1. Cacian

    Cacian Banned

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    what is the first book/story/poem ever to be written by man?

    Discussion in 'Discussion of Published Works' started by Cacian, Dec 6, 2011.

    I am not sure yet but it would be interesting to find out what you think.
     
  2. lostinwebspace

    lostinwebspace Active Member

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    I think someone said it was The Epic of Gilgamesh, but I could be wrong.

    This should probably be moved to The Lounge.
     
  3. Allan Paas

    Allan Paas New Member

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    I doubt it exists now. Probably been destroyed thousands of years ago. Egypt has some old stories written on the walls, also, there were mayans; ancient China. Plus, there are locations of even older settlements. Including some here where I live (several hundred kilometers from my location), some ten to twelve thousand year old ones, but as far as I know they didn't know how to write.

    Atlantis... if it existed it must've had something somewhere written. Anyone know where the Atlantis myth began?
     
  4. Cacian

    Cacian Banned

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    Atlantis began with Plato..without Plato we would not have heard of Atlantis.
    I might be well wrong.
    In orther to figure the earliest written piece of literature if to figure spoken language to be recorded meaning spoken culture.
     
  5. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I think that is correct in terms of works that still exist in some form today. There are other Sumerian texts that might be a little older, but the uncertainty around dating them puts them in roughly the same ballpark as the Epic of Gilgamesh.
     
  6. AmsterdamAssassin

    AmsterdamAssassin Active Member

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    For a long time considered the oldest Dutch sentence, round 1100:

    Hebban olla uogala nestas hagunnan
    hinase hic enda thu
    uuat unbidan uue nu

    [Have all birds started their nests
    except me and you
    so what are we waiting for?]

    However, the oldest is from round 800: Gelobistu in got alamehtigan fadaer [Do you believe in God the almighty father].
     
  7. AmsterdamAssassin

    AmsterdamAssassin Active Member

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    The Epic of Gilgamesh is some 3,000 years old, so that's probably hard to beat...

    However:

     
  8. FoxPaw

    FoxPaw New Member

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    I don't know about the other categories, but it's argued that Murasaki's The Tale of Genji is the first novel.
     

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