The Journey Of Paper To The First Book Of The World

Posted by On September 09, 2021 7 Comments
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 The Journey Of Paper To The First Book Of The World

We all have a fair idea about the feeling of holding a book in our hands. It can be a brand-new one or borrowed from friends or the library. It can also be a family treasure changing hands from one generation to another. But the smell of the brand-new books makes me feel nostalgic. There is no denying the fact that old books hold a special charm, and I love that too. It is the only reason as to why I am not in support of book hauling (noble distribution to book lovers or book donation is fine but for a price for  my own fund generation- a perfect no for me), and I want to have them on my bookshelves till my end with care.
Storytelling is an art and what helps in blooming this artistic skill is a book. Now we proudly say that we read many books, journals, and manuscripts, and many more. But have we ever made an effort to know how this divine element of the book came into existence? Well, today’s post is about that.

Introduction of paper:

Much before the concept of books arrived, we only had stories. Storytelling remained a communal act where daily activities, were narrated like a lesson. It was done to establish some morals and for entertainment. At a slow pace, the concept of fairy tales came into existence, and thus with time, spoken words started showing their power. During Stone Age civilization, cave drawings or stone carvings were the only modes of engraving information for others to know. Writing during that time was done on stone slabs or pieces of bark.

Did History Stand Still During the First World of Paper? - Ancient Egypt and Papyrus Paper — History is Now Magazine, Podcasts, Blog and Books | Modern International and American history

Papyrus Paper pages: Source- historyisnowmagazine.com

Do you know that the Egyptian people remained the first community in the ancient period to make use of “pages”? Well, the page was a bit different than now and shaped by weaving together papyrus plant stems. There was some specific process which they used to follow to flattening and use as a page. Such pages were next glued up to create a scroll.
Romans and Greek people found this technique effective and welcomed this way of creating pages. Deer skin or calf skin turned popular in later part and chances of tear was less. The Greeks also opted for wax tablets and scratched them to write.
How many of us know the fact, the first book penned on paper got manufactured in China? What materials did they use to make the paper? Mulberries, bark, hemp, and many other natural things to prepare a pulp, to press it, and dry it up to make paper

The arrival of the first book of the world:

Johannes Gutenberg - Wikipedia

Image source: Wikipedia

The time arrived when the thought of individual books came to mind. Books that can be precious for the mass got introduced gradually. Few of these books contained important information as well as religious texts. The first book that was written based on some historic information is The Epic of Gilgamesh. This book is a mythical story of one of the key political entities from history. Johannes Gutenburg was the man who during 1454 constructed his printing press for the first time, which created a revolution in the world of books. The first printed book of Gutenburg is the Bible.
There are many other interesting facts about books. Out of which many are unknown to many. Well, I will share that here on this portal in the coming time. Stay tuned to know more about books. 
 

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