Before answering the question which book is the oldest in the world, you need to find out what can be considered a book. If we have in mind the modern concept of "book", that is, a stack of pages with printed text connected to each other, then the oldest will be the Korean "Chikchi". If the letters can be handwritten, then the most ancient is called the Gospel of Garima. And in a broader sense, the oldest surviving book is the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The Epic of Gilgamesh and Other Ancient Books
In a broader sense, a book can be called a work recorded or fixed in any way on various media. In ancient times, when writing was invented, a variety of improvised means were used as material for creating books and documents: metal, wood, clay. The oldest such book is the Sumerian work "The Epic of Gilgamesh", written on clay tablets and preserved to this day. Its second name is "About everything that has seen". The full version of the epic was found on the excavations of the library of King Ashurbanipal, scientists date it to the 7th century BC. But the oldest fragments containing the famous poem date back to the 18th century BC.
The Chinese treatise of the legendary founder of Taoism Laoji called "Tao Te Jing" can also boast of an impressive age; its creation dates back to the 4th century BC. This book is written on bamboo and is a bunch of bamboo sticks. Ancient Egyptian papyri with legends, myths and stories can be called one of the oldest books.
Perhaps the oldest recorded work on Earth has yet to be found. It can be found on plaques made of wood, stones, and other materials.
Oldest bound book
If paper or other thin sheets are considered a book, fastened together in the form of a bale with a binding, then the oldest book in the world is an Ethiopian Christian manuscript called "The Gospel of Garima." Scientists have found that this ancient text, divided into two books, was written between about 330 and 650 AD: most likely, this happened in the 5th-6th centuries. The alleged author of the book is the Ethiopian saint Isaac Garima, who arrived in the country from Constantinople in 494 and contributed to the Christianization of Ethiopia. The book is written in thin goatskin in ancient Ethiopian language.
The Gospel of Garima is kept in the museum of a British charity.
Oldest printed book
The oldest printed book is the Korean edition of Chikchi, a Buddhist document that narrates the teachings of the Buddha and other teachers and tells the essence of the teachings. A century before the invention of printing in Europe, Koreans were able to create the first printed book using a metal font: mirrored hieroglyphs cut from paper were attached to a wax board, after which the board was fired in an oven and clay molds were poured into which molten metal was poured. The book was created in 1377. In Europe, the first printed book appeared in 1480 - this was the Gutenberg Bible.
