Special Collections

On class this Wednesday, instead of having a lecture in class, we went to visit the Special Collections division of the library. Special Collections holds all the ancient to old manuscripts, books, and artifacts. Students are allowed to enter and browse the collection, but only if they have a valid excuse, and only if they treat the materials with care.
The curator of Special Collections gave us a presentation on the history of writing, showing us many fascinating artifacts. I will now try and explain some of what he told us.
The earliest writing we have record of were baked into clay tablets, written in cuneiform (meaning triangular) script. Surprisingly enough, most examples of these tablets are clerical in nature. He showed us a 1.5 inch by 3 inch tablet that contained a beer maker's records.
We also have several examples of metal plates being used to store writing (beyond the religious examples known to LDS). For example, the romans would give their soldiers, when they were discharged from the army, two metal sheets, sealed together, that contained their proof of citizenship and their honorable discharge. If the outside was damaged, the sheets could be opened to reveal duplicates. They knew the value of backing up!
Another ancient form of writing material was Papyrus, which was made from reeds found at the Nile. These were stored as scrolls, as folding them would cause the brittle material to break. Stored properly, papyrus can survive for thousands of years, and has.
For many ages, the premium writing material was Parchment, made from the hides of animals, usually cows (especially the young cows). A calf could be turned into only a few sheets of parchment (4 or 5), and so a copy of the Bible could contain thousands of calves, which lead to the high cost of books during the middle ages. Monks and scribes would spend a good part of their time painstakingly copying out the texts of books onto new parchment (and sometimes old parchment they had erased!) to create books to sell, based on what orders they received.
It wasn't until later, when paper came over from China, the printing press was invented, movable type was developed, and specialized ink was created that books suddenly became cheap enough to be owned by the masses. It was at this time that the protestant reformation first really took off, as the bible was finally able to be read by all. It was translated into new languages, and old doctrines no longer made sense in light of what was read in the holy word. It was questioning like this that lead a young boy named Joseph Smith to question why there was so much confusion in religion, and what church he should unite himself with. The rest of that story, as they say, is history.