From Scrolls to Wax Tablets to the Codex to the Book to the Modern Digital Tablet

Look at the image below. Look familiar?

The paged "codex" was the forerunner of the modern "book",
which developed from the use of "wax tablets" in ancient days,
ultimately replacing the more ancient "scrolls".

Given the contemporary phenomenon of the digital tablet or notebook viz. laptop, many a disciple of modern hardware and "tablet patents" or similar would be surprised to discover that the "wax tablet" with stylus was already popular in Ancient Greece, as shown in the image below, dating the folding wax tablet to at least 500 B.C.

What is new under the Sun?

Writing with stylus and folding wax tablet by painter Douris

Staatliche Museen Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Antikensammlung F 2285

For more, see DelanceyPlace.com
and its excerpt from
Mark Kurlansky Paper: Paging Through History