medusa myth. You know, there's clearly
some kind of oral history mythology feeding into the story
(05:37):
that became Medusa and Athena, Medusa and Perseus. But once
you have a particular author writing their version of that myth,
suddenly that version is a fixed thing that can be
referred to, and it's no longer just just you know,
an uncountable part of this protean stew of mythology. Now
(05:58):
there is like Ovid's version of the Medusa myth, and
that that that's a thing you can refer to. Now.
Of course, it's not the case that books never changed.
I think, especially in the ancient world. One thing that
that's hard for us in the modern world to to
keep in mind is that books in the ancient world
had to be copied by hand when they were you know,
spread about, so changes could easily creep in, either by
(06:19):
mistakes from you know, scribes doing a sloppy job of copying,
or just inserting their own little impermature on whatever it
is they're working on. That that did happen too, sometimes
even in uh, you know, even in very important books
like the works of Plato or in the Bible. Um.
But there's another interesting thing that I think, you know,
you you were talking about the political power of books,
(06:41):
the way that like you know, conquerors and and and
political leaders often like burn or banned books that scare them.
There is a power in written documents um to create
a kind of stability in a political sense, right, Because
I was thinking about how a lot of the earliest
written documents that exist in human history are lists of
(07:05):
numeracle figures like like a record of prices or assets
in in trade or possession, or lists of laws like
Hamarabi's Code. I actually got to see the Hamarabi's Code
steal in the Louver recently and and and it made
me think they're about the significance of having a written
law code. Now, we might read the laws in Hamarabi's
(07:27):
Code and and see a lot of brutality and unfairness
in there. And I think there is absolutely that kind
of thing to find. But you can also appreciate it
in a certain way because having a list of written laws,
as opposed to sort of rule by the ad hoc
pronouncements of a leader does, at least in theory, reduce
(07:48):
the amount of caprice in how justice is administered. Right
Like a written law code, at least in theory, if
it's enforced well, allows you to know what the rules
and punishments are in advances rather than just kind of
like living in fear of whatever the leader's mood is
going to be today. Yeah, you remove the whims of
the tyrant. And also I mentioned in another level, you
(08:11):
kind of remove like, um, let's say you weren't even
dealing with the tyrant. Let's say you're dealing with just
sort of like the traditions and stories of the people, right, Um,
you'd have to like interpret those to get your laws.
But here, no, here are the laws in a list.
You can in many cases you may able to, you know,
to look at it all at once, all ten things.
(08:32):
You couldn't actually have them all in your head at
the same time, but they are all on this stone
at the same time, exactly right, Like it gives you
a common foundation that multiple people can refer to. Now,
I want to get back to the just the idea
of of books here before we inevitably dive back through
history again. You know, I was thinking about how every
now and then, you know, hear somebody joke say something
(08:55):
like remember books, uh when when contemplating electronic resources such
as e books and kindles and what have you, um, which,
you know, I get that to a certain extent because
I know I've I've in my family have tried to
cut down on clutter books in the home, you know,
like how many how many physical books do I actually need?
(09:16):
I love books, have left my own devices. I'm sure
that I would have a lot of book clutter. But
at the end of the day, you know, is this
something I'm going to actually look forward? Am I going
to actually pull it out and uh and and and
reference it at some point? And or do I have
an electronic copy already somewhere else. I've noticed in myself
I at least tend to accumulate kind of books of
(09:38):
marginal interest, Like I'll end up with books in my
house that are things that, uh that I you know,
there's probably a low likelihood that I'll ever get around
to reading them. They're not high on my priorities list,
and they're just here somehow, either I got them at
work or you know that kind of or they just
like looked interesting and they used a bookstore one time.
(09:59):
It's like, hey, it's sixt sense, I'll get it. Um.
That reminds me of if I'm remembering this correctly. Um,
burd of Echo had an anecdote about you know, Burdo Echo,
of course had quite a personal library. Um. I think
he had to like reinforce the floor to to allow
him to keep it. But at some point, some like
a workman or somebody had come over and they saw
(10:20):
all the books and they're like, oh, have you read
all of these? And he said no, no, these are
just the ones I planned to read, which which I
see that reflected in some of my own books. You know,
you start amassing books and you're like, uh, you know,
I haven't read these yet. Um, I would like to
read these, and that's why they're taking a valuable space
in my home. But I still have a lot of
(10:40):
books in the house. And and even beyond that, I mean,
they're just books everywhere still, Like there there's a library
down the street from where I live. They're all these
lending libraries, you know, so you just just traveling from
here to the library. There are just books, little boxes,
wooden boxes filled with like various old cookbooks, into horror
(11:00):
and sci fi books, that sort of thing. And on
top of this, our various e books are PDFs. These
are still digital extensions of the the the idea, the
concept of the book. You know, they still obey the
laws of the Codex, and as such, I think the
book will continue to be with us for quite some time.
But one of the big questions we're gonna be asking
(11:23):
in in this episode or episodes of Stuff to blow
your mind is how far back in time would you
have to travel, uh, you know, to reach a world
in which a book would not be identifiable as what
it is. Well, that's interesting because so the most common
form of book that we're familiar with today is the
(11:44):
is the printed book, you know, the product of a
printing press. But as I was saying earlier, that's actually
a fairly recent phenomenon. You know, for much of human history,
if you had a book, that sucker had to be
made by hand. Absolutely. Now now, certainly the printed book
as as we you know know it like generally the
first thing coming to your mind when I say book, Uh,
(12:04):
that only goes back as far as the fifteenth century. See.
But while the printing press certainly changed the trajectory of
the book forever in ways that we'll come back to,
these were certainly not the first books. Yeah, they were.
Before this we had we had handwritten books. We had
the products of the of you know, medieval European scriptoriums.
And so you might think, well, that's the beginning, right,
(12:26):
we go back to the scriptorium, and that would be
the beginning of the book somewhere in there. But this
would also be incorrect. So to really get to the
heart of the book, to get the heart of the
Kodak we have to travel much further back in time.
And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna take
a quick break and then we will begin that journey.
Than sorry, we're back. So when we talk about an invention,
(12:50):
we like to talk about what what came before, What
were the prerequisites of this invention, and what were the
forces driving it. Now, when we're talking about a book,
this is obviously an invention with many forms. What what
counts as a book? Maybe we can talk about that
a little bit more as we go on. Most of us,
when we say book, we're imagining what inform would be
called like a codex. Right, it's bound. It has pages
(13:12):
that face in from either side and then are joined
at a spine, and you can flip through the pages
and read them. But you know, there are other ways
of thinking about books, and all of these are, no
matter what their form, going to trace back to the
original invention of written language. Yes, and and this in
and of itself stands as one of the greatest inventions,
(13:34):
uh that that humans have wrought writing systems themselves seem
to emerge out of the fourth millennium b C. In Mesopotamia. So,
just to throw out some dates here. Um, you know,
in Egypt we're talking about in the Indus Valley we're
talking about b C. In Crete seventeen fifty BC. In
(13:56):
China twelve hundred b C. And in Central America five
dred BC. And so are those different dates you're giving,
are those believed to be um parts along a spreading
evolution of language or independent inventions of written language? Well,
it's interested reading about this, and apparently some scholars believe
writing may have spread from culture to culture, but the
(14:19):
majority seemed to see it as a situation of independent
invention in the various major civilizations of the ancient world
and beyond the ancient world, as it becomes increasingly important
to record trade data, laws, histories, and more. Coming back
again to you know, why do we turn to the
written word? Why do we turn to keeping records of things?
(14:41):
So that that's where it begins. It's not the composition
of poetry. Uh, it's not that taking our oral histories
and putting them down in a solid form. It's it's
initially about the data about the laws, you know. In
a way, it's it's like it begins with computing, right, Yeah,
I think, well, what we were talking about earlier, like
fixing points of information for future reference, so that you
(15:02):
can either no, you know, know something that is beyond
your ability to remember in a stable way just within
your own brain, or so that you can you and
multiple other people can all be able to point to
the same thing and and and be agreed because it's
written in the text. Of course, the thing with writing
is you have to you have to put it on something, right, Uh. Right.
(15:22):
You know if I take a note about what I
need to get at the grocery store and I put
it on, say, you know, post it note. Great, I
have a note, but that's that's that's not a book
that I can't really make an argument that's a book,
not unless I do some serious folding, right, and post
it notes did not exist in the ancient world. Most
of the oldest known written documents of any significant length
(15:43):
uh that that still exists today are printed on solid, hard,
often heavy surfaces by carving a relief. Uh. And so
a great example would be one thing I already mentioned,
the Code of Hammurabi, dated to around seventeen fifty BC.
This is a law code from ancient Mesopotamia. There was
one law I was just looking at in it that
I thought was very interesting and related to a recent episode.
(16:05):
I believe this is law number one seven of Hammurabi's code.
If anyone point the finger at a sister of a
god or the wife of anyone, and cannot prove it,
this man shall be taken before the judges and his
brow shall be marked. And the way scholars interpret that
idea of pointing the finger is as slander, I believe interesting.
(16:28):
But but here we get in one of our earliest
known law codes, like the the idea that pointing the
finger is a very dangerous act and it deserves judicial remedy. Um.
But so the code of Hammurabi is carved on what's
known as a steel. This is like a large block
that cannot be easily transported, for one from one place
(16:49):
to another. It's not like a book you can put
in your pocket or sack or carry away. You can't
store it in a compact way. It's this huge stone.
And so a steel was often an official decree or
some kind of public document that would be meant for
display display to onlookers, often bound to a particular place,
(17:10):
and the contents that are displayed on a steel often
bear out this usage. So contents you might find would
be laws, tomb or grave markers. One example I really
like is is a boundary steel. We've talked about this
in previous episodes. I believe where you might have UM
in the ancient areas, there would be like a marker
at the edge of somebody's property and it might just
(17:34):
contain a list of statements on it, like this property
here belongs to so and so. You can't come on
the property. If you come on the property, the gods
will pluck out your eyes if you come on the
property at you know, and then it's just like list
after you know, list item after list item of all
these like curses that will befall you if you violate this,
(17:55):
uh this this property restriction. Yeah, it's it's a wonderful idea.
We need to bring it back. Uh that I put
one of those in my yard. Uh. They if you
come on this property without a mask, um, the god
show smite you. Um. The that episode was I think
we just titled it the Curse, and it was an
October publication, and there's a lot of interesting stuff and
(18:17):
I remember going into some uses of the curse in
um in Chinese carpentry. Uh, there's some fun examples. Yeah, yeah, totally.
But so these types of you know, writing substrates are
things that are gonna be big fixed, usually meant to
stay in one place and say something that has to
do with that particular place. Another example would be, uh,
(18:40):
some of these ancient steel Uh, I don't know what
the plural is. Actually, I should know the steely, steally,
stella whatever it is. Um, they will like lists to
the exploits of a mighty king and say, like all
the people that he conquered and all the heads that
he smashed. Yeah, it's such an amazing concept when you
really think about it, because it's not just writing down information.
(19:01):
Like these large scale examples of this are you're taking
you're taking this knowledge, you're taking this history or this
interpretation of history, or propaganda however you want to phrase it,
and you're you're you're printing it on the world. You're
making it part of the environment. Yeah, totally, And so
I think we should make a distinction here. While I
think these early you know, written documents that are carved
(19:24):
on large stones and and you know whatever you want
to call the steel tradition, I don't think that's a book.
Probably I think for something to qualify as a book,
it really needs to include an element of compactness and portability.
I think it needs to be something that could reasonably
be carried from one place to another, and could reasonably
(19:46):
be stored in multiples within a building or a home.
And that's a fancy way of saying, um, could you
kill a bug with it? Like if you could not
kill a bug with it, I'm not sure it's a
book in any in any way, shape or form. I
like your Death Mission better. So a side down a
little deeper in determining what is and what is in
a book, I of course turned to a book that
(20:08):
I love to dive into anytime. We start looking at
an ancient invention. That is The Seventy Great Inventions of
the Ancient World, edited by Brian Fagan UM and the
contributor in this book for the chapters dealing with writing
and encryption in the History of Books, UH is an individual.
They're already mentioned by the name of Andrew Robinson, who
wrote the story of writing Lost Languages and the man
(20:31):
who deciphered linear b So I want to read an
excerpt from Robinson's work in The seventy Great inventions of
the ancient world. Quote, there is nothing in the concept
of the book that requires it to consist of pages
with text printed or written on paper, still less sown
or glued together between cardboard covers like present day examples,
(20:51):
a cash of Babylon clay tablets, an Egyptian papyrus, role
of vellum codex from medieval Europe, a folding maya codex
with jaguar skin covers from Central America, a microfilm, and
an electronic book all qualify as books as much as
printed paper volume. And uh this, when I was reading
(21:12):
this instantly brought to mind the concept of a physical book,
as presented in Frank Herbert's Dune, which of course takes
place in the far future of humanity. I don't know
if you remember this, Joe, but there's this concept of
a first of all film books, which are described as
sugar wire imprints used in training and carrying an monochy pulse.
(21:32):
Well that clears it up. Yeah, yeah, ignore that part.
But because there's also mentioned of an old fashioned book
but with a futuristic twist. It's an old orange Catholic
bible that a character gives to another, and it's made
for space travelers were told it's printed on filament paper
that you can't actually touch. It has its own magnifier,
(21:53):
and it has an electrostatic charge system, so the charge
holds the book closed, forcing against spring locked covers. Were
told you press the edge of the book and the
selected pages open, the magnifier slides into place, and you
can move it ahead page by page in this fashion
fashion without ever touching these like super delicate pages. I
(22:16):
remember reading that for the first time as a kid
and just being like blown away by this this idea
of this this tiny little space bible that has its
own magnifier and it's um, you know, it's using this
electric electrostatic charge system to turn the tiny little pages.
So it's kind of like a combination of a book
in a micro fiche. But it's like, yeah, it's got
its own reading apparatus exactly. Yeah. But I want to
(22:38):
come back to what Robinson was talking about. He's he's
sort of rolling out what he sees as the criteria
for calling something a book. Quote. They are all made
for public circulation, enjoy a considerable degree of permanence, and
are relatively portable compared, say to a monumental inscription through
their different media. They are all capable of knowledge transmission,
(23:00):
transcending space and time. Of course, printing with movable type,
which was invented much later than the book, vastly increases
its potential readership, but it does not define the concept. Well,
there's something he kind of hints at in the last
sentence there which which I find interesting, which is the
idea of a possible link between the mass production of
books and and people's ability to read books. Because another thing,
(23:24):
you know, we we talked about how for most of
human history, books were not mass produced. They had to
be copied by hand. They were precious and rare things
that were difficult to make um and so you know,
obviously the only people who could afford to have them
would be like institutions or very rich people, or monasteries,
that kind of thing. But also, you know, for most
of human history, most people have been illiterate. It's only
(23:47):
really in the past couple of centuries that that widespread
public literacy has been a goal. Absolutely. Yeah, So you
have to ask yourself. I mean, obviously a book that
cannot be read is still for the most part of book,
but by some definitions maybe not like for instance, we
discussed the Voniche manuscript in the past on the show,
you know, and it's unreadable nature that continues to uh
(24:10):
intrigue and confuse us. You know, if if the book
cannot convey information, if the boot, if the book is mute.
Uh you know what does that say? It's if I
feel similar ways about say like if Wu Tang puts
out an album that know, but the only one person
can listen to, or John Malkovich makes a film that
nobody can watch for a hundred years, Like is that
(24:31):
really an album? Is that really a movie? Because um,
you know, this is like a communication has to take
place for this to really be media in certain certain respects. Yeah,
I agree, it's an interesting way of thinking about it.
Uh So Robinson goes on to just briefly outline some
of the core examples of of early things that we
(24:53):
could we could say we're books. Uh So, the two
earliest contenders that he highlights, first of all, Mesopotamian clay tablets.
These would be handwritten cuneiform script inscribed in clay with
a red and then baked. And then the other one, uh,
that's this one of the two contenders here is Egyptian
papyrus rolls written in ink with a brush the papyrus itself. Uh.
(25:14):
This was this was made from sheets that were made
from the papyrus plant, so stripped, sliced overlapped in layers
of pith, pressed and then allowed to dry. And I'll
come back to this one in more detail and a bit. However,
three other innovations that are worth highlighting Chinese bamboo and
wooden slips bound together with cords. Uh. This basically constitutes
(25:36):
the idea of a book. And of course the Chinese
would have would go on to invent paper itself in
one oh five c. And from there it would spread
through East Asia, though it would be nearly a thousand
years before Europe followed suit. You also have Mediterranean writing tablets.
These would be consist of one to ten pieces of
wood bound together by a clasp or hinge, or alternatively
(25:59):
by a cord strong through holes around along the edges.
And then you also have Greek and Roman wax writing tablets. Uh.
And of course they also use papyrus and parchment roles
as well. And of course all of these examples of
what we might call books. Uh, we're leading up to
what we refer to as the codex, in which a
number of sheets of parchment are bound together with writing
(26:20):
on both sides of each sheet. Yeah, and it's really
the codex. I think that's the first thing that we
recognize as is morphologically the same as the modern books
that we have, despite changes in materials and stuff. The
codex is what you're thinking of when you think of
a book. It folds, it has pages. You leave through
the pages to read exactly. So I was reading an
(26:43):
excellent brief overview of the history of things leading up
to the Codex in a book called the book The
Life Story of a Technology by Nicole Howard. I think
this was released at some point through Johns Hopkins University
Press UM. But but Howard's overview is interesting. So she
mentions some of the same things you're talking about, of course,
that you know in in the early archaeological record of
(27:05):
written documents, hard surfaces rule the day. And of course
these would include like the steel that we mentioned before, uh,
and the you know, the Mesopotamian clay tablets, the what
the Assyrians the Babylonians used to preserve written information and
you know, making in dense on clay tablets. But also
things like wood and bone. She also mentioned several other
substrates that I thought were interesting as as surfaces for
(27:28):
writing on, including ivory, tortoise shell, linen, palm leaves, and
what's called bast fiber, which is a tough fiber from
the vascular tissue of some plant species which is often
used to make things like rope or matting. And and
she identifies the most direct ancestor to the modern hardware
(27:48):
of a book, a bound book with pages, as what
emerges in northern Africa around twenty b c. E. I've
I've read some other estimates putting it earlier, around three
thousand or thirty one BC. We don't know exactly, but
of course, whenever it did emerge, this was papyrus. And
it's time to sound the alarm. We got it. We
got a plenty of the elder alert. Are you ready
(28:09):
for some plenty? Yeah? Yeah, let's let's touch in with
plenty of the elder for little history here. But first
we should probably take one more break. Oh okay, we're
gonna we're gonna jump out, but then we'll be right
back in with plenty. All right, we're back, So we're
jumping in with Plenty of the Elder and his description
(28:29):
of the ancient papyrus industry. So Plenty of the Elder,
of course, was a first century Roman military officer and author, encyclopedist,
president of the lead Acetate Fan Club. Of course, he
he wrote at length about what he believed on the
history and production of papyrus. And this would be I'm
gonna read a section here from the Bostock and Riley
(28:51):
translation of Plenty's Natural History, which is his his big encyclopedia.
It's got it's got all the info you'll ever need. Uh.
So Plenty rights, we have not as yet taken any
notice of the marsh plants, nor yet of the shrubs
that grow upon the banks of rivers. Before quitting Egypt. However,
we must make some mention of the nature of the papyrus,
(29:12):
seeing that all the usages of civilized life depend in
such a remarkable degree upon the employment of paper at
all events the remembrance of past events. Um so, and
so he's he's talking about the translation there uses the
word paper. Of course, this is not exactly what we'll
talk about when we get into the Chinese papermaking tradition.
(29:33):
This is papyrus a slightly different thing though, it's a
sort of paper like. He calls papyrus that commodity by
which immortality is ensured to man. So Plenty of ranking
papyrus up there as like one of the most important
inventions in Roman civilization, He's like, hey, without papyrus, basically
like we we couldn't have a civilization, We couldn't have
(29:56):
remembrance of things past. So he goes on to introd
the plant by saying, quote, Papyrus grows either in the
marshes of Egypt or in the sluggish waters of the
River Nile when they have overflowed and are lying stagnant,
in pools that do not exceed a couple of cubits
in depth. The route lies obliquely and is about the
(30:16):
thickness of one's arm. The section of the stalk is triangular,
and it tapers gracefully upwards towards the extremity, being not
more than ten cubits at most in height. And then
Plenty goes on to explain the way that papyrus was made,
that this is coming sort of from Howard summary. Basically,
you would you would cut the plant into segments, and
(30:36):
you would remove this outer green rind to access the
pith inside, which is this pulpy substance that's made primarily
of cellulose. Cellulose, of course, is fiber. And then the
pith would be laid out in these long, thin strips
on a damp table or board and hammered flat side
by side to form these single layer sheets. And then
(30:58):
a second layer of strip was laid flat perpendicular to
the first sheet, and then also pounded or pressed flat.
And Plenty claims that these perpendicular sheets were quote moistened
with nile water, a liquid which, when in a muddy state,
has the peculiar qualities of glue. Now, Howard mentions that
(31:19):
modern scholars do not think nile water was actually used
as a glue here. Instead, they think that the glue
would just be a natural property of these plant fibers.
There would be a sap in the reed, and that
sap would bind the sheets together once they had been
pounded or pressed in a perpendicular fashion. Yes, Robinson writes
this as well, that it's the naturally occurring sap. Yeah,
(31:42):
But either way, you would then dry the sheets, and
so an individual sheet of papyrus might be small. It
just might be you know, or on twelve inches in height.
But what you could do is glue sheets together at
the edges, and then once you've attached a bunch of
papyrus sheets together, they can be rolled up into scrolls.
And scrolls, of course, are an important book technology that
(32:03):
precedes the codex, and we can explore that more as
we go forward. Um. But Howard points out an interesting
side effect of the production process. She says that by
hammering the strips together in this perpendicular fashion, this was
actually important because it would allow you to to get
a much more durable material. Right. The paper will be flexible,
(32:25):
it'll be fairly tough, you know, because you've got this
crossing here. But also as a side effect, you'd get
one side of the papyrus sheet with natural fibers running
top to bottom, while the other side would have fibers
running horizontally. And this has practical implications for writing. The
side with the fibers running horizontally was fairly easy to
(32:45):
write on, you know, think about like line to note paper, right,
but the side with the fibers running vertically was often
considered unfit for writing. It was difficult to write on,
and a lot of archaeologists have found that in the
ancient world, a lot of people just didn't write on
this side of the page, which is very interesting because
you know, when you consider writing material as a relatively
(33:05):
precious commodity compared to how you know, cheap and easily
accessible paper is today. Yeah, it's almost like they were natural. Um.
I find with children it's similar, like you have to
remind them, hey, uh, the printer paper didn't grow on trees,
so please use the back of the printer paper when
you were you know, sketching monsters and and whatnot. But
(33:27):
because their natural instinct seems to be just to to
do the front and just leave it at that, I
don't know, but no, my marker bleeds through. I need
to have you know, clean monsters on either side. Yeah. Um,
we may come back to this in a bit. But
I'm reminded earlier I mentioned how like her e books
are essentially the codex, uh, you know, in in a
in e form. But of course I should probably add
(33:49):
this because I know a lot of people may have
been thinking this as well. You know, it depends on
how you have your set your viewing settings in place.
For instance, the notes that we are using here I've
mine are currently in a PDF form, so I'm reading
it in Adobe Acrobat Pro and uh, currently it is scrolling.
Now there is a separation between pages, so it's like
(34:12):
I have scrolling pages. However, if I go to my
view settings, I can change that. I can remove the
space between the pages and turn it into essentially a
digital scroll. Um Instead, I'm doing something that is I
think ultimately more like a codex. Uh. And you can
even you know, of course, do things where you have
like opposing pages and all as well. So I don't know,
(34:34):
maybe we are living in a in an age where UMU,
there's maybe a preference for the codex, but we certainly
have scroll like options available to us as well. Yeah,
I see what you're talking about. I mean, this isn't
the first time I've heard this. Actually, I remember many
years ago watching some interview where, um, the literary scholar
(34:56):
Harold Bloom was in a in a you know, characteristically
grumpy fashion, lamenting the rise of the idea of e books.
He he just seemed to hate this idea and he
care with the way he described it was like two
thousand years after we made the transition to the codex
finally we are transitioning back to the scroll, and he
(35:17):
thought this was just awful, not saying I necessarily agree
with that sentiment, though, there is something about like scrolling
down to read an article, say on a website, that
I don't really like as a reading format, Like it
is more pleasant to have the same article in a
format where you can just turn the pages. I like
the sequential nature of page turning. Um, there's something I mean,
(35:41):
maybe it's just two elementary you know that it feels
like I'm I'm I'm I'm taking care of a task
one after the either, one page at a time, in
a way where an endless scroll might seem intimidating. I
don't know, uh, Or maybe it's just this is what
I'm used to and this is what I like to do,
because like I'm when I'm using my kindle, there's certainly
more of a feeling of side to side, page to page,
(36:03):
and you know, you'd even have some sort of a
page count out there as well. Yeah, I agree. Okay,
so interesting side fact Plenty notes here he Plenty starts
describing a bunch of different kinds of paper. He's like, not, now,
I will tell you about the nine different kinds of papyrus. Uh,
thanks plenty, but he mentions one kind. He's telling about
the Egyptians describing this um high quality white papyrus as
(36:27):
what's called hieratic or this is sometimes translated as holy paper,
since it was reserved entirely for the use of religious books,
and the footnote in the Bostock and Riley translation of
the Natural History says quote the priests would not allow
it to be sold, lest it might be used for
profane writing. But after it was once written upon, it
(36:49):
was easily procurable. The Romans were in the habit of
purchasing it, largely in the latter state, and then washing
off the writing and using it as paper of the
finest quality. Hints it received the name of Augustus as
representing in Latin its Greek name hierradicus or sacred. In
the length of time it became a common impression, as
(37:10):
here mentioned that this name was given in honor of
Augustus Caesar. But I think that first part is interesting,
so like if if their characterization is correct here that
like certain kinds of papyrus were guarded in a material
sense and regarded as holy because they would be used
at some point to write Holy Scripture on not because
(37:33):
anything had been written on them yet, but then once
something had already been written on them, then it was
no longer sacred, and then you could easily just get
it and I guess, wash off the Holy Scripture and
write whatever you wanted on it. Oh wow, that's interesting.
That reminds me of the I think it was a
two part episode. Maybe it's just a one part that
it did with did with Christian back in the day
on the idea of Grimore's of you know, books that
(37:56):
end up taking on sacred qualities, uh, you know, generally
because of the sacred contents that they have. Um, there
is I remember there being one. Um we were talking
about a cash of Qurans that had been discovered and
uh and and part of the issue was is like
these books, these holy books have been used and reused
(38:16):
to the point where they were kind of falling apart.
They weren't really usable anymore, they weren't presentable, but they
were also sacred so they couldn't be destroyed. So they
were kind of walled away in in a building. And
then they were discovered much later. And if I remember correctly, uh,
you know, they gave us some of the oldest examples
of the koran Um that we have been able to,
(38:37):
you know, to to acquire. Uh. So Yeah, when you
start getting into the idea of of sacred information put
onto a material, a material that may itself be considered sacred, Uh,
everything gets gets very complicated. Yeah, that is interesting, Like
the the conceptual contagion that the the sacredness of the
(38:57):
content of what's written on the paper or the papyrus
or the ink or whatever eventually extends by contagion to
the physical form itself. It's not just that what is
written in here is holy, but like the actual physical
book is holy. This is such a weird concept, Like
it seems like the kind of thing that might be
utilized by like an artist. Like what if you had
(39:20):
what if you had a Bible, okay, like a you know,
a Catholic Bible, and you found out that it was
made from from paper that had been recycled from pornography. Um,
like what how would how would we deally? I don't
think we would particularly Like it would be a weird
thing to focus on today. Uh. It would also be
weird that you were, you know, making it exclusively from
(39:42):
pornography recyclings. But um, but would that even would that
begin to sort of creep into our idea of of
contagion that like the that this is this this book
is is profane, it's some sort of a blasphemy because
you made it on such recycled material. I feel like
a lot of modern religious people would probably would probably
(40:03):
house the distinction in the intent of the person who
made it, so it would be like, did you know
you were making making it out of this recycled paper
or not? Like it, I think most people today like
if they found that out but they knew it was
just recycled paper and the person had no intention of
making that particular transition, they wouldn't care, But they might
get annoyed at the idea that someone did this on purpose, right,
(40:26):
like if it were in a museum in New York
City or something. Um, But then again, imagine this. I
can easily see somebody, say like a televangelists marketing their
own Bible that they can guarantee is not made using
recycled pornography. If he would be like, yes, how have
I been using an impure Bible this whole time? There
might be some pornography in there right. Well, I mean,
(40:47):
if you've got somebody who's good at selling it, they'll
be good at selling it. Yeah. Okay, So I guess
to get back to papyrus. So how was papyrus written on? Well,
Howard mentions that the ancient Egyptians would write on pyrus
using reads or quills, often dipped in an ink made
out of charcoal deluded in water. Uh. And again a
reminder at this time we've mentioned this, but if you
(41:09):
wanted a copy of a book at this time, it
had to be written out by hand. You could not
get it from a printing press. And Howard mentions that
scribes and nhent Egypt would copy scrolls either by sight,
so you just have one copy of a book on
you know, one part of your desk and another blank
scroll on the other part, and you just copy it
up by hand, or you'd have a book read aloud
(41:30):
and you'd have to copy it down from dictation, which
sounds even harder. But this was a slow and laborious process,
not just for the obvious reasons. You might imagine it
would also be slow and laborious to copy a book
in this way because there are also mechanical limitations like
you had to wait for the ink to dry as
you're going, and there's no backspace key if you make
(41:51):
a mistake, and so forth. But papyrus made out of
the read, the Cyprus papyrus planned it was a major
industry supply lying writing material to the broader Mediterranean world.
But but Howard identifies an interesting shift, and it begins
especially around the first century. There's there's some elements of
this shift in earlier centuries, but it really gets going
(42:14):
around the first century that there's this long running, major
shift from papyrus to parchment for writing material. Now why
this shift, Well, one explanation given by historians is a
basic shortage of supply. Again, papyrus. Writing material had to
be made of this specific plant, the read Cyprus papyrus,
and if there was a sudden scarcity of the read,
(42:35):
that would mean a scarcity of the writing material for export.
But Howard also mentions that there were sort of pressures
put on Egypt by military incursions in the previous centuries.
And so whatever the cause of the dwindling supply of
exported papyrus around the first century, bookmaking people's elsewhere in
the Mediterranean, we're really we're really starting to seek out
(42:57):
an alternative, which they found in parchment and vellum. Now,
what are these substances. Basically, I think like paper made
out of treated animal skins. Parchment is made from untanned
sheep leather, and vellum is made from calf skin. So
to treat these animal skins for us as writing surfaces, first,
(43:17):
of course, you had to clean them. You had to
get all the biological gunk off, you know, all the
hair and stuff, and then they would they would clean
the smooth surface with applications of pumice and lime. And
Howard points out that this was a difficult process since
the animal skin had to be stretched and dried at
the same time. So the goal was to stretch it
(43:38):
out in such a way that it wouldn't contract back
to its original shape once it was finished drying. And
there are actually several ways that parchment and vellum proved
superior to papyrus as writing material. One way is that
they can be made pretty much anywhere. Papyrus was dependent
on Egypt, it was dependent on this Egyptian industry, especially
since it was made from a read native to the
(43:59):
Nile Alta area. Though I think there were papyrus or
papyrus like products also made from some of the Mesopotamian
empires based on reed plants from the Tigris and Euphrates.
I don't know if it was the same species of plant,
but it seems primarily papyrus was coming from Egypt. But nevertheless,
the ancient Romans were generally dependent on Egyptian papyrus for
(44:22):
their needs. Meanwhile, sheep and calves, they could be pretty
much anywhere. They were raised pretty much anywhere, so you
could always make parchment or villum locally. And Howard doesn't
mention this, but I've read in other sources that the
process of making papyrus writing material was also a closely
guarded industrial secret, and I kind of wonder if this
might also have proved important in its decline. Yeah, you,
(44:46):
ultimately do you just need an alternative to that that
trade secret papyrus. So yeah, you turn to like, what
can I do? What are some other organic sources I
can source to turn into, uh, some thing that I
can write on right now? On top of this, there
was some other benefits as well. Parchment and vellum were
just more durable than papyrus. They held up better over
(45:08):
time and held up against wear and tear better. But
finally there were aesthetic and practical reasons parchment works better
than papyrus. One, it was easier to write on without
the facially perpendicular fibers of the plant matter. Once you
had written on it, Also, the text stood out more
clearly from from the background than it did on papyrus.
(45:28):
And to some extent, parchment actually allowed scribes to erase
mistakes or other unwanted writing more easily than than papyrus
did I mean by virtue of it being just more
durable for starters, because we have to remember that I
think we went into this we talked about our on
our Invention episode about the pencil and the eraser. Like erasing,
(45:49):
uh is is often a a matter of taking away
from the material upon which you have written. And so
if you're already dealing with fragile papyrus, there's there's less
you can do without destroying the paper totally. Uh So, So,
by about the fourth century CE, parchment had replaced papyrus
(46:09):
for most written documents in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
And so that's gonna play a very important part in
shaping the physical evolution of the book, especially once we
start talking about the form wars of scroll versus codex.
But there's something else we need to get into. I
guess at the beginning of the next episode, I think
we're running out of time for today. But parallel to
the papyrus and parchment industry is being established in those
(46:32):
regions in the west eastward in China, written documents had
found a home on a totally different writing material, and
this would be paper. So maybe in the next episode
we should start off by looking at the paper industry.
Absolutely so, uh, definitely join us next time as we
continue this look at the history of the codex, the
history of paper, the history of writing itself also kind
(46:53):
of bound up into a well, not a single volume,
multiple volume, so you can think of each each episode
to the show as a volume, right, um, so join
us next time. In the meantime, if you would like
to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind,
you know exactly where to find us. You can find
us wherever you get your podcasts. And what can you
(47:14):
do to support us? Well, you can rate, you can review,
you can subscribe. Huge thanks as always to our excellent
audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to
get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
just to say hello, you can email us at contact
at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to
(47:40):
Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts for My heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.
Twenty three three Proper first Pas
Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're
going into the vault. This was an episode that originally
published on May and it is the first part of
our series on the invention of the book. Yeah, so
you know, it gets into the history of book technology,
going back to ancient clay tablets, et cetera. So it's
(00:27):
it's a fun journey. We hope you enjoy the repeat
of it. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production
of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow
Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
(00:49):
And today on Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we're gonna
be starting on an expedition into the history of books.
We're I guess this will be in the spirit of
our our previous show Invention. We're gonna look at an
invention and then I think the book is probably one
of the most underappreciated technologies. Obviously, it's not that people
don't appreciate books as things, but when we think about books,
(01:10):
I think there's a problem that we only appreciate the
contents of the books. We only think about them as literature,
and we don't think about what a marvelous technology the
modern book is. That's right. Yeah, we basically need to
take a step back here before we really get into
the idea of the invention of the book. Books are,
(01:32):
in the words of Carl Sagan, a means of storing
additional information that exceeds the information carrying capacity of the brain.
And I realized, that's that's kind of, uh, you know,
a simplified version of what they are. But it's also
kind of a useful overstatement of the obvious um. The
book is a tool. It is an extension of the
(01:55):
human body in the same way that a normal tool is,
but in this case it is more precisely in an
extension of the human mind, kind of an external hard
drive for the brain. Exactly. Yeah, I think this this
is an example where our our tendency to use computer
metaphors to understand our own minds, as you know, it's
actually pretty helpful. But of course books are more than that.
Two books are a way for one author, or a
(02:16):
group of authors, or even a legacy of authors to
think their thoughts directly into another person's brain. It's a
it's a way of not only storing information, but disseminating information,
and as such it's played the books have played a
vital role in the spread of information, where, for instance,
would Western civilization be if not for the influx influx
(02:38):
of Arab books into the medieval world. And that's just
one example. Oh yeah, but that's I think it's a
fantastic example because it books provide a way for lost
knowledge to be reclaimed. Even when knowledge sort of like
fades into obscurity within sort of the the oral culture
of a society, if there is a book that contains
that knowledge, that voice and and the book can be found,
(03:01):
suddenly all of that past knowledge can return. And I
think your example is a very good one. Now thinking
more about the metaphor of like the external hard drive
or the way of storing information outside the carrying capacity
of the brain. In some ways, I think that's a
really good metaphor, but there are also very important ways
that that doesn't quite capture everything that books can do.
(03:22):
For example, a book is a very different kind of
memory than a memory in the brain is. And I
would say one of the main issues is that books
are fixed physical documents, whereas memories in the brain are
not fixed. Memories are always changing. Every time you recall
a memory, you probably change it in some way. And
while you know it is possible, of course to remember
(03:44):
things in an accurate way, it is probably not possible
to say, remember the amount of exact numeracle figures that
would be recorded in a book list of assets or prices.
As many you know of the oldest books that they are.
You know, any of the oldest books we have are
basically trade documents of some kind, or to remember the
exact wording of of an epic poem describing a mythological foundation. Absolutely,
(04:11):
you know. Another take on this that I was reading about.
I was reading something from Andrew Robinson, author of the
Story of Writing, and he points out that you know
just how powerful books are and how how feared books
often are, particularly by usurpers of power and conquerors who
often burn books of oppressive regimes band books. Uh, you
(04:32):
know that they are powerful reservoirs of human thought and
and to your point earlier, I mean they endure in
ways that oral histories often cannot. Uh. Knowledge can be lost,
but then it can be regained through books, words and
the books that contain them. Um, they freeze our thoughts
as well, in a way that in oral history does not.
(04:54):
The myth that it exists within the minds and on
the tongues of the people will continue to change. But
that which has been recorded, uh, you know, retains all
of the you know, the curious edges that it had
when it was the first written down. And you know,
I don't recall the source on this, but I remember
us bringing up this idea of of words and in
(05:16):
a literature freezing thoughts in the past. You know that
it's taking what is happening in our mind and just
fixing it. Yeah. I think the example of the way
myths change over time is a great one here, Like
it calls to mind the recent episodes we did about
the evolution of the Medusa myth. You know, there's clearly
some kind of oral history mythology feeding into the story
(05:37):
that became Medusa and Athena, Medusa and Perseus. But once
you have a particular author writing their version of that myth,
suddenly that version is a fixed thing that can be
referred to, and it's no longer just just you know,
an uncountable part of this protean stew of mythology. Now
(05:58):
there is like Ovid's version of the Medusa myth, and
that that that's a thing you can refer to. Now.
Of course, it's not the case that books never changed.
I think, especially in the ancient world. One thing that
that's hard for us in the modern world to to
keep in mind is that books in the ancient world
had to be copied by hand when they were you know,
spread about, so changes could easily creep in, either by
(06:19):
mistakes from you know, scribes doing a sloppy job of copying,
or just inserting their own little impermature on whatever it
is they're working on. That that did happen too, sometimes
even in uh, you know, even in very important books
like the works of Plato or in the Bible. Um.
But there's another interesting thing that I think, you know,
you you were talking about the political power of books,
(06:41):
the way that like you know, conquerors and and and
political leaders often like burn or banned books that scare them.
There is a power in written documents um to create
a kind of stability in a political sense, right, Because
I was thinking about how a lot of the earliest
written documents that exist in human history are lists of
(07:05):
numeracle figures like like a record of prices or assets
in in trade or possession, or lists of laws like
Hamarabi's Code. I actually got to see the Hamarabi's Code
steal in the Louver recently and and and it made
me think they're about the significance of having a written
law code. Now, we might read the laws in Hamarabi's
(07:27):
Code and and see a lot of brutality and unfairness
in there. And I think there is absolutely that kind
of thing to find. But you can also appreciate it
in a certain way because having a list of written laws,
as opposed to sort of rule by the ad hoc
pronouncements of a leader does, at least in theory, reduce
(07:48):
the amount of caprice in how justice is administered. Right
Like a written law code, at least in theory, if
it's enforced well, allows you to know what the rules
and punishments are in advances rather than just kind of
like living in fear of whatever the leader's mood is
going to be today. Yeah, you remove the whims of
the tyrant. And also I mentioned in another level, you
(08:11):
kind of remove like, um, let's say you weren't even
dealing with the tyrant. Let's say you're dealing with just
sort of like the traditions and stories of the people, right, Um,
you'd have to like interpret those to get your laws.
But here, no, here are the laws in a list.
You can in many cases you may able to, you know,
to look at it all at once, all ten things.
(08:32):
You couldn't actually have them all in your head at
the same time, but they are all on this stone
at the same time, exactly right, Like it gives you
a common foundation that multiple people can refer to. Now,
I want to get back to the just the idea
of of books here before we inevitably dive back through
history again. You know, I was thinking about how every
now and then, you know, hear somebody joke say something
(08:55):
like remember books, uh when when contemplating electronic resources such
as e books and kindles and what have you, um, which,
you know, I get that to a certain extent because
I know I've I've in my family have tried to
cut down on clutter books in the home, you know,
like how many how many physical books do I actually need?
(09:16):
I love books, have left my own devices. I'm sure
that I would have a lot of book clutter. But
at the end of the day, you know, is this
something I'm going to actually look forward? Am I going
to actually pull it out and uh and and and
reference it at some point? And or do I have
an electronic copy already somewhere else. I've noticed in myself
I at least tend to accumulate kind of books of
(09:38):
marginal interest, Like I'll end up with books in my
house that are things that, uh that I you know,
there's probably a low likelihood that I'll ever get around
to reading them. They're not high on my priorities list,
and they're just here somehow, either I got them at
work or you know that kind of or they just
like looked interesting and they used a bookstore one time.
(09:59):
It's like, hey, it's sixt sense, I'll get it. Um.
That reminds me of if I'm remembering this correctly. Um,
burd of Echo had an anecdote about you know, Burdo Echo,
of course had quite a personal library. Um. I think
he had to like reinforce the floor to to allow
him to keep it. But at some point, some like
a workman or somebody had come over and they saw
(10:20):
all the books and they're like, oh, have you read
all of these? And he said no, no, these are
just the ones I planned to read, which which I
see that reflected in some of my own books. You know,
you start amassing books and you're like, uh, you know,
I haven't read these yet. Um, I would like to
read these, and that's why they're taking a valuable space
in my home. But I still have a lot of
(10:40):
books in the house. And and even beyond that, I mean,
they're just books everywhere still, Like there there's a library
down the street from where I live. They're all these
lending libraries, you know, so you just just traveling from
here to the library. There are just books, little boxes,
wooden boxes filled with like various old cookbooks, into horror
(11:00):
and sci fi books, that sort of thing. And on
top of this, our various e books are PDFs. These
are still digital extensions of the the the idea, the
concept of the book. You know, they still obey the
laws of the Codex, and as such, I think the
book will continue to be with us for quite some time.
But one of the big questions we're gonna be asking
(11:23):
in in this episode or episodes of Stuff to blow
your mind is how far back in time would you
have to travel, uh, you know, to reach a world
in which a book would not be identifiable as what
it is. Well, that's interesting because so the most common
form of book that we're familiar with today is the
(11:44):
is the printed book, you know, the product of a
printing press. But as I was saying earlier, that's actually
a fairly recent phenomenon. You know, for much of human history,
if you had a book, that sucker had to be
made by hand. Absolutely. Now now, certainly the printed book
as as we you know know it like generally the
first thing coming to your mind when I say book, Uh,
(12:04):
that only goes back as far as the fifteenth century. See.
But while the printing press certainly changed the trajectory of
the book forever in ways that we'll come back to,
these were certainly not the first books. Yeah, they were.
Before this we had we had handwritten books. We had
the products of the of you know, medieval European scriptoriums.
And so you might think, well, that's the beginning, right,
(12:26):
we go back to the scriptorium, and that would be
the beginning of the book somewhere in there. But this
would also be incorrect. So to really get to the
heart of the book, to get the heart of the
Kodak we have to travel much further back in time.
And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna take
a quick break and then we will begin that journey.
Than sorry, we're back. So when we talk about an invention,
(12:50):
we like to talk about what what came before, What
were the prerequisites of this invention, and what were the
forces driving it. Now, when we're talking about a book,
this is obviously an invention with many forms. What what
counts as a book? Maybe we can talk about that
a little bit more as we go on. Most of us,
when we say book, we're imagining what inform would be
called like a codex. Right, it's bound. It has pages
(13:12):
that face in from either side and then are joined
at a spine, and you can flip through the pages
and read them. But you know, there are other ways
of thinking about books, and all of these are, no
matter what their form, going to trace back to the
original invention of written language. Yes, and and this in
and of itself stands as one of the greatest inventions,
(13:34):
uh that that humans have wrought writing systems themselves seem
to emerge out of the fourth millennium b C. In Mesopotamia. So,
just to throw out some dates here. Um, you know,
in Egypt we're talking about in the Indus Valley we're
talking about b C. In Crete seventeen fifty BC. In
(13:56):
China twelve hundred b C. And in Central America five
dred BC. And so are those different dates you're giving,
are those believed to be um parts along a spreading
evolution of language or independent inventions of written language? Well,
it's interested reading about this, and apparently some scholars believe
writing may have spread from culture to culture, but the
(14:19):
majority seemed to see it as a situation of independent
invention in the various major civilizations of the ancient world
and beyond the ancient world, as it becomes increasingly important
to record trade data, laws, histories, and more. Coming back
again to you know, why do we turn to the
written word? Why do we turn to keeping records of things?
(14:41):
So that that's where it begins. It's not the composition
of poetry. Uh, it's not that taking our oral histories
and putting them down in a solid form. It's it's
initially about the data about the laws, you know. In
a way, it's it's like it begins with computing, right, Yeah,
I think, well, what we were talking about earlier, like
fixing points of information for future reference, so that you
(15:02):
can either no, you know, know something that is beyond
your ability to remember in a stable way just within
your own brain, or so that you can you and
multiple other people can all be able to point to
the same thing and and and be agreed because it's
written in the text. Of course, the thing with writing
is you have to you have to put it on something, right, Uh. Right.
(15:22):
You know if I take a note about what I
need to get at the grocery store and I put
it on, say, you know, post it note. Great, I
have a note, but that's that's that's not a book
that I can't really make an argument that's a book,
not unless I do some serious folding, right, and post
it notes did not exist in the ancient world. Most
of the oldest known written documents of any significant length
(15:43):
uh that that still exists today are printed on solid, hard,
often heavy surfaces by carving a relief. Uh. And so
a great example would be one thing I already mentioned,
the Code of Hammurabi, dated to around seventeen fifty BC.
This is a law code from ancient Mesopotamia. There was
one law I was just looking at in it that
I thought was very interesting and related to a recent episode.
(16:05):
I believe this is law number one seven of Hammurabi's code.
If anyone point the finger at a sister of a
god or the wife of anyone, and cannot prove it,
this man shall be taken before the judges and his
brow shall be marked. And the way scholars interpret that
idea of pointing the finger is as slander, I believe interesting.
(16:28):
But but here we get in one of our earliest
known law codes, like the the idea that pointing the
finger is a very dangerous act and it deserves judicial remedy. Um.
But so the code of Hammurabi is carved on what's
known as a steel. This is like a large block
that cannot be easily transported, for one from one place
(16:49):
to another. It's not like a book you can put
in your pocket or sack or carry away. You can't
store it in a compact way. It's this huge stone.
And so a steel was often an official decree or
some kind of public document that would be meant for
display display to onlookers, often bound to a particular place,
(17:10):
and the contents that are displayed on a steel often
bear out this usage. So contents you might find would
be laws, tomb or grave markers. One example I really
like is is a boundary steel. We've talked about this
in previous episodes. I believe where you might have UM
in the ancient areas, there would be like a marker
at the edge of somebody's property and it might just
(17:34):
contain a list of statements on it, like this property
here belongs to so and so. You can't come on
the property. If you come on the property, the gods
will pluck out your eyes if you come on the
property at you know, and then it's just like list
after you know, list item after list item of all
these like curses that will befall you if you violate this,
(17:55):
uh this this property restriction. Yeah, it's it's a wonderful idea.
We need to bring it back. Uh that I put
one of those in my yard. Uh. They if you
come on this property without a mask, um, the god
show smite you. Um. The that episode was I think
we just titled it the Curse, and it was an
October publication, and there's a lot of interesting stuff and
(18:17):
I remember going into some uses of the curse in
um in Chinese carpentry. Uh, there's some fun examples. Yeah, yeah, totally.
But so these types of you know, writing substrates are
things that are gonna be big fixed, usually meant to
stay in one place and say something that has to
do with that particular place. Another example would be, uh,
(18:40):
some of these ancient steel Uh, I don't know what
the plural is. Actually, I should know the steely, steally,
stella whatever it is. Um, they will like lists to
the exploits of a mighty king and say, like all
the people that he conquered and all the heads that
he smashed. Yeah, it's such an amazing concept when you
really think about it, because it's not just writing down information.
(19:01):
Like these large scale examples of this are you're taking
you're taking this knowledge, you're taking this history or this
interpretation of history, or propaganda however you want to phrase it,
and you're you're you're printing it on the world. You're
making it part of the environment. Yeah, totally, And so
I think we should make a distinction here. While I
think these early you know, written documents that are carved
(19:24):
on large stones and and you know whatever you want
to call the steel tradition, I don't think that's a book.
Probably I think for something to qualify as a book,
it really needs to include an element of compactness and portability.
I think it needs to be something that could reasonably
be carried from one place to another, and could reasonably
(19:46):
be stored in multiples within a building or a home.
And that's a fancy way of saying, um, could you
kill a bug with it? Like if you could not
kill a bug with it, I'm not sure it's a
book in any in any way, shape or form. I
like your Death Mission better. So a side down a
little deeper in determining what is and what is in
a book, I of course turned to a book that
(20:08):
I love to dive into anytime. We start looking at
an ancient invention. That is The Seventy Great Inventions of
the Ancient World, edited by Brian Fagan UM and the
contributor in this book for the chapters dealing with writing
and encryption in the History of Books, UH is an individual.
They're already mentioned by the name of Andrew Robinson, who
wrote the story of writing Lost Languages and the man
(20:31):
who deciphered linear b So I want to read an
excerpt from Robinson's work in The seventy Great inventions of
the ancient world. Quote, there is nothing in the concept
of the book that requires it to consist of pages
with text printed or written on paper, still less sown
or glued together between cardboard covers like present day examples,
(20:51):
a cash of Babylon clay tablets, an Egyptian papyrus, role
of vellum codex from medieval Europe, a folding maya codex
with jaguar skin covers from Central America, a microfilm, and
an electronic book all qualify as books as much as
printed paper volume. And uh this, when I was reading
(21:12):
this instantly brought to mind the concept of a physical book,
as presented in Frank Herbert's Dune, which of course takes
place in the far future of humanity. I don't know
if you remember this, Joe, but there's this concept of
a first of all film books, which are described as
sugar wire imprints used in training and carrying an monochy pulse.
(21:32):
Well that clears it up. Yeah, yeah, ignore that part.
But because there's also mentioned of an old fashioned book
but with a futuristic twist. It's an old orange Catholic
bible that a character gives to another, and it's made
for space travelers were told it's printed on filament paper
that you can't actually touch. It has its own magnifier,
(21:53):
and it has an electrostatic charge system, so the charge
holds the book closed, forcing against spring locked covers. Were
told you press the edge of the book and the
selected pages open, the magnifier slides into place, and you
can move it ahead page by page in this fashion
fashion without ever touching these like super delicate pages. I
(22:16):
remember reading that for the first time as a kid
and just being like blown away by this this idea
of this this tiny little space bible that has its
own magnifier and it's um, you know, it's using this
electric electrostatic charge system to turn the tiny little pages.
So it's kind of like a combination of a book
in a micro fiche. But it's like, yeah, it's got
its own reading apparatus exactly. Yeah. But I want to
(22:38):
come back to what Robinson was talking about. He's he's
sort of rolling out what he sees as the criteria
for calling something a book. Quote. They are all made
for public circulation, enjoy a considerable degree of permanence, and
are relatively portable compared, say to a monumental inscription through
their different media. They are all capable of knowledge transmission,
(23:00):
transcending space and time. Of course, printing with movable type,
which was invented much later than the book, vastly increases
its potential readership, but it does not define the concept. Well,
there's something he kind of hints at in the last
sentence there which which I find interesting, which is the
idea of a possible link between the mass production of
books and and people's ability to read books. Because another thing,
(23:24):
you know, we we talked about how for most of
human history, books were not mass produced. They had to
be copied by hand. They were precious and rare things
that were difficult to make um and so you know,
obviously the only people who could afford to have them
would be like institutions or very rich people, or monasteries,
that kind of thing. But also, you know, for most
of human history, most people have been illiterate. It's only
(23:47):
really in the past couple of centuries that that widespread
public literacy has been a goal. Absolutely. Yeah, So you
have to ask yourself. I mean, obviously a book that
cannot be read is still for the most part of book,
but by some definitions maybe not like for instance, we
discussed the Voniche manuscript in the past on the show,
you know, and it's unreadable nature that continues to uh
(24:10):
intrigue and confuse us. You know, if if the book
cannot convey information, if the boot, if the book is mute.
Uh you know what does that say? It's if I
feel similar ways about say like if Wu Tang puts
out an album that know, but the only one person
can listen to, or John Malkovich makes a film that
nobody can watch for a hundred years, Like is that
(24:31):
really an album? Is that really a movie? Because um,
you know, this is like a communication has to take
place for this to really be media in certain certain respects. Yeah,
I agree, it's an interesting way of thinking about it.
Uh So Robinson goes on to just briefly outline some
of the core examples of of early things that we
(24:53):
could we could say we're books. Uh So, the two
earliest contenders that he highlights, first of all, Mesopotamian clay tablets.
These would be handwritten cuneiform script inscribed in clay with
a red and then baked. And then the other one, uh,
that's this one of the two contenders here is Egyptian
papyrus rolls written in ink with a brush the papyrus itself. Uh.
(25:14):
This was this was made from sheets that were made
from the papyrus plant, so stripped, sliced overlapped in layers
of pith, pressed and then allowed to dry. And I'll
come back to this one in more detail and a bit. However,
three other innovations that are worth highlighting Chinese bamboo and
wooden slips bound together with cords. Uh. This basically constitutes
(25:36):
the idea of a book. And of course the Chinese
would have would go on to invent paper itself in
one oh five c. And from there it would spread
through East Asia, though it would be nearly a thousand
years before Europe followed suit. You also have Mediterranean writing tablets.
These would be consist of one to ten pieces of
wood bound together by a clasp or hinge, or alternatively
(25:59):
by a cord strong through holes around along the edges.
And then you also have Greek and Roman wax writing tablets. Uh.
And of course they also use papyrus and parchment roles
as well. And of course all of these examples of
what we might call books. Uh, we're leading up to
what we refer to as the codex, in which a
number of sheets of parchment are bound together with writing
(26:20):
on both sides of each sheet. Yeah, and it's really
the codex. I think that's the first thing that we
recognize as is morphologically the same as the modern books
that we have, despite changes in materials and stuff. The
codex is what you're thinking of when you think of
a book. It folds, it has pages. You leave through
the pages to read exactly. So I was reading an
(26:43):
excellent brief overview of the history of things leading up
to the Codex in a book called the book The
Life Story of a Technology by Nicole Howard. I think
this was released at some point through Johns Hopkins University
Press UM. But but Howard's overview is interesting. So she
mentions some of the same things you're talking about, of course,
that you know in in the early archaeological record of
(27:05):
written documents, hard surfaces rule the day. And of course
these would include like the steel that we mentioned before, uh,
and the you know, the Mesopotamian clay tablets, the what
the Assyrians the Babylonians used to preserve written information and
you know, making in dense on clay tablets. But also
things like wood and bone. She also mentioned several other
substrates that I thought were interesting as as surfaces for
(27:28):
writing on, including ivory, tortoise shell, linen, palm leaves, and
what's called bast fiber, which is a tough fiber from
the vascular tissue of some plant species which is often
used to make things like rope or matting. And and
she identifies the most direct ancestor to the modern hardware
(27:48):
of a book, a bound book with pages, as what
emerges in northern Africa around twenty b c. E. I've
I've read some other estimates putting it earlier, around three
thousand or thirty one BC. We don't know exactly, but
of course, whenever it did emerge, this was papyrus. And
it's time to sound the alarm. We got it. We
got a plenty of the elder alert. Are you ready
(28:09):
for some plenty? Yeah? Yeah, let's let's touch in with
plenty of the elder for little history here. But first
we should probably take one more break. Oh okay, we're
gonna we're gonna jump out, but then we'll be right
back in with plenty. All right, we're back, So we're
jumping in with Plenty of the Elder and his description
(28:29):
of the ancient papyrus industry. So Plenty of the Elder,
of course, was a first century Roman military officer and author, encyclopedist,
president of the lead Acetate Fan Club. Of course, he
he wrote at length about what he believed on the
history and production of papyrus. And this would be I'm
gonna read a section here from the Bostock and Riley
(28:51):
translation of Plenty's Natural History, which is his his big encyclopedia.
It's got it's got all the info you'll ever need. Uh.
So Plenty rights, we have not as yet taken any
notice of the marsh plants, nor yet of the shrubs
that grow upon the banks of rivers. Before quitting Egypt. However,
we must make some mention of the nature of the papyrus,
(29:12):
seeing that all the usages of civilized life depend in
such a remarkable degree upon the employment of paper at
all events the remembrance of past events. Um so, and
so he's he's talking about the translation there uses the
word paper. Of course, this is not exactly what we'll
talk about when we get into the Chinese papermaking tradition.
(29:33):
This is papyrus a slightly different thing though, it's a
sort of paper like. He calls papyrus that commodity by
which immortality is ensured to man. So Plenty of ranking
papyrus up there as like one of the most important
inventions in Roman civilization, He's like, hey, without papyrus, basically
like we we couldn't have a civilization, We couldn't have
(29:56):
remembrance of things past. So he goes on to introd
the plant by saying, quote, Papyrus grows either in the
marshes of Egypt or in the sluggish waters of the
River Nile when they have overflowed and are lying stagnant,
in pools that do not exceed a couple of cubits
in depth. The route lies obliquely and is about the
(30:16):
thickness of one's arm. The section of the stalk is triangular,
and it tapers gracefully upwards towards the extremity, being not
more than ten cubits at most in height. And then
Plenty goes on to explain the way that papyrus was made,
that this is coming sort of from Howard summary. Basically,
you would you would cut the plant into segments, and
(30:36):
you would remove this outer green rind to access the
pith inside, which is this pulpy substance that's made primarily
of cellulose. Cellulose, of course, is fiber. And then the
pith would be laid out in these long, thin strips
on a damp table or board and hammered flat side
by side to form these single layer sheets. And then
(30:58):
a second layer of strip was laid flat perpendicular to
the first sheet, and then also pounded or pressed flat.
And Plenty claims that these perpendicular sheets were quote moistened
with nile water, a liquid which, when in a muddy state,
has the peculiar qualities of glue. Now, Howard mentions that
(31:19):
modern scholars do not think nile water was actually used
as a glue here. Instead, they think that the glue
would just be a natural property of these plant fibers.
There would be a sap in the reed, and that
sap would bind the sheets together once they had been
pounded or pressed in a perpendicular fashion. Yes, Robinson writes
this as well, that it's the naturally occurring sap. Yeah,
(31:42):
But either way, you would then dry the sheets, and
so an individual sheet of papyrus might be small. It
just might be you know, or on twelve inches in height.
But what you could do is glue sheets together at
the edges, and then once you've attached a bunch of
papyrus sheets together, they can be rolled up into scrolls.
And scrolls, of course, are an important book technology that
(32:03):
precedes the codex, and we can explore that more as
we go forward. Um. But Howard points out an interesting
side effect of the production process. She says that by
hammering the strips together in this perpendicular fashion, this was
actually important because it would allow you to to get
a much more durable material. Right. The paper will be flexible,
(32:25):
it'll be fairly tough, you know, because you've got this
crossing here. But also as a side effect, you'd get
one side of the papyrus sheet with natural fibers running
top to bottom, while the other side would have fibers
running horizontally. And this has practical implications for writing. The
side with the fibers running horizontally was fairly easy to
(32:45):
write on, you know, think about like line to note paper, right,
but the side with the fibers running vertically was often
considered unfit for writing. It was difficult to write on,
and a lot of archaeologists have found that in the
ancient world, a lot of people just didn't write on
this side of the page, which is very interesting because
you know, when you consider writing material as a relatively
(33:05):
precious commodity compared to how you know, cheap and easily
accessible paper is today. Yeah, it's almost like they were natural. Um.
I find with children it's similar, like you have to
remind them, hey, uh, the printer paper didn't grow on trees,
so please use the back of the printer paper when
you were you know, sketching monsters and and whatnot. But
(33:27):
because their natural instinct seems to be just to to
do the front and just leave it at that, I
don't know, but no, my marker bleeds through. I need
to have you know, clean monsters on either side. Yeah. Um,
we may come back to this in a bit. But
I'm reminded earlier I mentioned how like her e books
are essentially the codex, uh, you know, in in a
in e form. But of course I should probably add
(33:49):
this because I know a lot of people may have
been thinking this as well. You know, it depends on
how you have your set your viewing settings in place.
For instance, the notes that we are using here I've
mine are currently in a PDF form, so I'm reading
it in Adobe Acrobat Pro and uh, currently it is scrolling.
Now there is a separation between pages, so it's like
(34:12):
I have scrolling pages. However, if I go to my
view settings, I can change that. I can remove the
space between the pages and turn it into essentially a
digital scroll. Um Instead, I'm doing something that is I
think ultimately more like a codex. Uh. And you can
even you know, of course, do things where you have
like opposing pages and all as well. So I don't know,
(34:34):
maybe we are living in a in an age where UMU,
there's maybe a preference for the codex, but we certainly
have scroll like options available to us as well. Yeah,
I see what you're talking about. I mean, this isn't
the first time I've heard this. Actually, I remember many
years ago watching some interview where, um, the literary scholar
(34:56):
Harold Bloom was in a in a you know, characteristically
grumpy fashion, lamenting the rise of the idea of e books.
He he just seemed to hate this idea and he
care with the way he described it was like two
thousand years after we made the transition to the codex
finally we are transitioning back to the scroll, and he
(35:17):
thought this was just awful, not saying I necessarily agree
with that sentiment, though, there is something about like scrolling
down to read an article, say on a website, that
I don't really like as a reading format, Like it
is more pleasant to have the same article in a
format where you can just turn the pages. I like
the sequential nature of page turning. Um, there's something I mean,
(35:41):
maybe it's just two elementary you know that it feels
like I'm I'm I'm I'm taking care of a task
one after the either, one page at a time, in
a way where an endless scroll might seem intimidating. I
don't know, uh, Or maybe it's just this is what
I'm used to and this is what I like to do,
because like I'm when I'm using my kindle, there's certainly
more of a feeling of side to side, page to page,
(36:03):
and you know, you'd even have some sort of a
page count out there as well. Yeah, I agree. Okay,
so interesting side fact Plenty notes here he Plenty starts
describing a bunch of different kinds of paper. He's like, not, now,
I will tell you about the nine different kinds of papyrus. Uh,
thanks plenty, but he mentions one kind. He's telling about
the Egyptians describing this um high quality white papyrus as
(36:27):
what's called hieratic or this is sometimes translated as holy paper,
since it was reserved entirely for the use of religious books,
and the footnote in the Bostock and Riley translation of
the Natural History says quote the priests would not allow
it to be sold, lest it might be used for
profane writing. But after it was once written upon, it
(36:49):
was easily procurable. The Romans were in the habit of
purchasing it, largely in the latter state, and then washing
off the writing and using it as paper of the
finest quality. Hints it received the name of Augustus as
representing in Latin its Greek name hierradicus or sacred. In
the length of time it became a common impression, as
(37:10):
here mentioned that this name was given in honor of
Augustus Caesar. But I think that first part is interesting,
so like if if their characterization is correct here that
like certain kinds of papyrus were guarded in a material
sense and regarded as holy because they would be used
at some point to write Holy Scripture on not because
(37:33):
anything had been written on them yet, but then once
something had already been written on them, then it was
no longer sacred, and then you could easily just get
it and I guess, wash off the Holy Scripture and
write whatever you wanted on it. Oh wow, that's interesting.
That reminds me of the I think it was a
two part episode. Maybe it's just a one part that
it did with did with Christian back in the day
on the idea of Grimore's of you know, books that
(37:56):
end up taking on sacred qualities, uh, you know, generally
because of the sacred contents that they have. Um, there
is I remember there being one. Um we were talking
about a cash of Qurans that had been discovered and
uh and and part of the issue was is like
these books, these holy books have been used and reused
(38:16):
to the point where they were kind of falling apart.
They weren't really usable anymore, they weren't presentable, but they
were also sacred so they couldn't be destroyed. So they
were kind of walled away in in a building. And
then they were discovered much later. And if I remember correctly, uh,
you know, they gave us some of the oldest examples
of the koran Um that we have been able to,
(38:37):
you know, to to acquire. Uh. So Yeah, when you
start getting into the idea of of sacred information put
onto a material, a material that may itself be considered sacred, Uh,
everything gets gets very complicated. Yeah, that is interesting, Like
the the conceptual contagion that the the sacredness of the
(38:57):
content of what's written on the paper or the papyrus
or the ink or whatever eventually extends by contagion to
the physical form itself. It's not just that what is
written in here is holy, but like the actual physical
book is holy. This is such a weird concept, Like
it seems like the kind of thing that might be
utilized by like an artist. Like what if you had
(39:20):
what if you had a Bible, okay, like a you know,
a Catholic Bible, and you found out that it was
made from from paper that had been recycled from pornography. Um,
like what how would how would we deally? I don't
think we would particularly Like it would be a weird
thing to focus on today. Uh. It would also be
weird that you were, you know, making it exclusively from
(39:42):
pornography recyclings. But um, but would that even would that
begin to sort of creep into our idea of of
contagion that like the that this is this this book
is is profane, it's some sort of a blasphemy because
you made it on such recycled material. I feel like
a lot of modern religious people would probably would probably
(40:03):
house the distinction in the intent of the person who
made it, so it would be like, did you know
you were making making it out of this recycled paper
or not? Like it, I think most people today like
if they found that out but they knew it was
just recycled paper and the person had no intention of
making that particular transition, they wouldn't care, But they might
get annoyed at the idea that someone did this on purpose, right,
(40:26):
like if it were in a museum in New York
City or something. Um, But then again, imagine this. I
can easily see somebody, say like a televangelists marketing their
own Bible that they can guarantee is not made using
recycled pornography. If he would be like, yes, how have
I been using an impure Bible this whole time? There
might be some pornography in there right. Well, I mean,
(40:47):
if you've got somebody who's good at selling it, they'll
be good at selling it. Yeah. Okay, So I guess
to get back to papyrus. So how was papyrus written on? Well,
Howard mentions that the ancient Egyptians would write on pyrus
using reads or quills, often dipped in an ink made
out of charcoal deluded in water. Uh. And again a
reminder at this time we've mentioned this, but if you
(41:09):
wanted a copy of a book at this time, it
had to be written out by hand. You could not
get it from a printing press. And Howard mentions that
scribes and nhent Egypt would copy scrolls either by sight,
so you just have one copy of a book on
you know, one part of your desk and another blank
scroll on the other part, and you just copy it
up by hand, or you'd have a book read aloud
(41:30):
and you'd have to copy it down from dictation, which
sounds even harder. But this was a slow and laborious process,
not just for the obvious reasons. You might imagine it
would also be slow and laborious to copy a book
in this way because there are also mechanical limitations like
you had to wait for the ink to dry as
you're going, and there's no backspace key if you make
(41:51):
a mistake, and so forth. But papyrus made out of
the read, the Cyprus papyrus planned it was a major
industry supply lying writing material to the broader Mediterranean world.
But but Howard identifies an interesting shift, and it begins
especially around the first century. There's there's some elements of
this shift in earlier centuries, but it really gets going
(42:14):
around the first century that there's this long running, major
shift from papyrus to parchment for writing material. Now why
this shift, Well, one explanation given by historians is a
basic shortage of supply. Again, papyrus. Writing material had to
be made of this specific plant, the read Cyprus papyrus,
and if there was a sudden scarcity of the read,
(42:35):
that would mean a scarcity of the writing material for export.
But Howard also mentions that there were sort of pressures
put on Egypt by military incursions in the previous centuries.
And so whatever the cause of the dwindling supply of
exported papyrus around the first century, bookmaking people's elsewhere in
the Mediterranean, we're really we're really starting to seek out
(42:57):
an alternative, which they found in parchment and vellum. Now,
what are these substances. Basically, I think like paper made
out of treated animal skins. Parchment is made from untanned
sheep leather, and vellum is made from calf skin. So
to treat these animal skins for us as writing surfaces, first,
(43:17):
of course, you had to clean them. You had to
get all the biological gunk off, you know, all the
hair and stuff, and then they would they would clean
the smooth surface with applications of pumice and lime. And
Howard points out that this was a difficult process since
the animal skin had to be stretched and dried at
the same time. So the goal was to stretch it
(43:38):
out in such a way that it wouldn't contract back
to its original shape once it was finished drying. And
there are actually several ways that parchment and vellum proved
superior to papyrus as writing material. One way is that
they can be made pretty much anywhere. Papyrus was dependent
on Egypt, it was dependent on this Egyptian industry, especially
since it was made from a read native to the
(43:59):
Nile Alta area. Though I think there were papyrus or
papyrus like products also made from some of the Mesopotamian
empires based on reed plants from the Tigris and Euphrates.
I don't know if it was the same species of plant,
but it seems primarily papyrus was coming from Egypt. But nevertheless,
the ancient Romans were generally dependent on Egyptian papyrus for
(44:22):
their needs. Meanwhile, sheep and calves, they could be pretty
much anywhere. They were raised pretty much anywhere, so you
could always make parchment or villum locally. And Howard doesn't
mention this, but I've read in other sources that the
process of making papyrus writing material was also a closely
guarded industrial secret, and I kind of wonder if this
might also have proved important in its decline. Yeah, you,
(44:46):
ultimately do you just need an alternative to that that
trade secret papyrus. So yeah, you turn to like, what
can I do? What are some other organic sources I
can source to turn into, uh, some thing that I
can write on right now? On top of this, there
was some other benefits as well. Parchment and vellum were
just more durable than papyrus. They held up better over
(45:08):
time and held up against wear and tear better. But
finally there were aesthetic and practical reasons parchment works better
than papyrus. One, it was easier to write on without
the facially perpendicular fibers of the plant matter. Once you
had written on it, Also, the text stood out more
clearly from from the background than it did on papyrus.
(45:28):
And to some extent, parchment actually allowed scribes to erase
mistakes or other unwanted writing more easily than than papyrus
did I mean by virtue of it being just more
durable for starters, because we have to remember that I
think we went into this we talked about our on
our Invention episode about the pencil and the eraser. Like erasing,
(45:49):
uh is is often a a matter of taking away
from the material upon which you have written. And so
if you're already dealing with fragile papyrus, there's there's less
you can do without destroying the paper totally. Uh So, So,
by about the fourth century CE, parchment had replaced papyrus
(46:09):
for most written documents in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
And so that's gonna play a very important part in
shaping the physical evolution of the book, especially once we
start talking about the form wars of scroll versus codex.
But there's something else we need to get into. I
guess at the beginning of the next episode, I think
we're running out of time for today. But parallel to
the papyrus and parchment industry is being established in those
(46:32):
regions in the west eastward in China, written documents had
found a home on a totally different writing material, and
this would be paper. So maybe in the next episode
we should start off by looking at the paper industry.
Absolutely so, uh, definitely join us next time as we
continue this look at the history of the codex, the
history of paper, the history of writing itself also kind
(46:53):
of bound up into a well, not a single volume,
multiple volume, so you can think of each each episode
to the show as a volume, right, um, so join
us next time. In the meantime, if you would like
to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind,
you know exactly where to find us. You can find
us wherever you get your podcasts. And what can you
(47:14):
do to support us? Well, you can rate, you can review,
you can subscribe. Huge thanks as always to our excellent
audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to
get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
just to say hello, you can email us at contact
at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to
(47:40):
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