Tale of the book
By Deepshikha Khaira

BOOK, as defined in a dictionary, is a number of printed sheets bound together in a cover. Have you ever thought how books came into being? Who gave us these ‘printed sheets bound together’?

In the beginning, there was only the spoken word. Research in the similarity of words in different languages (Vader in Dutch and Vater in German both mean father in English) have proved that a common language was spoken long ago, before recorded history. Then man took to drawing pictures, a somewhat better way of communication and expression. This form is said to have originated in Mesopotamia about 6000 years ago.

Alphabet was born when phoneticians broke the spoken sounds into their basic parts, shuffled them and rearranged them to form words. A royal grave in Lebanon with a rudimentary inscription on a rock on one of its walls is the world’s oldest alphabetic inscription. Greeks enhanced this form, gave more convenient shapes to the letters and were the first to use vowels.

To write on stone and tree bark, leather and leaves were used. Mesopotamians used soft clay, etched bird and animal images on them and baked them to preserve their

‘writings’. Egyptians used stone. Many inscribed lime stone fragments called Ostraca have been excavated in Egypt. These were used to record all sorts of details. These inscriptions which are more than 3000 years old, reveal valuable information about life in ancient Egypt. Later Egyptians extracted the pith (inner part of the stem) of a water plant called papyrus and made brittle sheets from it to write on. For a lengthy text, several such sheets were glued together to form a scroll. One such scroll with pictures and words describing the life and deeds of Pharaoh Ramses III still survives. The brittleness of papyrus led to the use of animal skin. This tough material which could also be folded was known as parchment. For a couple of hundred years this was used and then the first book was born when Romans took some thin parchment sheets, folded them stacked them together and fastened them at the spine. Rudimentary books were the compilations of scriptures of Christian faith.

On the other hand, the Chinese used expensive silk for writing. For a cheaper substitute, rags, grass, tree bark and old fishing nets were pound to a pulp. Then thin layers of scum were skimmed off from the top and sun dried. This brought paper into the world. But the manufacturing technique was a closely guarded secret for many centuries until some Chinese paper makers were captured.

A German craftsman Johann Gutenberg invented the first hand worked wooden press and in 1455 gave us a printed book—190 copies of Gutenberg’s bible. Of these the 47 that still survive are worth millions of dollars. Today with electronic printing many hundred thousand titles come of the presses every year, whereas it took Gutenberg three years to print the bibles.

Though electronic media has taken the world by storm yet a book remains the best source of learning, wisdom and knowledge. A person’s thoughts, dreams and desires are stored on paper in a book. A mere turn of a page and this perfect combination of object and thought takes us to far-off lands, under water, in space, among the stars and even beyond.