From Cave Paintings to the Internet An Annotated Interactive Timeline on the History of Information and Media 300 BCE to 30 CE Timeline

The Royal Library of Alexandria is founded under the reign of Ptolemy II. At its peak it may preserve 400,000 to 700,000 papyrus scrolls—the largest collection of recorded information in the ancient world. Traditionally the Alexandrian Library is thought to have been based upon the library of Aristotle. It is also thought that the collection of scrolls was acquired by order of Ptolemy III, who required all visitors to Alexandria to surrender scrolls in their possession. These writings were then copied by official scribes, the originals were put into the Library, and the copies were delivered to the previous owners. The Alexandrian Library was also associated with a school and a museum.

Though it is known that portions of the Alexandrian Library survived for several centuries, perhaps for as long as 500 or 600 years, or even longer, the various accounts of the library's eventual destruction are contradictory. The Wikipedia article on the Library of Alexandria outlines four possible scenarios for its destruction:

1. Julius Caesar's fire in The Alexandrian War, in 48 BC
2. The attack of Aurelian in the Third century AD;
3. The decree of Theophilus in 391 AD;
4. The Muslim conquest in 642 AD or thereafter.

It concludes that "although the actual circumstances and timing of the physical destruction of the Library remain uncertain, it is however clear that by the eighth century A.D., the Library was no longer a significant institution and had ceased to function in any important capacity."

This is the date range of the Dead Sea Scrolls which were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves near Khirbet Qumran, on the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea. Historical, paleographic, and linguistic evidence, as well as carbon-14 dating, established that the scrolls and the Qumran ruin dated from the third century BCE to 68 CE. Dating from the late Second Temple Period, a time when Jesus of Nazareth lived, the Dead Sea Scrolls are older than any other surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures by almost one thousand years.

“Most of the scrolls were written in Hebrew, with a smaller number in Aramaic or Greek. Most of them were written on parchment, with the exception of a few written on papyrus. The vast majority of the scrolls survived as fragments—only a handful were found intact. Nevertheless, scholars have managed to reconstruct from these fragments approximately 850 different manuscripts of various lengths.

"The manuscripts fall into three major categories: biblical, apocryphal, and sectarian. The biblical manuscripts comprise some two hundred copies of books of the Hebrew Bible, representing the earliest evidence for the biblical text in the world. Among the apocryphal manuscripts (works that were not included in the Jewish biblical canon) are works that had previously been known only in translation, or that had not been known at all. The sectarian manuscripts reflect a wide variety of literary genres: biblical commentary, religious-legal writings, liturgical texts, and apocalyptic compositions. Most scholars believe that the scrolls formed the library of the sect (the Essenes?) that lived at Qumran. However it appears that the members of this sect wrote only part of the scrolls themselves, the remainder having been composed or copied elsewhere.”

Excluding counting on the fingers, counting boards are the earliest known counting device, and a precursor of the abacus. They were made from stone or wood and the counting was done on the board with beads or pebbles or or sand or dust.  These devices have also been called the "sandboard abacus." The earliest surviving example of a counting board or a gaming board may be a tablet found about 1850 CE on the Greek island of Salamis which dates back to about 300 BCE. It is preserved in the Greek National Museum at Athens. 

"It is a slab of white marble 149 cm long, 75 cm wide, and 4.5 cm thick, on which are 5 groups of markings. In the center of the tablet is a set of 5 parallel lines equally divided by a vertical line, capped with a semi-circle at the intersection of the bottom-most horizontal line and the single vertical line. Below these lines is a wide space with a horizontal crack dividing it. Below this crack is another group of eleven parallel lines, again divided into two sections by a line perpendicular to them, but with the semi-circle at the top of the intersection; the third, sixth and ninth of these lines are marked with a cross where they intersect with the vertical line."  Three sets of Greek symbols (numbers from the acrophonic system) are arranged along the left, right and bottom edges of the tablet.

In China up till the end of the Chou dynasty (255 BCE), through China’s classical period, writing is done with a bamboo pen, with ink of soot, or lampblack upon slips of bamboo or wood, with wood being used mainly for short messages and bamboo for longer messages and for books. “Bamboo is cut into strips about 9 inches long and wide enough for a single column of characters. The wood was sometimes in the same form, sometimes wider. The bamboo strips, being stronger, could be perforated at one end and strung together, either with silken cords or with leather thongs, to form books…

“The invention of the writing brush of hair, attributed to the general Meng T’ien in the third century B.C., worked a transformation in writing materials. This transformation is indicated by two changes in the language. The word for chapter used after this time means ’roll’; the word for writing materials becomes ’bamboo and silk’ instead of ’bamboo and wood.’ There is evidence that the silk used for writing during the early part of the Han dynasty consisted of actual silk fabric. Letters on silk, dating possibly from Han times, have been found together with paper in a watchtower of a spur of the Great Wall.

“But as the dynastic records of the time state, ’silk was too expensive and bamboo too heavy.’…The emperor Chin’in Shih Huang set himself the task of going over daily a hundred and twenty pounds of state docuements. Clearly a new writing material was needed.

“The first step was probably a sort of paper or near-paper made of raw silk. This is indicated by the character for paper, which has the silk radical showing material, and by the defintion of that character in the Shuo wen, a dictionary that was finished about the year A.D. 100.” (Carter, The Invention of Printing in China and its Spread Westward, 2nd ed. rev. [1955] 3-4.)

The Septuagint (LXX) is produced. This is the name commonly given in the West to the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). “The Septuagint derives its name (derived from Latin septuaginta, 70, hence the abbreviation LXX) from a legendary account in the Letter of Aristeas of how seventy-two Jewish scholars (six scribes from each of the twelve tribes) were asked by the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus in the 3rd century BC to translate the Torah for inclusion in the Library of Alexandria. In a later version of that legend narrated by Philo of Alexandria, although the translators were kept in separate chambers, they all produced identical versions of the text in seventy-two days. Although this story is widely viewed as implausible today, it underlines the fact that some ancient Jews wished to present the translation as authoritative. A version of this legend is found in the Talmud, which identifies 15 specific unusual translations made by the scholars. Only 2 of these translations are found in the extant LXX.”

“The oldest witnesses to the LXX include 2nd century BC fragments of Leviticus and Deuteronomy (Rahlfs nos. 801, 819, and 957), and 1st century BC fragments of Genesis, Exodus,Levitcus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and the Minor Prophets (Rahlfs nos. 802, 803, 805, 848, 942, and 943). Relatively complete manuscripts of the LXX include the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus of the 4th century AD/CE and the Codex Alexandrinus of the 5th century. These are indeed the oldest surviving nearly-complete manuscripts of the Old Testament in any language; the oldest extant complete Hebrew texts date from around 1000.”

Kallimachos, a renowned poet and head of the Alexandrian Library, compiles a catalogue of its holdings which he calls Pinakes (Lists). Supposedly extending to 120 papyrus scrolls, this catalogue amounts to a systematic survey of Greek literature up to its time. It is also the beginnings of bibliography. Only a few fragments will survive the eventual destruction of the library. These will be first published in 1697.

Evidence suggests that the process of canonization of the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) occurs at this time. The first suggestion of a Jewish Canon comes in the 2nd century BCE. “The book of 2 Macabees, itself not a part of the Jewish canon,” describes Nehemiah (around 400 BCE) as having “founded a library and collected books about the kings and prophets, and the writings of David, and letters of kings about votive offerings” (2 Macc 2:13). The book also suggests that Ezra brought the Torah back from Babylon to Jerusalem and the Second Temple as described in Nehemiah 8. Both I and II Maccabees suggest that Judas Maccabeus likewise collected sacred books. They do not, however, suggest that the canon was at that time closed; moreover, it is not clear that these sacred books were identical to those that later became part of the canon.

Commentaries on the Iliad and the Odyssey written in the Hellenistic period at Alexandria begin exploring the textual inconsistencies of the poems which occurred as the result of different scribes writing down differing versions of poems passed down through the oral tradition. This process of comparing different manuscript texts, such as would have been preserved at the Alexandrian Library, to arrive at what might be the “canonical” text, is the beginning of philology. “The first critical editions were made by the Alexandrian scholars, Zenodotus (325-234 BC), Aristophanes, Librarian of Bibliotheca Alexandrina (195-180 BC), but foremost Aristarchus, Librarian of Bibliotheca Alexandrina (180 – ca. 145 or 131 BC), who published his definite edition in the middle of 2nd c. BC, which is still the standard.” (Schoyen Collection MS 5069).

Rulers of Pergamum (now Bergama in Turkey) decide to challenge the position of the Alexandrian Library by founding a competing library of their own. This project, and the vast buildings constructed for the purpose, is associated with the rule of king Eumenes II. The Library of Pergamum supposedly contains 200,000 scrolls—the second largest library holdings in the ancient world. Legend is that Anthony gave this library to Cleopatra as a marriage gift.

The Antikythera Mechanism discovered off Antikythera, Greece in 1901, includes the only specimen preserved from antiquity of a scientifically graduated instrument. It may also be thought of as the earliest extant mechanical calculator. "The Antikythera mechanism must therefore be an arithmetical counterpart of the much more familiar geometrical models of the solar system which were known to Plato and Archimedes and evolved into the orrery and the planetarium. The mechanism is like a great astronomical clock without an escapement, or like a modern analogue computer which uses mechanical parts to save tedious calculation . . . . It is certainly very similar to the great astronomical cathedral clocks that were built. . . ." in Europe beginning in the fourteenth century.

The mechanism predicted lunar and solar eclipses on the basis of Babylonian arithmetic-progression cycles. The inscriptions support suggestions of mechanical display of planetary positions now lost. In the second century BC, Hipparchos developed a theory to explain the irregularities of the Moon's motion across the sky caused by its elliptic orbit. We find a mechanical realization of this theory in the gearing of the mechanism, revealing an unexpected degree of technical sophistication for the period."

Applying high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography, in 2008 experts deciphered inscriptions and reconstructed functions of the bronze gears on the mechanism. The results of this research, illustrated in a streaming video available at this link, revealed details of dials on the instrument’s back side, including the names of all 12 months of an ancient calendar. Scientists found that the device not only predicted solar eclipses but also organized the calendar in the four-year cycles of the Olympiad, forerunner of the modern Olympic Games.

The new findings also suggested that the mechanism’s concept originated in the colonies of Corinth, possibly Syracuse, in Sicily. The scientists said this implied a likely connection with the great Archimedes. Archimedes, who lived in Syracuse and died in 212 B.C., invented a planetarium calculating motions of the moon and the known planets, and wrote a lost manuscript on astronomical mechanisms. Some evidence had previously linked the complex device of gears and dials to the island of Rhodes and the astronomer Hipparchos, who had made a study of irregularities in the Moon’s orbital course.

Copies of Acta Diurna ("Daily Events", or the "Daily Public Record"), are carved on stone or metal and presented in message boards in public places like the Roman Forum beginning at this time. They are also called simply Acta or Diurna or sometimes Acta Popidi or Acta Publica. They are thought to be the first daily gazette.

"Their original content included results of legal proceedings and outcomes of trials. Later the content was expanded to public notices and announcements and other noteworthy information such as prominent births, marriages and deaths. After a couple of days the notices were taken down and archived, though no intact copy has survived.

"Sometimes scribes made copies of the Acta and sent them to provincial governors for information. Later emperors used them to announce royal or senatorial decrees and events of the court.

Other forms of Acta were legal, municipal and military notices. Acta Senatus were originally kept secret, until then-consul Julius Caesar made them public in 59 BCE. Later rulers, however, often censored them."

The Isaiah Scroll is the only complete scroll in the cache of 220 biblical scrolls discovered in a cave in Qumran on the northwestern coast of the Dead Sea. Isaiah is the most popular prophet of the Second Temple period: 21 copies of the scroll were found in Qumran. The text includes the familiar unfulfilled prophecy: “and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

The craft of bookbinding originates in India. Religious sutra, meaning "a rope or thread that holds things together," are copied onto palm leaves cut in two, lengthwise, with a metal stylus. The leaf is then dried and rubbed with ink, which forms a stain in the stylus tracings in the leaf. The finished leaves are numbered, and two long twines are threaded through each end through wooden boards. When closed, the excess twine is wrapped around the boards to protect the leaves of the book. Buddhist monks take the idea of bookbinding through what we call Persia, Afghanistan, and Iran, to China in the first century BC.

Julius Caesar introduces the Julian calendar. It has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months, and a leap day is added every four years, hence the average Julian year is 365.25 days. The calendar remained in use into the 20th century in some countries and is still used by many national Orthodox churches. However with this scheme too many leap days are added with respect to the astronomical seasons, which on average occur earlier in the calendar by about 11 minutes per year, causing it to gain a day about every 128 years. It is said that Caesar was aware of the discrepancy, but felt it was of little importance."

Caesar plans to establish a public library to equal or surpass the one at Alexandria. He appoints Terntius Varro, a noted scholar and book collector, to gather copies of the best-known literature for a Roman public library. However these plans are shelved when Caesar is assassinated in 44 BCE.

Publius Vergilius Maro composes the Ecologues, the Georgics, and dies before the Aeneid is complete. His writings will be widely copied in the Middle Ages, manuscripts of which will be some of the earliest Latin literary manuscripts to survive.

“G. Asinius Pollio, who had amassed a fortune in his conquest of Dalmatia, used his wealth to consolidate several collections already in Rome, possibly including those of Varro and Sulla, to form a library in the Temple of Liberty (Atrium Libertatis) on the Aventine Hill. Public archives had already been housed there, but Pollio reorganized the collection, added the libraries he had acquired, and opened the whole to the public about 37 B.C., making it the first-known public library in Rome.” (Harris, History of Libraries in the Western World 4th ed. [1999] 57.)

“Beginning with August, the Roman emperors took over the task of building libraries in Rome. Actually, Augustus was responsible for two public libraries. The first, in the Temple of Apollo, was begun in 36 B.C. and dedicated in 28. B.C. It was divided into two separate collections, one Greek and one Latin. Pompeius Macer was the first librarian, and Julius Hyginus, a noted grammarian, also served in that capacity. Later enlarged by the Emperors Tiberius and Caligula, this library on the Palatine Hill was one of the two major libraries in Rome for several hundred years. It was damaged at least twice by fires but survived well into the 4th century. The second Augustan library was in the Porticus Octaviae, a magnificent structure built in honor of Octavia, the Emperor’s sister… Caius Melissus was the first librarian for this collection, housed in chambers over a promenade. Although damaged by fire in the reign of Titus about 80 A.D., the Octavian Library probably surived into the 2nd century.“ (Harris, History of Libraries in the Western World 4th ed. [1999] 57.)

Augustus, Emperor of the Roman Empire, creates the Cursus publicus, the courier service of the Roman empire, to transport messages, officials, and tax revenues from one province to another. Though he bases the Roman system on the Persian model of relay riders passing a message from one courier to the next, Augustus switches to a system in which one man makes the entire journey carrying the message. This has the advantage of enabling the messenger to be questioned regarding additional information, and it may provide additional security.  However, it also slows down the speed of communication.

Various authorities have  estimated that the average speed of a messenger over the Roman road system was about 50 miles per day-- a substantial reduction in speed from the relay methods used by the Persian Empire.

It has also been estimated from surviving accounts of Roman voyages that the fastest Roman ships sailed at five knots or 120 miles per day in good weather and two knots or 50 miles per day in unfavorable weather.

The form of the manuscript book begins to shift from the scroll to the codex, though this transition may not be "complete" until around the fourth century. For first drafts, brief writings, and notes the Romans use various forms of bound parchment leaves. For diplomas and other brief documents they write on bronze, lead, and wood. For formal presentations they prefer the paprus scroll. The scroll remains the prefered form for literary works until the 4th century. The first recorded use of the codex for literary works is attributed to Martial who experiments with the format in the first century. Some have said that Julius Caesar invented the first codex during the Gallic Wars. He would issue scrolls folded up accordion style and use the "pages" as reference points. Scribes prefer to write on the side of papyrus with the fibers running horizontally. When they write on the outside of the scroll the writing on outside is easily worn off.

The transition from the scroll to the codex is often credited to early Christians. Certainly they do not feel bound by tradition, for they do not continue to use the papyrus scroll like the classical Greeks and Romans, nor the parchment scroll like the Jews. To write the books of the Bible the Christians use the codex to a greater and greater extent, first on papyrus and then on parchment. Whether the Christians are responsible for the change from the scroll to the codex or merely adopt it, the fourth century will see both the triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire and a revolution in book production which makes it possible for the first time to make books big enough to hold the whole Bible in one volume and also to hold all of Virgil's poems in one volume. Christians prefer the codex format for the Scriptures used in liturgy since a codex is easier to handle than a scroll, and one can write on both sides of the leaves, allowing more information to be recorded in less space. This is a form of information storage preferable for people on the move. The codex also allows the development of bindings which may be protective as well as decorative. Bindings would have increased the longevity of codices versus scrolls, and over time this would have been recognized as a significant advantage.

"In 1994, the British Library Oriental and India Office Collections acquired a collection of twenty‐nine fragments of manuscripts written on birch bark scrolls in the Gāndhārī (a dialect of Prakrit) language and in the Kharoṣṭhī script. They were contained inside a clay pot, also bearing an inscription in the same language, in which they had been buried in antiquity. Preliminary analysis of these documents indicated that they dated from about the first century A.D., which would make them the oldest surviving substantial collection of Buddhist manuscripts, as well as of any kind of Indian manuscripts.

"The exact findspot of these manuscripts is unfortunately unknown. But in the past several manuscripts of the same type have been reported to have been found in or around Haḍḍa near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, although none of these have ever been published and most of them apparently are now lost. It is therefore likely that the new manuscripts came from the same region. This area closely adjoins the region known in ancient times as Gandhāra, the homeland of the Gāndhārī language and Kharoṣṭhī script, which were current from about the third century B.C. to the fourth century A.D."

The scrolls in the British Library and others in the Senior Collection and the Schoyen collection have been called the "Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism."

The first census of which records are preserved is taken in China during the Han Dynasty. At that time there are 57.5 million people living in Han China—the world’s largest population.

Hero of Alexandria teaches at the Museum and Library at Alexandria, Egypt. Among his numerous engineering and technological writings that have survived are designs for automata—machines operated by mechanical or pneumatic means. These include devices for for temples "to instill faith by deceiving believers with 'magical acts of the gods,' for theatrical spectacles, and machines like a statue that pours wine. These are the first recorded automata.