Around 3000 BCE, the Sumerians and Assyrians performed cuneiform writing on clay boards, and the Egyptians wrote hieroglyphics on papyrus. It wasn’t until around 400 CE that bound books appeared in the physical shape that we know today. The world’s oldest book is much older, however. Created by North Italian Etruscans in 600 BCE, the book was made of 24-karat gold, and its six illustrated gold pages are joined by gold rings. The world’s oldest printed and dated book is from China and was published on May 11, 868 CE. It’s what’s known as a block book, printed page by page using carved, colored wooden blocks. The technique was already being used in Korea in the mid-700s, but surviving works do not include a publication date. Books were made manually until the mid-1400s, when German metalsmith Johann Gutenberg published the Bible using his invention, the movable-type printing press.