![]() ![]() School buildings uncovered at Mari, Nippur, Ur, Uruk, and Sippar have classrooms featuring rows of baked clay benches for students and a space at the front for the instructor. 2900-2500 BCE, schools were operating out of private homes or buildings constructed to serve the educational system. The earliest schools were part of the temple complex of a city and were staffed by priests, but by c. The abundant evidence dates to between 20 BCE, and it comes from a whole array of cities. Additional proof comes in the form of hundreds of cuneiform tablets, the actual homework and classroom exercises of ancient students, ranging from beginner to advanced, along with directions and corrections from their teachers and even literary vignettes of everyday life in a Mesopotamian school. From between 25 BCE sufficient remains exist to document the operation of a true school system. From 2500 BCE come archaeological remains of the first real schools, at least two of which were established by royal edict. The oldest evidence, lists of vocabulary words, survives from the ruins of the city of Uruk and dates to around 3000 BCE, close to the time when writing itself was invented. Once a writing system was developed, it was necessary to preserve it and train others in its use, and this led to the establishment of the first schools. Although this is fiction, it describes what was no doubt a major incentive in working out written communication. Enmerkar is said to have grabbed a piece of clay and reed stylus to write the message out. 3200 BCE for ease of use but still requiring considerable training to master.Īccording to the Sumerian poem Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, from the literary cycle known as the Matter of Aratta (dated to 2047-1750 BCE), writing was invented by Enmerkar of Uruk when his servant found his message to the Lord of Aratta too long to memorize. Early methods, such as the clay balls known as bullae – containing tokens representing goods – gave way to pictographs, phonograms, and logograms (signs representing words) which became cuneiform script, modified c. 3500 BCE as a means of communication for long distance trade. Trade in ancient Mesopotamia had, by this time, expanded from local exchange to long-distance commerce, and merchants needed to be able to communicate clearly with their representatives and clients in distant regions. The Sumerians invented writing during the Uruk Period (4100-2900 BCE) c. The ruins of the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh and those of the scribal school at Nippur have provided modern-day scholars with much of what is known of Sumerian literature and the Mesopotamian educational system. An educational system existed in the region after 612 BCE, modeled on the Sumerian edubba, but the clearest evidence for the schools and their operation comes from the Early Dynastic Period through the reign of the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (668-627 BCE). The basic form of the edubba was retained from its establishment prior to the Early Dynastic Period (2900-2334 BCE) through the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (912-612 BCE). Scribal houses were first discovered in the mid-19th century when European and American archaeologists engaged in extensive excavations throughout the region of the Near East, especially in Iraq.īased on information from tablets discovered in the ruins of the city of Nippur (primarily) and elsewhere, students entered school before the age of ten and graduated around twelve years later having mastered cuneiform script, Sumerian and Akkadian, and an array of subjects including agriculture, architectural design, astronomy, botany, engineering, history, literature, medicine, philosophy, religion, and zoology. The scribal school was known as the edubba (“House of Tablets”) as students wrote their works in cuneiform script on clay tablets. The earliest schools were attached to temples but later established in separate buildings in which the scribes of ancient Mesopotamia learned their craft as they created and preserved the first written works in history. Mesopotamian education was invented by the Sumerians following the creation of writing c. Students entered school before the age of ten and graduated around twelve years later having mastered cuneiform. Photo by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, Istanbul Archaeological Museum, Creative Commons From Nippur (modern Nuffar, Al-Qadisiyah Governorate, Iraq), southern Mesopotamia. This clay tablet (with its clay envelope) was a legal document which documented the purchase of a house property. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |