Scribe

[1][2] The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as secretarial and administrative duties such as the taking of dictation and keeping of business, judicial, and historical records for kings, nobles, temples, and cities.

[11] To the extent that the curriculum in scribal schools can be reconstructed, it appears that they would have begun by studying lists and syllabaries and learning metrology, the formulas for writing legal contracts, and proverbs.

Monumental buildings were erected under their supervision,[17] administrative and economic activities were documented by them, and stories from Egypt's lower classes and foreign lands survive due to scribes putting them in writing.

Young men hoping to join the civil service would need to pass an exam based on Confucian doctrine, and these collections, which became known as "academy libraries" were places of study.

[27] In fact, the earliest known copy of a printed book is of the Diamond Sutra dating to 868 CE, which was found alongside other manuscripts within a walled-in cave called Dunhuang.

Archaeological evidence even points to scribes being buried with marks of their trade such as brushes, "administrative, legal, divinatory, mathematical, and medicinal texts", thus displaying a personal embodiment of their profession.

Writing in the several scripts of Indic languages was generally not regarded as a distinct artistic form, in a situation similar to Europe, but different from East Asian traditions of calligraphy.

[33] The earliest extant writings take the form of mokkan, wooden slips used for official memoranda and short communications and for practical purposes such as shipping tags;[34] inscriptions on metal and stone; and manuscripts of sutras and commentaries.

[38] Government offices and Buddhist centers employed copyists on a wide scale,[33] requiring an abundance of materials such as paper, glue, ink, and brushes; exemplars from which to copy; an organizational structure; and technicians for assembly, called sōkō or sō’ō.

[44] In the 8th century, the demand for vast quantities of copies meant that scribes in the Office of Sutra Transcription were lay people of common status, not yet ordained monks, some finding opportunities for advancement.

[49] In addition to handwritten practical documents pertaining to legal and commercial transactions, individuals might write journals or commonplace books, which involved copying out sometimes lengthy passages by hand.

In the Nara period, wealthy patrons commissioned sutra copying on behalf of ancestors to gain them spiritual passage from the Buddhist hells.

[52] The Edo-period court noble Konoe Iehiro created a sutra manuscript in gold ink on dark blue paper, stating his purpose in the colophon as "to ensure the spiritual enlightenment of his departed mother.

"[53] Creating a calligraphic and pictorial work by copying secular literature likewise was an aesthetic practice for its own sake and a means of study.

[54] In the Heian period, the book collector, scholar-scribe, and literary artist Fujiwara no Teika was a leader in preserving and producing quality manuscripts of works of literature.

[55] Unique and prized handscrolls preserved the collaborative poetry sessions characteristic of renga and haikai poetic composition, distributed more widely in printed copies.

[60] Manuscripts could more readily evade government censorship,[48] and officially banned books that could no longer be printed were copied for personal use or circulated privately.

[62] Books might also be composed as manuscripts when their transmission was limited to a particular circle of interested parties or sharers in the knowledge, such as local history and antiquarianism,[63] a family's accumulated lore or farming methods, or medical texts of a particular school of medicine.

[65] In the esoteric strand of Japanese Buddhism, scribes recorded oracles, the utterances of a kami-inspired person often in the form of dialogues in response to questions.

After the text was verified, it became part of the canon, stored in secret places, viewable by affiliated monks, and used to legitimate forms of religious authority.

Modern versions sold at shrines, often already stamped with their local affiliation, tend to be used more verbally, with space left for individuals to act as their own scribes in messaging the kami.

Some of them belonged to the priestly class, other scribes were the record-keepers and letter-writers in the royal palaces and administrative centers, affiliated with the ancient equivalent of professional guilds.

Only after the appearance of the Kingdom of Israel, Finkelstein points to the reign of Omri, did the scribal schools begin to develop, reaching their culmination in the time of Jeroboam II, under Mesopotamian influence.

While there were other items found among the Dead Sea Scrolls not currently in the Hebrew Bible, and many variations and errors occurred when they were copied, the texts, on the whole, testify to the accuracy of the scribes.

[95] Some Roman households had libraries extensive enough to require specialized staff including librarii, copyists or scribes, who were often slaves or freedmen, along with more general librarians (librarioli).

[96] Public libraries also existed under imperial sponsorship, and bookshops both sold books and employed independent librarii along with other specialists who constructed the scrolls.

[99] Books were a favored gift for friends, and since they had to be individually written out, "deluxe" editions, made from higher-grade papyrus and other fine materials, might be commissioned from intellectuals who also acted as editors.

[103] An early 2nd-century marble relief from Rome depicts a female scribe, seated on a chair and writing on kind of a tablet, facing the butcher who is chopping meat at a table.

Among these are Magia, Pyrrhe, Vergilia Euphrosyne, and a freedwoman whose name does not survive; Hapate, a shorthand writer of Greek who lived to the age of 25; and Corinna, a storeroom clerk and scribe.

Most of these women can only be identified by their names or initials, by their label as "scriptrix", "soror", "scrittorix", "scriba" or by the colophon (scribal identification which appears at the end of a manuscript).