The 10 Most Ancient Books In The World

The further back you travel from the invention of the printing press, the more difficult it is to define what makes a book a book. Does it have to be bound? Does it have to be composed of pages? Does it have to contain text as opposed to images? Being bound is indeed helpful, but we think the one that trumps them all is whether or not it was meant to be read by more than one person, so that its contents could be shared and valued as objects of learning. That is the most important aspect of what makes a book, a book. With that in mind, here are the 10 oldest books ever discovered. (Info collected thanks to https://wiganlanebooks.co.uk/ and http://mentalfloss.com/).

1. Etruscan Gold Book, 2,676 years old

Via templestudy.com

Date: 600 BCE

Language: Ancient Etruscan (now lost)

Current location: Bulgaria's National History Museum, Sofia.

2. Pyrgi Gold Tablets, 2,516 years old

Via pinterest.com

Date: 500 BCE

Language: Etruscan and Phoenician

Content: King Thefarie Velianas writing to the Phoenician goddess, Astarte

Current location: National Etruscan Museum, Rome

3. Nag Hammadi Codices, 1,696 years old

Via historyofinformation.com

Date: 4th Century CE

Language: Coptic (old Egyptian language)

Content: Gnostic Christian texts

Current location: Coptic Museum, Cairo

4. St. Cuthbert Gospel, 1,318 years old

Via julianharrison.typepad.com

Date: 7th Century CE

Language: Latin

Content: Gospel of John

Current location: Treasures Gallery, British Library, London

5. The Benedictine Rule, 1,317 years old

Via blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Date: 540 CE

Language: Latin

Content: Code to monastic life by St. Benedict

Current location: Bodleian Libraries, Oxford

6. The Book of Kells, 1,217 years old

Via upload.wikimedia.org

Date: 800 CE

Language: Latin, written by Celtic monks

Contents: 4 Gospels of the New Testament

Current location: Trinity College LIbrary, Dublin

7. Siddur Jewish Prayer book, 1,179 years old

Via theblaze.com

Date: 840 CE

Language: Archaic Hebrew

Current location: To be displayed at the Green Collection Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. in 2017

8. Diamond Sūtra, 1,148 years old

Via getty.edu

Date: 868 CE (noted in the text itself by the author, Wong Jei)

Language: Chinese

Content: Buddhist holy text

Current location: British Library, London

9. Uta Codex, 992 years old

Via oberlin.edu

Date: 1025 CE

Language: Language

Content: Bavarian Gospel lectionary commissioned by the Abbess Uta of Niedermünster

Current Location: Bavarian State Library, Munich

10. Gutenberg Bible, 562 years old

Via phaidon.com

Date: 1455 (marking the first book in the West to be printed, by Johann Gutenberg)

Language: Latin

Content: The Vulgate (consisting of Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament)

Current Location: The 50 surviving copies are found in various libraries around Europe and North America