Re:Much older manuals survive (Score 0)

Don't forget farming manuals! There was a whole genre of these. Hesiod's Works and Days is the oldest in the Greek corpus, from about 750 BC. There were many others. Vergil's Georgics (1st century BC) is one of the most renowned - a farming manual with political overtones in four books of verse, by the most renowned Roman poet of his day.

A friend of mine once pointed out that the book of Ezekiel, where he describes his vision of "wheels within wheels", reads like a techie's report. Coming from a society powered by muscle, Ezekiel spends a lot of his text talking about the way the fiery creatures of his vision are harnessed, and reporting how well the harness worked.