{"product_id":"the-book-before-printing-ancient-medieval-and-oriental-lettering-calligraphy-typography","title":"The Book Before Printing: Ancient  Medieval and Oriental (Lettering  Calligraphy  Typography)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"A remarkable work. . . . For sheer weight of information there is no equal to it.\"  The Spectator. It is probable that the earliest \"books\" were written on wood or leaves as early as the fourth millennium B.C. These fragile materials  unfortunately  have not come down to us. In their absence  the earliest surviving books are the clay tablets of Mesopotamia  the oldest attributed to c. 3500 B.C. On these ancient clay shards  dense rows of cuneiform script record the seminal writings of mankind: the Gilgamesh epic  Sumerian literary catalogues  Babylonian astrology  Assyrian accounts of the Creation and the Flood  and the Lipit-Ishtar Law-Code (c. 2000 B.C.)  predating Hammurabi and the oldest law code in human history. Probably as ancient as the Mesopotamian writings  or nearly so  are Egyptian hieroglyphics. In a sense  it is the papyrus scrolls of the Egyptians  preserved by that countrys hot  dry climate  that represent the true ancestors of the modern book. As the centuries passed  papyrus slowly gave way to parchment (the prepared skins of animals) as writing material. Indeed  the handwritten parchment or vellum codex is \"the book\" par excellence of the Middle Ages. Western European book production is only part of the story  and the author is at pains to illuminate the bibliographic contributions of numerous peoples and cultures: Greek and Roman book production  books made in central and southern Asia  the books of Africa  pre-Columbian America  and the Far East  material that is often not mentioned in Western histories of the book. Based on years of painstaking research and incorporating a wealth of new material and conclusions  the text is enhanced throughout by abundant illustrations  nearly 200 photographic facsimiles of priceless manuscripts in museums and libraries around the world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44966574882869,"sku":"ByrdShop_0486242439","price":39.03,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780486242439.jpg?v=1770569285","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-book-before-printing-ancient-medieval-and-oriental-lettering-calligraphy-typography","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}