How could written materials be preserved after 3000 years of history? [closed]

Question

Premise

Grandmaster Fredrietch Kalven, a researcher of lost arts, was tasked by the king to find and record all written histories of their world since the earliest writings.

After many years of research and studies, Fredrietch compiled the written works he collected from ancient libraries, buried ruins, heirlooms from noble houses, and oral passages from tribal natives. The Chronicles of History was later finished after the Grandmaster's death.

Question

How did these written materials such as scrolls, codices, and tomes survive after 3000 years after wars and calamities, especially in those ancient libraries and ruins?

Note

Magic exist in this world and only elves can wield it. Magic that has been cast as an enchantment, will loss its effect because of magic decay.

Answer 1

Libraries

For the Libraries it is pretty simple: Librarians preserved them by copying them on new scrolls/tomes/codices or they carved the most important information onto stone and where able to preserve them this way for millennia. (similar to how we still have access to Egyptian writings)

Ruins

This one is a bit harder depending on how long these ruins have been ruins it is very likely that scriptures have been lost. Here it could be that you have a scenario like Pompeii where a volcano creates an air tight seal to preserve scriptures for millennia.

Or a solution which will probably not help for full 3000 years but these ruins could have crumbled in a way that would protect some writings from wind and weather which would persevere a part of the stored scrolls/codices/tomes for a few centuries or maybe even a bit more than a millennium.

Cold

What also could preserve your historical entries would be the cold maybe a ruin is located high up in the mountains or so far up north that it's close to permafrost or even within the permafrost region.

Answer 2

Clay tablets as they were burned by Sumarians.

Answer 3

Look to the written records that have survived so long.

Hieroglyphics

We have the writings of ancient Egyptians because they liked painting them on the inside of pyramids and then sealing them off from the world. Preventing the ravages of the years from erasing their words

Ogham

An ancient Celtic written language, it tends to be carved in stone though possibly also on wood back in the day, it's mostly stone artifacts in sheltered locations that survive.

Rosetta Stone

Another lump of carved rock with various languages written on it, but it does follow the theme.

Conclusion

Your ancients didn't really believe in scrolls, though a few survive. They believed that anything that was important to pass on to their descendants should be literally carved into the walls of their temples and libraries. The palace has the history of the country carved into its walls, the temple has their religous texts carved into the walls. Every building has its purpose, every building has its carvings.

Answer 4

Well maintained libraries would probably copy certain texts every so often to preserve them.

Papyrus if well preserved (kept in a dry and dark place) can last thousands of years. Check out the Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus as an example, it's 4,000 years old.

Engravings on certain stones are another good example of writing that has survived the riggers of time, the peace treaty between the Hittites and Egyptians is still fairly well preserved for being over 3,000 years old.

Wood and ink, would require really good conditions to survive that long, but bamboo books have been found in China that are 2,400 years old. Writing on waxed bark would also fit in this category.

Engravings, non-rusting metals/alloys can really withstand the test of time. Examples include silver scrolls from 2,700 year and the Iron pillar of Delhi which is 1,600 years old.

And don't forget that some cave paintings have survived for much greater time periods, so it is not unfeasible that paint on stones could last a fair amount of time too (in the right conditions).