Oldest Literature in the World
Defining the oldest literature in the world can be difficult as many texts have been lost to the mists of time and even more was only transmitted orally, lost to a break in the chain of culture. Even more texts have only survived in fragments. Literature can be defined as any collection of written work or more narrowly for particular genres, especially novels, poems, and plays, as it is more commonly used now. Many of the oldest texts show evidence of being older than their surviving written forms and there are fragmentary versions of many texts that we have found in full, making them harder to date.
With those caveats, the oldest texts that we have found date to about 2600 BCE from Sumer and Egypt. From Sumer, a group of texts found in Abu Salabikh, 20km northwest of ancient Nippur, including Instructions of Shuruppak, which is considered a 'significant example of Sumerian wisdom literature', meant 'to teach proper piety, inculcate virtue, and preserve community standards', and the Kesh temple hymn, also known as Liturgy to Nintud on the creation of man and woman. In Egypt, the Life of Metjen, who was an ancient Egypitan high official who lived during the transition between the 3rd and 4th Dynasty, was found in Saqqara, the first known autobiography inscribed into the walls of his tomb.
The oldest code of law we have is the Code of Urukagina from about 2400 BCE, which is 'hailed as the first recorded example of government reform' that sought to 'achieve a higher level of freedom and equality' by limiting usury, burdensome controls, limiting the power of the priesthood and large property owners, and restructuring the actions relating to hunger, theft, murder, and seizure of property. It is also the first time the word 'freedom' 'ama-gi' was used in recorded history.
Exactly when the first work of fiction, known as fiction to the author and those who heard or read it as opposed to hymns and myths, which were thought at the time to be the truth of the universe, is difficult to know for sure, but likely the oldest is the Middle Kingdom Ancient Egyptian Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, which was written between 2000-1900 BCE, which tells the story of a sailor who meets a divine creature who tells him how to get home.
Because East Asia developed writing much later than the Middle East, the oldest texts we have from there are much newer, with the oldest being the Vedas, the Ṛg Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sāma Veda, and the Atharva Veda from India, written in Sanskrit, which holds a place similar to Latin in the West linguistically. The Vedas date to about 1200 BCE and are a collection of theology, spirituality, ritual practices, and philosophy as well as hymns, mantras, and prayers that are still used today.
The oldest Chinese literature we have is from about 1000 BCE. The Classic of Poetry, 詩經 Shījīng, also known as the Books of Songs or the Book of Odes. As the title suggests, it is a collection of poems, containing 305 poems, and is one of the 'Five Classics' traditionally attributed to being collected by Confucius. It is commonly studied and memorized and has been since it's compilation. The oldest section is the 31 'Eulogies of Zhou' 周頌 Zhōu sòng, with newer sections dating as recently as 700 BCE.
The oldest Greek literature is the Trojan War cycle, dating to about 800 BCE, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which tell the story of the war between the Greeks and the city of Troy, which took place about 400 years before. The Iliad tells of the end of the Trojan war, focusing on the anger of Achilles and his quarrel with King Agamemnon. The Odyssey focuses on the much delayed return of Odysseus to his home in Ithica.
The oldest text of the Tanak, known to Christians as the Old Testament, is the Book of Job אִיּוֹב Īyyōḇ, which dates to the 4th century BCE and is found within the Ketuvim, the Writings, the first of the Poetic Books. It's language combines post-Babylonian Hebrew and Aramaic influences, which dates it to the Persian period (from 540-330 BCE). It is an attempt to address the problem of evil, why evil and suffering exists with an all-powerful and all-loving deity, by offering a theodicy, an argument that tries to resolve the problem. It also introduces Satan הַשָּׂטָן haśśāṭān, the adversary or accuser, in the narrative, where he claims that Job, a wealthy man, only follows God because Job has every blessing. God allows Satan to remove Job's blessings to see if Job will curse God, which Job does not do, so God returns Job's blessings doubled.
