The Library
1774 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
2400–2301 BC
1 work
c. 2400 BC
Egyptian
Attributed to Ptahhotep
An ageing vizier asks permission to train a successor and sets down thirty-seven maxims: do not be proud of your knowledge, take counsel with the ignorant as with the wise, good speech is more hidden than malachite yet found among servant girls at the grindstones.
1200–1101 BC
1 work
c. 1200 BC
Egyptian
Amenemope son of Kanakht
Thirty chapters of counsel for an official: do not move the boundary stone, do not lean on the scales or falsify the weights, do not befriend the hot-tempered man, and do not strain to seek excess — for wealth makes itself wings like geese and flies away.
2 of 1774 works