Occasionally, cuneiform text scribes encounter difficult or rare words. These schools were firmly established by the Early Dynastic Period and spread throughout Sumer. The Sumerian scribal school (the edubba) developed during this era, teaching writing, reading, history, religion, and mathematics. (xlix)īy the Early Dynastic Period (2900-2334 BCE), phonograms were in use, and one could express more complex thoughts than how many jugs of beer or carts of grain had been sent to or from a given city. Nisaba, formerly a grain goddess, had evolved by this time into the goddess of writing and accounts and her priests understood that, in order for this craft to be preserved, there had to be schools. ![]() ![]() Cuneiform was a mnemonic device designed to aid accountants and bureaucrats, rather than a vehicle for high art. Black writes:įor centuries after the first appearance of writing in southern Iraq in the late fourth millennium BCE, it served an exclusively administrative function. This writing system, cuneiform, was practiced with a stylus (a reed with a sharpened end) on clay tablets and is thought to have developed in response to a need for long-distance communication in trade. 3200 BCE, had evolved from pictographs to phonograms (symbols representing sound) in the city of Uruk. Although the details of the teacher’s lecture and the student’s response may be exaggerated for comic effect, the piece is still thought to describe the teacher-student relationship and the responsibilities of a scribe in ancient Mesopotamia upon graduating. The piece would have been copied toward the end of the twelve years of instruction required to become a scribe and may have indeed been a form of satire or, perhaps, a work copied and recited in honor of one’s teacher before graduation. The teacher in the piece speaks condescendingly to the new graduate, emphasizing what a great teacher he had in the past, how he honored that legacy, and how the student should do the same for him, but then, instead of the student accepting the lesson in humility, he responds by listing all he has done for his teacher already, what he continues to do, and how he needs no more lectures. Scholar Jeremy Black (among others) has pointed out that students used to copy this piece as part of their exercises and it is possible, even likely, considering this work was part of the curriculum for older students, that it was intended as a light-hearted parody of a teacher’s lecture. 2000-1600 BCE) and, although originally interpreted as an accurate depiction of the life of a scribe, might also be understood as satire. The piece is dated to the Old Babylonian Period (c. The piece would have been copied toward the end of the twelve years of instruction.Ī Supervisor’s Advice to a Young Scribe is a Sumerian composition relating a dialogue between an elder scribe and a young graduate from his school. Photo by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, The Sulaymaniyah Museum, Wikimedia Commons The original statue was made of diorite and probably came from Tell Telloh (Girsu), Iraq, c.2600 BCE. ![]() 7 years.Gypsum replica of the statue of Sumerian scribe Dudu. ![]() Single territory rights for trade books worldwide rights for academic books. Print and/or digital, including use in online academic databases. Web display, social media, apps or blogs. Personal presentation use or non-commercial, non-public use within a company or organization only. Not for commercial use, not for public display, not for resale. Personal Prints, Cards, Gifts, Reference.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |