Special Collections

This last week I had the opportunity to attend a unique presentation with my New Testament class in the Special Collections section of the library at BYU. The Special Collections is a seldom-visited treasure on the BYU campus. I was frankly quite surprised at what kinds of artifacts the library had acquired.
The first piece that we were shown was an ancient clay tablet called a Cuneiform. The tablet was only about 4 inches by 3 inches. The engravings on the tablet were most likely created by a reed or piece of the wood. I noticed that the inscriptions bore a strong visual resemblance to Chinese or Japanese. The tablet had a green color and was rounded on the edges. I wondered what kind of finish or treatment that the tablet went through in order to be preserved so well for thousands of years. Our instructor mentioned to us that the engravings contained a message about a land owning transaction. He explained that much of the time, these Cuneiforms were used for law, business, history or other important aspects of life during that time period.
The next artifact to which we were privy, was a set of metal plates. The contents of the plates contained a discharge report of a Roman soldier. These plates must have been very important to him because they contained a written record that this person had Roman citizen and was able to access the rights that went along with that. It was very important that these documents be written on something that would not be easily destroyed. These plates were most likely displayed in a prominent position in the community for all to see. We were told that these plates had a portion of them sealed at first (sound familiar?) and could only be opened by someone who held the proper keys…quite an interesting tidbit.
Soon, people developed a less expensive surface upon which to make records- papyrus. The durable stems of this plant could be harvested, split open, dried and stuck together to make paper upon which a scribe could write. The most often form of record keeping at the time was in scrolls. If kept dry and out of the sunlight, papyrus could be preserved for thousands of years. There are still numerous records preserved on papyrus that have been preserved for over 2000 years; among them: the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Books came next. They were a huge adjustment from the scrolls that were used in the past. They often had very hard, durable covers, made of wood in order to protect the delicate and ornate pages contained in the book. These books were extremely valuable and only the most wealthy and learned people could afford them, let alone read them. The books themselves, with the gold-leaf ornamentation and hand-written lettering sometimes took more than 11 years to create!
Guttenberg made the process easier and more rapid. And modern printing presses are an updated version of those older pioneers. The time and effort people have given throughout history is astounding, and the records they have preserved are an invaluable insight into history.