Ancient literature

The History of literature begins with the history of writing, in Bronze Age Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, although the oldest literary texts that have come down to us date to a full millennium after the invention of writing, to the late 3rd millennium BC. The earliest literary authors known by name are Ptahhotep and Enheduanna, dating to ca. the 24th and 23rd centuries BC, respectively.

Texts handed down by oral tradition may predate their fixation in written form by several centuries, or, in extreme cases, even millennia. Classical Antiquity is usually considered to begin with Homer, in the 8th century BC. Many older literary texts are known, but often difficult to date. This includes the texts in the Hebrew Bible, the Pentateuch being traditionally dated to the 15th century BC, while modern scholars put it to the 10th century BC at the very earliest. An early example is the so called Egyptian Book of the Dead which was eventually written down in the Papyrus of Ani around 250 BC but probably dates from about the 18th century BC.

List of ancient texts

Bronze Age

• Early Bronze Age (ca. 3300 to 2000 BC) approximate dates shown
  • 2600 BC Sumerian texts from Abu Salabikh, including the Instructions of Shuruppak and the Kesh Temple Hymn
  • 2400 BC Egyptian Pyramid Texts, including the Cannibal Hymn (in parts likely composed from as early as 3000 BC^{[citation needed]})
  • 2400 BC Palermo stone
  • 2350 BC The Maxims of Ptahhotep
  • 2270 BC Sumerian Enheduanna tablet hymns (earliest author known by name)
  • 2050 BC Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu
  • 2000 BC Egyptian Coffin Texts inscriptions
  • 2000 BC Sumerian Lament for Ur
  • Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta

• Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000 to 1600 BC) approximate dates shown
  • 1900 BC Egyptian Westcar Papyrus; assumed age of the text, the surviving papyrus copy dates to ca. 1700 BC.
  • 1950-1750 BC Kultepe texts
  • The Epic of Gilgamesh (Sumerian version)
  • Egyptian Story of Sinuhe (in Hieratic)
  • Enûma Elish (Akkadian version)
  • Atra-Hasis epic (Akkadian version)
  • 1780 BC Babylonian Code of Hammurabi stele
  • 1750 BC Hittite Anitta tablets
  • 1650 BC Egyptian Ipuwer papyrus

• Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600 to 1200 BC) approximate dates shown
  • 1500 BC Hittite military oath
  • 1500-1100 BC Vedic Sanskrit Rigveda (redaction likely around 800 BC)
  • 1550 BC Egyptian Book of the Dead
  • 1400 BC Hurrian & Ugaritic Amarna Letters
  • 1330 BC Great Hymn to the Aten
  • the Babylonian Poor Man of Nippur
  • the Epic of Gilgamesh (Akkadian version)

Iron Age

Iron Age texts predating Classical Antiquity (12th to 8th centuries BC):

• 11th c. BC Egyptian Story of Wenamun
• ca. 12th to 9th c. BC: Yajurveda, Atharvaveda
• ca. 9th to 7th c. BC: Brahmanas
• ca. 9th to 7th c. BC: Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Chandogya Upanishad, Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana
• ca. 9th to 6th c. BC: older parts of the Hebrew Bible (see dating the Bible)
  • Pentateuch
  • Book of Joshua
  • Book of Isaiah
• ca. 8th c. BC: Homer and Hesiod (by convention considered the first authors of Classical Greece)
  • The Trojan War cycle, including the Iliad and the Odyssey
  • The Theogony by Hesiod

Classical Antiquity

See also Ancient Greek literature, Latin literature, Indian literature

• 7th century BC
  • Archilochus of Paros
  • Alcman
  • Semonides
  • Solon
  • Mimnermus
  • Stesichorus
• 6th century BC
  • Sappho
  • Ibycus
  • Alcaeus
  • Aesop's Fables
  • Hebrew Bible: Psalms, Book of Daniel, Book of Ezekiel
  • Chinese Classic of History, Tao Te Ching and The Art of War
  • Sutra literature
  • some mukhya Upanishads (Katha Upanishad, Maitrayaniya Upanishad)
• 5th century BC:
  • The odes of Pindar
  • The Histories of Herodotus by Herodotus
  • History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
  • The Suppliants, The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Oresteia by Aeschylus
  • Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Electra by Sophocles
  • Alcestis, Medea, Heracleidae, Hippolytus, Andromache, Hecuba, The Suppliants, Electra, Heracles, Trojan Women, Iphigeneia in Tauris, Ion, Helen, Phoenician Women, Orestes, Bacchae, Iphigeneia at Aulis, Cyclops, Rhesus by Euripides
  • The Acharnians, The Knights, The Clouds, The Wasps, Peace, The Birds, Lysistrata, Thesmophoriazusae, The Frogs, Ecclesiazousae, Plutus by Aristophanes
  • The Five Classics (Classic of Poetry, Classic of History, Book of Changes, Classic of Rites, and Annals of Spring and Autumn, traditionally by Confucius)
  • composed over the time spanning roughly the 5th c. BC to the 4th c. AD: Sanskrit Epics (Mahabharataand Ramayana)
• 4th century BC:
  • Anabasis, Cyropaedia by Xenophon
  • Nicomachean Ethics, Metaphysics by Aristotle
  • Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Theaetetus, Parmenides, Symposium, Phaedrus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno, Menexenus, Republic, Timaeus by Plato
  • Elements by Euclid
  • Book of Job (present form-- story is from at least 6th century)
• 3rd century BC:
  • Liber Linteus
  • Panchatantra by Vishnu Sarma
• 2nd century BC:
  • Poenulus, Miles Gloriosus by Plautus
  • Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian
  • The earlier poems of Sangam literature in the Tamil language

• 1st century BC:
  • Catiline Orations, Pro Caelio, Dream of Scipio by Cicero
  • Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar
  • Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid by Virgil
  • On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
  • Ab Urbe Condita (History of Rome) by Titus Livius (Livy)

• 1st century:
  • The books of the New Testament
  • Germania by Tacitus
  • Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans by Plutarch
  • Metamorphoses by Ovid
  • Natural History by Pliny the Elder
  • Satyricon by Petronius Arbiter
  • Jewish War, Jewish Antiquities, Against Apion by Josephus
  • Book of Han by Ban Gu
• 2nd century:
  • Anabasis Alexandri by Arrian
  • Almagest by Ptolemy
  • Deipnosophistae by Athenaeus
  • Enchiridion by Epictetus
  • The Golden Ass by Apuleius
  • Liber Memorialis by Lucius Ampelius
  • Description of Greece by Pausanias
  • Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius
• 3rd century:
  • De re coquinaria by Apicius
  • Enneads by Plotinus
  • Pervigilium Veneris
  • Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms by Chen Shou
  • Distichs of Cato
• 4th century:
  • De Re Militari by Flavius Vegetius Renatus
  • Confessions by Augustine of Hippo
  • Orosius
• 5th century:
  • The City of God by Augustine of Hippo
  • Vulgate of St. Jerome
  • Psychomachia by Prudentius
  • Consentius' grammar
  • Hou Hanshu compiled by Fan Yeh

See also

• Chinese classic texts
• Sanskrit literature
• Early Medieval literature
• list of years in literature
• Medieval literature
• Byzantine literature
• Early novels
• Centuries in poetry: 7th BCE, 6th BCE, 5th BCE and 4th BCE,3rd BCE, 2nd BCE and 1st BCE, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th
• List of languages by first written accounts

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