Oxford University Press 2010. While the main line of descent traces the printed book in the West back through the medieval *codex to the *scrolls of ancient Greece and Rome, it is important to remember that these latter civilizations arose after, and alongside, a number of other ancient cultures that also had writing. Although it is likely that writing arose independently in the Near East, China, and Central America, Greece and Rome interacted regularly with the cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Germanic tribes, and Israel, so that a full consideration of the book in the ancient world must take into account all of these areas and their interrelationships.
