page_title: History of books
section_title: Clay tablets
hierarchical_section_title: History of books / Clay tablets
caption_attribution_description: English: Exhibit in the Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA. This work is old enough so that it is in the public domain. Photography was permitted in the museum without restriction. Translation: "As I, Inanna, approached the mountain it showed me no respect, as I approached the mountain range of Ebih it showed me no respect. Since they showed me no respect, since they did not put their noses to the ground for me, since they did not rub their lips in the dust for me, I shall personally fill the soaring mountain range with my terror. Against its magnificent sides I shall place magnificent battering rams . . . . ".
context_page_description: The history of the books became an acknowledged academic discipline in the 1980s, Contributors to the discipline include specialists from the fields of textual scholarship, codicology, bibliography, philology, palaeography, art history, social history and cultural history. Its key purpose is to demonstrate that the book as an object, not just the text contained within it, is a conduit of interaction between readers and words.
  Prior to the evolution of the printing press, made famous by the Gutenberg Bible, each text was a unique hand crafted article, personalized through the design features incorporated by the scribe, owner, bookbinder and illustrator. Analysis of each component part of the book reveals its purpose, where and how it was kept, who read it, ideological and religious beliefs of the period and whether readers interacted with the text within. Even a lack of evidence of this nature leaves valuable clues about the nature of that particular book.
context_section_description: Clay tablets were used in Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC. The calamus, an instrument in the form of a triangle, was used to make characters in moist clay. People used to use fire to dry the tablets out. At Nineveh, over 20,000 tablets were found, dating from the 7th century BC; this was the archive and library of the kings of Assyria, who had workshops of copyists and conservationists at their disposal. This presupposes a degree of organization with respect to books, consideration given to conservation, classification, etc. Tablets were used right up until the 19th century in various parts of the world, including Germany, Chile, Philippines, and the Sahara Desert.
caption: A Sumerian clay tablet, currently housed in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, inscribed with the text of the poem Inanna and Ebih by the priestess Enheduanna, the first author whose name is known[4]
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