Diamond Sutra

The world's oldest dated printed book, from 868 AD/Literature & Writing

The Diamond Sutra is the oldest known dated printed book in the world, produced on 11 May 868 AD using woodblock printing. It is a Buddhist text, and the copy held by the British Library is a 5.18-meter-long scroll made of seven panels of text glued together. It was discovered in 1900 in the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang, China, sealed in a hidden chamber for roughly a thousand years. The colophon at the end reads 'Reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie,' making it possibly the world's oldest example of a work explicitly placed in the public domain.