![]() A young scribe needed to hone their writing skills before specializing in an area like public administration or law. Early in their careers, they would work with local and regional governments and did not enjoy an official rank. The title "scribe" was inherited from father to son. Īs professionals, scribes would undergo three years of training before becoming novices. In fact, the earliest print book found was a copy of the Diamond Sutra from 868 CE, which was found in a walled-in cave called Dunhuang. Similarly to the west, religious texts, particularly Buddhist, were transcribed in monasteries and hidden ".during times of persecution.". This exaggeration likely stems from Han dynasty historians being steeped in Confucianism as state orthodoxy. Though their accounts are likely exaggerated, later scholars describe a period of book burning and scholarly suppression. ![]() Despite the later importance of Confucian manuscripts, they were initially heavily resisted by the Qin dynasty. Within this merit system, owning books was a sign of status. Young men hoping to join the civil service would need to pass an exam based on Confucian doctrine, and these collections, which became known as "academy libraries" were places of study. During the Tang dynasty, private collections of Confucian classics began to grow. Ĭhinese scribes played an instrumental role in the imperial government's civil service. Despite this invention, calligraphy remained a prized skill due to the belief that: ".the best way to absorb the contents of a book was to copy it by hand,". The invention of paper later allowed for the invention of wood block printing, where paper was rubbed onto an inked slab to copy the characters. Paper, the scribal tool China is known for originating, was likely invented by an imperial eunuch named Cai Lun in 105 CE. These books were made from bamboo strips, each containing a single column of script, bound together with hemp, silk, or leather. By the sixth century BCE, scribes were producing books called "jiance or jiandu,". It was originally used for divination, with characters etched onto turtle shells to interpret cracks caused by exposure to heat. The written word can be traced back as far as 1400 BCE in ancient China. Īn Ancient Egyptian version is The Dispute between a man and his Ba, which comes from the Middle Kingdom period. Other Sumerian examples include the Debate between Summer and Winter where Winter wins, and disputes between the cattle and grain, the tree and the reed, silver and copper, the pickaxe and the plough, and the millstone and the gul-gul stone. Among the list of Sumerian disputations is the Debate between bird and fish. In Mesopotamia during the middle to late 3rd millennium BCE, the Sumerians originated some of this literature in the form of a series of debates. These contain the earliest recordings of societal thought and exploration of ideas in some length and detail. Other genres evolved, such as wisdom literature, which were collections of the philosophical sayings from wise men. The first stories were probably creation stories and religious texts. In addition to accountancy and governmental politicking, the scribal professions branched out into literature. This early New Kingdom statue commemorates the scribe Minnakht ("Strength of Min") and demonstrates how ancient scribes read papyri – in a seated position on the floor with the text on their lap.
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