Origins.
Bindings or covers to protect written or printed matter have always
followed the shapes of the material on which the writing or printing was
done. Very early inscriptions on rocks or wood needed no coverings, and
the earliest instances of protective covers are to be found among the
smaller Assyrian tablets of about the 8th century B.C. These tablets,
with cuneiform inscriptions recording sales of slaves, loans of money
and small matters generally, are often enclosed in an outer shell of the
same shape and impressed with a short title. Egyptian papyrus rolls were
generally kept in roll form, bound round with papyrus tape and often
sealed with seals of Nile mud; and the rolls in turn were often
preserved in rectangular hollows cut in wood. The next earliest material
to papyrus used for writing upon was tree bark. Bark books, still
commonly used by uncultured nations, often consisting of collections of
magical formulae or medical receipts, are generally rolls, folded
backwards and forwards upon themselves like the sides of a concertina.
At Pompeii in 1875 several diptychs were found, the wooden leaves
hollowed on the inner sides, filled with blackened wax, and hinged
together at the back with leather thongs. Writings were found scratched
on the wax, one of them being a record of a payment to Umbricia Januaria
in A.D. 55. This is the earliest known Latin manuscript. The diptychs
are the prototypes of the modern book. From about the 1st to the 6th
century, ornamental diptychs were made of carved ivory, and presented to
great personages by the Roman consuls.
[Illustration: Plate.