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Scholars have disagreed concerning when written record-keeping became more like literature, but the oldest surviving literary texts date from a full millennium after the invention of writing. The earliest literary author known by name is Enheduanna , who is credited as the author of a number of works of Sumerian literature, including Exaltation ...
The following is a list of the world's oldest surviving physical documents. Each entry is the most ancient of each language or civilization. For example, the Narmer Palette may be the most ancient from Egypt, but there are many other surviving written documents from Egypt later than the Narmer Palette but still more ancient than the Missal of Silos.
An extreme case is the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda: the earliest parts of this text date to c. 1500 BC, [1] while the oldest known manuscripts date to c. 1040 AD. [2] Similarly the oldest Avestan texts, the Gathas, are believed to have been composed before 1000 BC, but the oldest Avestan manuscripts date from the 13th century AD. [3]
A link exists between 6,000-year-old engravings on cylindrical seals used on clay tablets and cuneiform, the world’s oldest writing system, according to new research.
Researchers have made another major stride in understanding humanity’s origins of writing. In Mesopotamia, the birthplace of civilization, the earliest known writing system started around 3,000 BCE.
Oldest writing in the New World discovered in Veracruz, Mexico from EurekAlert, 14 September 2006. 3,000-year-old script on stone found in Mexico by John Noble Wilford for The New York Times, 15 September 2006. Writing May Be Oldest in Western Hemisphere by John Noble Wilford for The New York Times, 15 September 2006.
Ancient literature comprises religious and scientific documents, tales, poetry and plays, royal edicts and declarations, and other forms of writing that were recorded on a variety of media, including stone, clay tablets, papyri, palm leaves, and metal.
Cuneiform [note 1] is a logo-syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. [4] The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. [5]