Beginning in Stone
Gabi Lecusay
Early writing tablet recording the allocation of beer, 3100–3000 B.C.E, Late Prehistoric period, clay, probably from southern Iraq.
Image Sourced from Khan Academy - Trustees of the British Museum
The earliest form of written language that we currently know of is referred to as Cuneiform. Sumer, Babylon, and Assyrian Empire all correlate with the influence for Cuneiform and continue to influence diction around the world to this day. In his lecture about Language and Literatures, Wesley Cecil explains that while we might assume that the end of a culture comes from the downfall of an empire, the influence of its language and of its writing might extend well past the life of its creators to impact the world as we know it. I thought that it was interesting to note that lists, rules, and laws were some of the first manuscripts ever made. I can only imagine how difficult it would have been to keep track of growing communities now that civilizations were transitioning from collections of hunter-gatherers into vast, far reaching settlements.
By pressing a Reed Pen into soft clay, Cuneiform was written by scratching symbols that would then have its shape solidified by the drying and hardening of the clay. Beginning around 3300 BC, Sumerians solidified Cuneiform through the development of politics. Inadvertently writing down irrefutable evidence of their existence, some time after the invention of the Alphabet in 100AD the rich history of Sumer was essentially lost to time. It wasn't until the archeologist Austen Henry Layard discovered thousands of Sumerian tablets in the 1850s that the whole world became aware of this ancient society that predated the Babylonians. Close to Nineveh, the Library of Ashurbanipal was where the ashes of the capital of the Assyrian Empire currently rests and was home to several cuneiform tablets that withstood the test of time thanks to the sturdiness of the material. By having so many tablets to cross-reference, Archeologists were able to compare the evolution of Cuneiform and the many levels of changes it went through within, roughly, 3000 years.
Series of Examples of Particular Cuneiform Word Comparisons
Wesley Cecil Handout
Like many fans of History, King Ashurbanipal believed that literature held the answer to future success if one was willing enough to learn the many tribulations that came before them. The biggest reason why we think that the library was made to begin with was because of the Kings wishes to establish a repository of knowledge to pass down to his children. It is really interesting to note that the majority of King Ashurbanipal's depictions came with the notable inclusion of a stylus packed for use on his waist belt. The British Museum also notes that many of the tablets, at the time of their discovery, had stamps pressed on to the clay to signify that it belonged to the King if it were to be lost or stolen. It was an incredibly important collection then and it still remains, today, as one of the most essential historical pieces passed down to modern day man. Without this Library, Archeologists would only have the Bible and outsider bias excluding historians from the Assyrian and Sumerian perspective.
The Temporary Museum Display of The Library of Ashurbanipal in The British Museum 2018-2019
Linguistics is, in of itself, an incredible resource that our lives revolve around and has substantially more influence than one might assume otherwise. Thanks to writing, we are able to reference and learn beyond what our ancestors could have ever achieved. The sacrifices humanity made in the past to evolve crucial communication skills still occurs today much the same with how Language changes over time. We would not be able to see this constant change if not for Visual Communications setting our history, quite literally, in stone to then withstand the rush of time.
I really appreciated the way that you focused on explaining how exactly we’ve come to know as much as we do about Sumer and the people who made the acquisition and retention of such knowledge possible thousands of years after the definitive end off Sumerian history. It’s very easy to just list the many contributions of Mesopotamian society and I commend you for going a bit deeper and clarifying what makes discussing these things in the first place possible!
ReplyDeletei enjoyed reading this. i like how you said "The sacrifices humanity made in the past to evolve crucial communication skills still occurs today much the same with how Language changes over time." I agree. Now thinking of it, you imagine if our communication would have never evolved, wonder if we would have gotten this far with technology?
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