Talk:List of oldest documents

== Missing texts e.g. the History - as a science/using a methodology - started in the West with the 5th-century BC Greek historian Herodotus; so where are the texts he used to read? They are not in the list here?== When you go to the article on History - you can learn there that "Herodotus, a 5th-century BC Greek historian is often considered within the Western tradition to be the "father of history",...". So, Herodotus practised history - using a methodology. So he needed written documents to base himself upon. But there is no reference in this list to these documents that must be older than the 5th-century BC; how come? Anybody? Should I also publish this on the talk page of the Science article? ThySvenAERTS (talk) 04:48, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Please don't ask essentially the same question in more than one place. It wastes the time of volunteers. Pick one place (it should be the one you judge to be the best place, but if you pick the second- or third-best place it is not of much consequence).
 * While it's likely that Herodotus consulted documents that existed in his time, there are also indications that he collected oral history as well, for which there would be no documents. If you can find references that more precisely correlate Herodotus's own writings with other ancient documents that still exist, that might be a reason they could be added to the list. Mere speculation would not be sufficient unless there was general scholarly consensus about it.
 * (Similar answer given at Talk:History before I realized that the question was a duplicate.)  — jmcgnh (talk) (contribs) 07:25, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

=Bias= It should be clearly explained that these are the most ancient of each language/civilisation. For example, the Namer Palette may be the most ancient from Egypt. It should be made clear that many many other written documents are from Egypt later than the Namer Palette but still more ancient than the Missal of Silos. This may be sound obvious, but it is not clearly stated in the article.151.34.56.232 (talk) 11:11, 1 August 2021 (UTC)