0. Introduction.

I would like to thank Professor Olson for his kind invitation to address this symposium entitled "Literacy."

1. An Ancient Riddle.

I would like to commence with an ancient Sumerian riddle. It reads as follows (Sjöberg 1975: 159):

A house with a foundation like heaven,

A house which like a ... vessel has been covered with linen,

A house which like a goose stands on a (firm) base,

One with eyes not opened has entered it,

One with open eyes has come out of it.

We will come back to the solution to this riddle at the end of the presentation.

2. What Were the Aims and Goals of Sumerian-Akkadian Education?

In addressing the question of the objective of ancient Mesopotamian education the pioneering American Sumerologist S. N. Kramer writes (Kramer 1963: 230–31):

The Sumerian school was known as the Edubba, "tablet house." Its original goal what we would term "Professional," that is, it was first established for the purpose of training the scribes necessary to satisfy the economic and administrative needs of the land, primarily, of course, those of the temple and palace. This continued to be the major aim of the Sumerian school throughout its existence. However, in the course of its growth and development, and particularly as a result of the ever widening curriculum, it came to be the center of culture and learning in Sumer.

As noted by Kramer, the word for school occurs as é-dub-ba-a in Sumerian texts. It literally means "tablet-house" or possibly, according to W. W. Hallo, "tablet-house of the letter 'a'." If Hallo's interpretation be correct, then it would appear that in Sumerian, as in ancient Greek, the letter a (as alpha in the Greek word alphabet) marked the very first element of scribal education.

The late 19th century German scholar Bruno Meissner was the first to realize that b®t t¬uppi, the Akkadian translation of Sumerian é-dub-ba-a meant "school."

4. Who Went to School?

There was a great difference in the accessibility of education in ancient Mesopotamian times as compared to modern times. The eminent Sumerologist S.N. Kramer writes (Kramer 1963: 231–32):

The greater part of the students came from the more wealthy families; the poor could hardly afford the cost and the time which a prolonged education demanded. Until recently this was assumed a priori to be the case. But about a decade ago, a Luxembourg cuneiformist by the name of Nikolaus Schneider ingeniously proved it from contemporary sources. In the thousands of published economic and administrative documents from about 2000 B.C., some five hundred individuals list themselves as scribes, and for further identification many of them add the names of their fathers and their occupations. Schneider compiled a list of these data and found that the fathers of the scribes, that is, of the school graduates, were ... all the wealthier citizens of an urban community.

Methods of instructions are discussed by the distinguished Sumerologist Å. W. Sjöberg. He writes (Sjöberg 1975: 161–62):

Since we concentrate on the Old Babylonian school, the question "What language was the medium of instruction in the Old Babylonian eduba?" is legitimate. C. J. Gadd assumed that instruction in the schools was given entirely in Sumerian. He found it hard to understand how the Sumerian language came to be distinguished as a "subject" at all, "for the whole instruction appears to have been carried out in Sumerian

...

In this connection, I should like to refer the reader to the proverb, dub-sar eme-gi, nu-mu-un-zu-a inim-bal-e me-da hé-en-tùm, "a scribe who does not know Sumerian, how shall he property convey a translation?"" Another proverb points in the direction of bilingual instruction: dub-sar eme-gi‡ nu-mu-un-zu-a a-na-àm dub-sar e-ne, "a scribe who does not know Sumerian, what (kind of) a scribe is he?" We cannot deny the possibility, however, that the instruction initially was carried out in Babylonian but in more advanced classes in Sumerian. The teaching of Sumerian, now dead, also aimed at proficiency in speaking the language. In this connection I cite an eduba text which reads gá-e-gin‡-nam eme-gir‡-ra-me-en, "do you, as I do, speak Sumerian?" or, literally, "are you of Sumerian language?" (Enkimansurn and Girini-isag, UET VI/2, No. 150:66)

6. The Scribal Curriculum: Reading, Writing and 'Rithmetic.

6.1 Now I learn my tu-ta-ti's.

Students began their study with a simple syllabary to learn how to write the basic sounds of the language comparable to our abc's. We are fortunate in possessing a large number of tablet copies, presumably of the students themselves, with parts of this text.

6.2 Syllable Lists A and B.

The next step of the student curriculum consisted of studying long lists of very simple Sumerian words; these lists have been called Syllable Alphabet A and Syllable Alphabet B by modern scholars. Now, ancient texts were cited for reference, sensibly enough, by their initial line (the technical word for this is incipit) and in this case we know that the first of these two series was called "a-a me." Of interest, then, is the fact that this elementary school text-book was even referred in the Sumerian "school satire" texts. In one of these a scribe says to another (see Sjöberg 1975: 163):

As for the tablets of Sumer and Akkad, a fellow who cannot (even) produce (the vocabulary beginning with) a-a and me-me, how will he attain fluent speech?"

6.3 "'A'" = He exclaimed.'"

The next step for the beginning student was to master the group of sign lists known today by scholars as the Ea- group. The purpose of the lists of this family is to give the simple signs of the cuneiform writing system with their pronunciation and Akkadian meanings. A short recension called ea : A = nâqu, with eight tablets and 2,400 entries, is known, of which about 70 per cent is preserved. A longer version with 42 tablets and 14,000 entries was also studied. Obviously Sumero-Akkadian education was a drawn-out process.

Until recently the rationale for the order of the various signs in the lexical list Ea remained a mystery. However, in a brilliant article by the German scholar Dietz Edzard demonstrated that the signs progressed from simple to more complex signs depending on the first element of the sign. Professor Edzard is very familiar to us as a frequent visitor and author at the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia Project in Toronto.

6.4 "'Diri'" = 'to be excessive'"

A next step in the scribal curriculum was the lexical series Diri. Diri has a purpose similar to that of Ea, but it is limited to compound logograms whose reading cannot be inferred from their individual components; it also includes marginal cases such as reduplications, presence or absence of determinatives, and the like Seven tablets of with about 2,100 entries, almost completely preserved except for the last two tablets, which are in fragmentary condition.

6.5 The "Encyclopedia" of Sumero-Akkadian Culture," ÓAR-ra = ˙ubullu.

For the practical knowledge of the world the ancient student could turn to the lexical series called after its first line: HAR-ra = hubullu. It was a thematic collection of twenty-four tablets, and included legal and administrative terminology (tablets 1 and 2), trees and wooden artifacts (3-7), reeds and reed artifacts (8 and 9), pottery (10), hides and copper (11), other metals (12), domestic (13) and wild (14) animals, parts of the body (15), stones (16), plants (17), birds and fish (18), textiles (19), geographic terms (20-22), food and drinks (23 and 24). This inventory of material culture had more than 9,700 entries and has been almost entirely reconstructed and published in MSL V-XI.

Of interest are the references to these more advanced syllabaries in the "school satires" and "school examination" texts. One reads in part (Sjöberg 1975: 163):

I have written (a tablet) from the different names of Inanna up to (the names of) the animals living in the steppe (and the names of the different) artisans."

As Sjöberg notes, the first line of this eduba text indicates that the student copied and studied god lists. (The names of) the "animals living in the steppe" is at least a part of Ur-ra = hubullu, Tablet XIV (MSLVIII); "(the names of) artisans" may refer to the lexical series lú = ßa.

6.6 The Training of Legal Scribes.

Legal phraseology was also part of a schoolboy's studies. One of the compositions studied in the eduba was ana ittißu, an anthology of law and legal and administrative phraseology, written in Sumerian with a translation into Babylonian. We assume that this anthology was drawn up in the edubas in Nippur. A brief quote from the beginning of the text reads as follows:

interest

its interest

as its interest

he gave as its interest

...

One of the tablets studied for legal training was a very famous murder trial which took place in the ancient city of Isin. Because of the fact Sumerian does not specify gender grammatically, that is, for example, the word for his and her is the same, it was unclear whether the murder case, which involved an extra-marital affair involved a male or female lover. As can be expected, there has been considerable discussion on this question.

Also to be noted here are the collections of "model contracts," which are essential for the redaction of legal documents. In connection with the study of legal phraseology, I should refer to the one of the "Student Dialogues" in which a student insults another with the taunt (Sjöberg 1975: 165):

You can institute legal proceedings, but afterwards you are not able to finish them.

Letter-writing was also taught in school. In the dialogue between Enkimansum and Girini-isag, we find a reference to that subject (Sjöberg 1975: 185):

You have written a tablet, but you cannot penetrate (its) meaning; you have written a letter, (but) that is all you can do.

The many texts and fragments containing Old Babylonian period copies of the letters of the kings of Ur and Isin in Old Babylonian copies found at Nippur reveal the great interest in this epistolary literature and are absolutely invaluable sources for historical purposes.

6.8 Composing monuments.

Scribes were also responsible for creating monuments to glorify the king. In the literary letter of the official Aba-indasa to Íulgi Aba-indasa writes: (Sjöberg 1975: 166):

Your servant thus says: "You are mighty: I will follow my king; of your word, I will be your messenger; standing on a boat, I will pull the oar; standing on land(?), I will... ; I am a scribe (and) I can write a stele."

6.9 Mathematics and Surveying.

Mathematics and surveying were also studied in the é-dub-ba-a. Examination Text A, line 27, reads as follows: (Sjöberg 1975: 167)

Do you know multiplication, reciprocals, coefficients, balancing of accounts, administrative accounting, how to make all kinds of pay allotments, divide property, and delimit shares of fields?

6.10 Music.

The teaching of music was also part of the scribal curriculum. A school dialogue text reads school (Enkitalu and Enkihegal, 11. 94–99): (Sjöberg 1975: 169):

(Even if) he had a zami-instrument he could not learn the art of singing, he, the most backward among (his) classmates, has not been able to make a beautiful tremolo: he is "heavy" for the Sumerian language, he is not able to move his tongue correctly, he cannot sing a song, cannot open his mouth. and he is an accomplished man?!

And now I would like to turn to the Sumerian riddle with which I commenced this communication, whose answer should be clear from the previous discussion:

A house with a foundation like heaven,

A house which like a ... vessel has been covered with linen,

A house which like a goose stands on a (firm) base,

One with eyes not opened has entered it,

One with open eyes has come out of it.

Bibliography

1975 Lexicography, in S. Lieberman, (ed.), Sumerological Studies in Honor of Thorkild Jacobsen on his Seventieth Birthday. Assyriological Studies no. 20. Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. University of Chicago Press, 1975: 123–57.

Kramer, S.N.

1963 The Sumerians: Their History, Culture and Character. University of Chicago Press, 1963.

Sjöberg, Å.

1975: The Old Babylonian Eduba, in S. Lieberman, (ed.), Sumerological Studies in Honor of Thorkild Jacobsen on his Seventieth Birthday. Assyriological Studies no. 20. Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. University of Chicago Press, 1975: 159–79.