this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2024
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[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 98 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (16 children)

IIRC "books" were a medieval-period invention. Before the common era, everythign would have been scrolls or tablets. The first codices wouldn't have existed until about 100BCE in Rome. So, assuming that this is (roughly) what a cuneiform tablet was saying, I wonder what the actual work used for 'book' was, and what more accurate translation there would be, if we had the relevant cultural understanding?

But, more so than that - the earliest proto-novel that we know of is The Tale of Genji, that dates to roughly the 11th century ~~B~~CE (Edit: this is a typo; it is definitely CE, not BCE). Which makes the question of what kind of 'books' this is supposed to refer to even more interesting.

Or--alternatively--is it just a shitpost?

[–] Uruanna@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Assyria didn't exist in 2800 BCE, either.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 3 points 5 months ago

I wanted to give it credit and think "maybe it was from the region that would become Assyria," but, sadly, it's just the Internet lying.

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