Launch foundation · Editio Princeps · Across every civilisation

The Libraryof Civilisation

Every civilisation’s foundational texts, indexed in one place, held in public trust — from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the Universal Declaration, in the languages they were written.

35 texts9 traditions18+ languages12 upstream sourcesEnter the archive

Editorial statement

A library is a promise that what was thought can be thought again — in every language it was thought in.

The written record of humanity is not a single canon. It is the braid of many — Sumerian tablet and Sanskrit sūtra, Greek elenchus and Chinese analect, Arabic commentary and K’iche’ cosmology — each the infrastructure of a civilisation, each held unequally by the digital libraries that survived the twentieth century.

Project Gutenberg gave the Western canon a public-domain home. ctext did the same for classical Chinese. Perseus for the Greco-Roman. Wikisource for the polyglot middle. Our task is the next one: to gather these traditions into a single, provenance-bearing archive that treats every civilisation as a first-class tradition — not an appendix.

We ingest from verified upstream libraries, we credit them plainly, and we keep the sources open for mirroring. The ambition is scale. The discipline is provenance.

— The Editors, Ninth Heaven Library

Section I

The Index

A standing catalog of foundational works, arranged by tradition. Each entry carries its year, author, title in the original, language, and discipline. Accessions are reviewed quarterly.

Mesopotamia & Egypt

c. 2100 BCE – 300 BCE

The earliest written record of law, myth, and mortality.

  1. c. 2100 BCEAnonymousEpic of Gilgamesh  ·  𒀭𒂍𒈾EpicAkkadian
  2. c. 1754 BCEHammurabiCode of Hammurabi  ·  𒁹𒄩𒄠𒈬𒊏𒁉LawAkkadian
  3. c. 1550 BCEAnonymousBook of the Dead  ·  𓂋𓏤𓈖𓉐𓂋𓏏FuneraryEgyptian

Chinese

c. 1000 BCE – 1800 CE

A continuous four-thousand-year textual tradition.

  1. c. 1000 BCEAnonymousI Ching  ·  易經DivinationClassical Chinese
  2. c. 500 BCELao TzuTao Te Ching  ·  道德經PhilosophyClassical Chinese
  3. c. 475 BCEConfucius (attr.)The Analects  ·  論語EthicsClassical Chinese
  4. c. 500 BCESun TzuThe Art of War  ·  孫子兵法StrategyClassical Chinese
  5. 1791Cao XueqinDream of the Red Chamber  ·  紅樓夢NovelClassical Chinese

Indian

c. 1500 BCE – 600 CE

Veda, epic, sutra — the roots of Indic thought.

  1. c. 1500 BCEAnonymousRigveda  ·  ऋग्वेदScriptureVedic Sanskrit
  2. c. 800 BCEVarious ṛṣisUpaniṣads  ·  उपनिषद्PhilosophySanskrit
  3. c. 300 BCEVyāsa (attr.)Bhagavad Gītā  ·  भगवद्गीताPhilosophySanskrit
  4. c. 300 BCEKauṭilyaArthaśāstra  ·  अर्थशास्त्रStatecraftSanskrit

Greco-Roman

c. 750 BCE – 180 CE

Epic, geometry, rhetoric, empire.

  1. c. 750 BCEHomerThe Iliad  ·  ἸλιάςEpicGreek
  2. c. 360 BCEPlatoRepublic  ·  ΠολιτείαPhilosophyGreek
  3. c. 300 BCEEuclidElements  ·  ΣτοιχεῖαMathematicsGreek
  4. 29 BCEVirgilThe Aeneid  ·  AenēisEpicLatin
  5. 180 CEMarcus AureliusMeditations  ·  Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόνStoicismGreek

Islamic World

650 – 1400

Revelation, medicine, history, the thousand nights.

  1. c. 650Revealed to MuhammadQur'an  ·  ٱلْقُرْآنScriptureArabic
  2. c. 1025Ibn SīnāCanon of Medicine  ·  القانون في الطبMedicineArabic
  3. c. 1100AnonymousOne Thousand & One Nights  ·  أَلْف لَيْلَة وَلَيْلَةTalesArabic
  4. 1377Ibn KhaldūnMuqaddimah  ·  المقدمةHistoryArabic

Japanese

712 – 1645

Court literature, chronicle, and the way of the sword.

  1. 712Ō no YasumaroKojiki  ·  古事記ChronicleOld Japanese
  2. c. 1008Murasaki ShikibuTale of Genji  ·  源氏物語NovelHeian Japanese
  3. 1645Miyamoto MusashiBook of Five Rings  ·  五輪書StrategyJapanese

African

c. 1200 – 1958

Oral epic, chronicle, and the modern African novel.

  1. c. 1235AnonymousEpic of SundiataEpicMandinka
  2. c. 1321AnonymousKebra Nagast  ·  ክብረ ነገሥትChronicleGe'ez
  3. 1958Chinua AchebeThings Fall ApartNovelEnglish

Indigenous Americas

c. 1550 – 1888

The surviving record of pre-Columbian cosmology and voice.

  1. c. 1554Anonymous (K'iche')Popol VuhCosmologyK'iche' Maya
  2. 1569Bernardino de SahagúnFlorentine Codex  ·  Historia GeneralEthnographyNahuatl / Spanish
  3. 1855Walt WhitmanLeaves of GrassPoetryEnglish

Modern & Global

1543 – present

The shared texts of the scientific and rights-bearing era.

  1. 1543CopernicusDe revolutionibusAstronomyLatin
  2. 1687NewtonPrincipia MathematicaPhysicsLatin
  3. 1859DarwinOn the Origin of SpeciesBiologyEnglish
  4. 1905EinsteinAnnus Mirabilis PapersPhysicsGerman
  5. 1948United NationsUniversal Declaration of Human RightsLawMultilingual

Section II

Upstream Sources

We ingest, verify, and rehouse. Every text in the archive carries its upstream attribution. These are the libraries we stand on.

Proposing a source or contesting an attribution? Editorial review is public. See the colophon.

Section III

Principles

Four rules govern what enters the library and how it is held.

  1. I.

    Provenance

    Every text enters with a verified edition, translator, language, and rights basis. Upstream sources are named, not obscured.

  2. II.

    Plurality

    The canon is not one tradition. The library admits Greek and Sanskrit, Akkadian and K'iche', Arabic and Nahuatl.

  3. III.

    Longevity

    Static-first, open-format, mirrorable. The library should outlive its tools, its platforms, and its editors.

  4. IV.

    Austerity

    Typography carries the hierarchy. Surfaces stay quiet. Motion orients, never entertains.

What follows

Editorial foundation first.

The catalog, reading surfaces, and ingestion pipelines from Gutenberg, ctext, Perseus, Wikisource, and the rest arrive in subsequent plans. This foundation is the shell that will carry them — the masthead, the index, the principles, and the quiet paper they rest on.

Brand system in packages/brand · Shell in apps/web