The Secret Library

The oldest book comprising multiple pages (that is, not simply a big scroll) is often said to be the Etruscan Gold Book, which was produced around 2,500 years ago. It comprises six large sheets of 24-carat gold which have been bound together with rings, thus forming a unified object that might be labelled a ‘book’. It was only discovered in the mid-twentieth century; unfortunately, as it was written in the Etruscan language, which we know very little about, deciphering it proved tricky, to say the least. To this day, we have no idea what it says.