Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff. Lauren Bolgabam here with today's question, what's
Speaker 1: the oldest book in the world. At Bulgaria's National Museum
Speaker 1: of History, there lives one top runner, a book comprising
Speaker 1: six pages of beaten twenty four carrot gold covered with
Speaker 1: a Truscan script, which is one of the few writing
Speaker 1: systems that modern scholars have yet to fully comprehend, mostly
Speaker 1: because there are so few lengthy examples of its surviving.
Speaker 1: The book also features illustrations of a horse rider, a mermaid,
Speaker 1: a harp and soldiers. According to reports, the book, exhibited
Speaker 1: in two thousand three, was estimated at about two thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred years old, was found in southwestern Bulgaria in
Speaker 1: an old tomb, and was donated to the museum by
Speaker 1: the finder, who remained anonymous. Its age and authenticity were
Speaker 1: confirmed by two independent scientists whose names also remain unknown.
Speaker 1: This book is often cited as the world's oldest book
Speaker 1: because it is the oldest book containing several pages that
Speaker 1: we know about. There are older pages around, but not
Speaker 1: bound together in any books, but the case isn't closed.
Speaker 1: The question of what is the oldest book in the
Speaker 1: world will likely never be answered. First, there's the question
Speaker 1: of what exactly is a book? Books are slippery artifacts.
Speaker 1: Think of your most read paperback novel. It has a
Speaker 1: physical presence, a specific shape and form that fits on
Speaker 1: a shelf and requires dusting. It also has a non
Speaker 1: physical form, the story itself and what it means to
Speaker 1: you and the memories and emotions it conjures. And so
Speaker 1: is the book more of a physical presence or is
Speaker 1: the content more important than the shape or do they
Speaker 1: both play an equal role? And take it a step
Speaker 1: further and ask what if your favorite book wasn't printed
Speaker 1: but handwritten, and that's still a book. What about if
Speaker 1: you read it on an electronic device or it was
Speaker 1: narrated to you. If printing defined what a book was,
Speaker 1: then the oldest book would be the Guttenberg Bible, printed
Speaker 1: in about fourt Of course, that was printed with movable type.
Speaker 1: Chinese cultures were printing pages of book like structures using
Speaker 1: carved wood plates and simple presses hundreds of years before Guttenberg.
Speaker 1: And then take the Egyptian pharaohs. Their scribes were creating
Speaker 1: songs and prayers to them close to three thousand years ago,
Speaker 1: but these were on papyrus scrolls, which could be considered
Speaker 1: a book, albeit with only one very long page. When
Speaker 1: writing the article this episode is based on the staff
Speaker 1: at house stuff works dot Com interviewed Laurent Ferry, a
Speaker 1: curator of rare books and manuscripts at Cornell University, about
Speaker 1: all of this. He explained, these are questions scholars are
Speaker 1: still wrestling with. For me, a book would be defined
Speaker 1: by having a binding and supporting a world view by
Speaker 1: this definition, and the collection of clay tablets maintained by Cornell,
Speaker 1: also the largest collection in the world, wouldn't be considered
Speaker 1: the world's oldest books. They aren't bound, and most are
Speaker 1: legal proceedings or financial accountings, and don't espouse a worldview.
Speaker 1: With his own definition in mind, for he said his
Speaker 1: bet on the oldest books in the world would be
Speaker 1: Homer's Iliad and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Indeed, the British
Speaker 1: Museum's version of the Gilgamesh tale, written on clay tablets,
Speaker 1: dates to about the seventh century d C. However, the
Speaker 1: tablets aren't bound, so they're technically not a book in
Speaker 1: that way, but they do come close, especially in the
Speaker 1: sense that they propose a certain view of the world,
Speaker 1: but we don't really know when the stories started or
Speaker 1: how they evolved. For he said, this is another situation
Speaker 1: to consider. These two stories are the product of a
Speaker 1: very long oral tradition. We know roughly when the text
Speaker 1: was fixed, but the stories pre existed the physical book,
Speaker 1: and so the questions turn. Some people believe the Bible
Speaker 1: was written shortly after the world was created, making it
Speaker 1: necessarily the oldest book. Yet biblical scholars say the books
Speaker 1: that make up the Bible were written over many hundreds
Speaker 1: of years, and that many of the stories included in
Speaker 1: it were set down centuries after the events that they
Speaker 1: explore happened. Bringing religion or other worldviews into the question
Speaker 1: begets more twists and turns. The eaching. The foundation book
Speaker 1: for Daoist philosophy was allegedly written more than two thousand
Speaker 1: years ago, and there are likely other more obscure religions
Speaker 1: that claim to have a toe hold in centuries further
Speaker 1: in the past, and that there are more recent printings
Speaker 1: are merely modern manifestations of those ancient texts. For free,
Speaker 1: the quest for the world's oldest book is just that
Speaker 1: a quest, he said, If you find the oldest book,
Speaker 1: you find, the oldest truth, the oldest revelation. This is
Speaker 1: a rev elation of original things. This is what humans
Speaker 1: always look for. So although today's question will likely never
Speaker 1: be answered conclusively, this may not be a bad thing.
Speaker 1: The simple asking of the question leads to insight, whether
Speaker 1: from an archaeological perspective or a philosophical perspective, and it
Speaker 1: addresses the ultimate point of books, whether they're on clay
Speaker 1: tablets or online. Summed up by free we wouldn't be
Speaker 1: human without books. Today's episode is based on the article
Speaker 1: what is the oldest book in the World on how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com written by Eric Baxter. Brain Stuff
Speaker 1: is production of I Heart Radio in partnership with how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang.
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