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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 (3rd millennim BC) approximate dates shown
- Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000 to 1600 BC) approximate dates shown
- Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600 to 1200 BC) approximate dates shown
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