The History of literature begins with the history of writing, in Bronze Age Mesopotamia, although the oldest literary texts that have come down to us date to a full millennium after the invention of writing, to the late 3rd millennium BC. The earliest literary author known by name is Enheduanna, a moon priestess to whom are attributed 42 hymns in Akkadian dating to ca. the 23rd century BC.

Texts handed down by oral tradition may predate their fixation in written form by several centuries, or, in extreme cases, even millennia. Classical Antiquity is usually considered to begin with Homer, in the 8th century BC. Many older literary texts are known, but often difficult to date. This includes the texts in the Hebrew Bible, the Pentateuch being traditionally dated to the 15th century BC, while modern scholarship puts it to the 10th century BC at the very earliest.A very early example is the so called Egyptian Book of the Dead which was eventually written

There are various different possible answers to the question "Which was the first novel ever written?" (See Candidates for the first novel).

List of ancient texts

Bronze Age

• 23rd to 20th century BC
  • Hymns of Enheduanna
  • The Epic of Gilgamesh (Sumerian version)
• 19th to 17th century
  • The Story of Sinuhe
  • Enûma Elish
  • Atrahasis Epic
• 16th to 14th century
  • Book of the Dead
  • Rigveda
  • Hittite military oath
• 14th to 11th century
  • Great Hymn to the Aten
  • The Epic of Gilgamesh (Akkadian version)
  • Story of Wenamun

Iron Age

• undated or controversial, ca. 12th to 7th century BC
  • Yajurveda
  • Atharvaveda
  • Brahmanas
  • Torah
  • Book of Joshua
  • Book of Isaiah
• undated or controversial, contemporary with "Classical Antiquity" below
  • The Ramayana (Hindu mythology)
  • The Mahabharata (of which the Bhagavad Gita is a section) (Hindu mythology)

Classical Antiquity

See also Ancient Greek literature, Latin literature.

• 8th century BC:
  • The Iliad by Homer (Greek mythology)
  • The Odyssey by Homer (Greek mythology)
  • The Theogony by Hesiod
• 6th century BC
  • Psalms
  • Book of Daniel
  • Book of Ezekiel
• 5th century BC:
  • The odes of Pindar
  • The Histories of Herodotus by Herodotus
  • History of
    
    
    
    the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
  • The Suppliants, The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Oresteia by Aeschylus
  • Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Electra by Sophocles
  • Alcestis, Medea, Heracleidae, Hippolytus, Andromache, Hecuba, The Suppliants, Electra, Heracles, Trojan Women, Iphigeneia in Tauris, Ion, Helen, Phoenician Women, Orestes, Bacchae, Iphigeneia at Aulis, Cyclops, Rhesus by Euripides
  • The Acharnians, The Knights, The Clouds, The Wasps, Peace, The Birds, Lysistrata, Thesmophoriazusae, The Frogs, Ecclesiazousae, Plutus by Aristophanes
  • The Five Classics (Classic of Poetry, Classic of History, Book of Changes, Classic of Rites, and Annals of Spring and Autumn, traditionally by Confucius)
• 4th century BC:
  • Anabasis, Cyropaedia by Xenophon
  • Nicomachean Ethics, Metaphysics by Aristotle
  • Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Theaetetus, Parmenides, Symposium, Phaedrus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno, Menexenus, Republic, Timaeus by Plato
  • Elements by Euclid
  • Book of Job
• 3rd century BC:
  • Liber Linteus
• 2nd century BC:
  • Poenulus, Miles Gloriosus by Plautus
  • Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian
• 1st century BC:
  • Catiline Orations, Pro Caelio, Dream of Scipio by Cicero
  • Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar
  • Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid by Virgil
  • On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
• 1st century:
  • The books of the New Testament
  • Germania by Tacitus
  • Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans by Plutarch
  • Metamorphoses by Ovid
  • Natural History by Pliny the Elder
  • Satyricon by Petronius Arbiter
  • Jewish War, Jewish Antiquities, Against Apion by Josephus
  • Book of Han by Ban Gu
• 2nd century:
  • Anabasis Alexandri by Arrian
  • Almagest by Ptolemy
  • Deipnosophistae by Athenaeus
  • Enchiridion by Epictetus
  • The Golden Ass by Apuleius
  • Liber Memorialis by Lucius Ampelius
  • Description of Greece by Pausanias
  • Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius
• 3rd century:
  • De re coquinaria by Apicius
  • Enneads by Plotinus
  • Pervigilium Veneris
  • Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms by Chen Shou
  • Distichs of Cato
• 4th century:
  • De Re Militari by Flavius Vegetius Renatus
  • Confessions by Augustine of Hippo
• 5th century:
  • The City of God by Augustine of Hippo
  • Vulgate of St. Jerome
  • Psychomachia by Prudentius
  • Hou Hanshu compiled by Fan Yeh

See also

• Chinese classic texts
• Sanskrit literature
• Early Medieval literature
• list of years in literature
• Medieval literature
• Byzantine literature