Today, we live in a digital, "paperless" world. But what about the days before paper? Here are 10 ways people kept records before paper and mass printing became available.

1. 10 Ways
People
Kept
Records
Before
Paper
By Renee Floyd

2. Today, we live in a
digital, “paperless”
world. We can fit
thousands of pages
of information on a
pocket-size flash
drive.

3. But how did we record information
before paper?
Caxton Showing the First Specimen of His Printing to King Edward IV at the Almonry, Westminster, 1851.

4. Here are 10 ways we kept records before
paper and mass printing became
available.

5. 1. Bamboo

6. • Chinese scholars wrote
on bamboo stalks as
long ago as 500 BCE.
• The scholars used small
knives to scrape away
mistakes. These knives
became a symbol of
political stature, as the
owners had the power
to change records.

7. 2. Birch Bark

8. • Birch bark manuscripts have been found in
India, Russia and the Middle East.
• Birch bark was used in medieval Russia for
school exercises, personal letters and
business ledgers.

9. 3. Bones & Shells

10. • Ancient Chinese
oracles used shell &
bone fragments to
predict future events.
• Oracles carved
questions onto the
bone or shell, then
applied heat until it
cracked. They
interpreted the crack
patterns as answers
from deities.

11. These “oracle bones” date back to
1400 BCE & represent the earliest
records of Chinese writing.

12. 4. Clay Tablets

13. • Cuneiform, one of the earliest writing systems,
is often found on clay tablets.
• The first libraries
consisted of clay
tablet archives.
• Ancient
Mediterranean
civilizations used
clay tablets for
sophisticated
accounting
systems.

14. 5. Ostraca

15. • Ostraca, or broken
pieces of pottery, are
considered the
“scrap paper” of
ancient civilizations.
• Ancient Athenians
used ostraca to cast
votes when the
government wanted
to banish a citizen.
This gave rise to the
term “ostracize”
which means to exile
or banish.

16. 6. Palm Leaves

17. • Palm leaves were used in Southeast Asia as
early as 1500 BCE.
• Scholars theorize that Southeast Asian scripts
contain mostly rounded shapes because
angular letters split and broke the palm leaves.

18. 7. Papyrus

19. • The oldest discovered
papyrus scrolls date back
to 2500 BCE.
• The word “paper”
derives from the word
“papyrus.”

20. Papyrus was expensive to produce and became a
monopolized resource in the city of Alexandria.
It was often washed and reused to save money.

21. 8. Parchment

22. • Parchment is made
from goat, sheep or
cow skin.
• Its use as a writing
medium was
perfected in
Pergamon (modern
day Turkey) as a
cheaper alternative
to Egyptian papyrus.

23. 9. Silk

24. • Some of the earliest
known manuscripts of I
Ching and Tao de Ching
exist on 2,000 year old
silk.
• Silk manuscripts were
used for philosophical,
mathematical and
military records in
China.

25. 10. Wax Tablets

26. • Wax tablets were made of wood panels
covered in soft wax.
• Entire tablets
could be erased
by melting the
layer of wax,
giving rise to the
Latin expression
“tabula rasa” or
“clean slate.”

27. Thanks for viewing!
Check out the Ultimate Guide to Records
Management to learn about the future of
records in a paperless world.

28. Image Sources
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