Pedagogical content of texts and design educational books of antiquity

Analytical materials are presented in the historical-pedagogical and theoretical-methodological way. The present article is a brief description of the results of the study. The research was carried out to surface the presentation of pedagogical ideas in the texts of material carriers functioned as educational books in ancient civilizations and analyze how external design of the material carriers helped to convey the message of these texts. The work focuses on the fact that diversity of material carriers had the function of the educational book in the ancient world. They were clay tablets, bamboo planks, silk scrolls, bundles of bamboo or wooden tablets, scrolls of lead sheets, parchments, papyrus scrolls, ostrakons. The external design of these material carriers (for example, bounding wooden planks with a strap or a twine into a single unit; decorating silk scrolls with colorful drawings; making clay tablets in the shape of bricks; rolling up lead sheets into scrolls and papyrus scrolls into cylinders) provided better perception of pedagogically orientated texts. It was predetermined by ergonomic factors and was dictated by the convenience of usability of these material carriers in educational practices. The content of the texts written on these material carriers had pedagogical targets. They served as educational books for didactic and educational purposes. For example, texts written on clay tablets were used in teaching the “art” of dispute, in demonstrating dialogues-discussions; the texts of Apollonius of Rhodes “Argonautica” were used to draw on geographical and astronomical concepts. The texts of “The Zhan Guo Ce” contained numerous examples of heroes' moral righteousness, courage and valor. Therefore, these texts served as an example for leading ethical lifestyle and influencing readers' behavior. The texts of “The Illiad” and “The Odyssey” were used to demonstrate the images of heroes. These texts showed the standards of behavioral virtues and influenced the behavior of learners.