Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ScriPTS (Scribal Performance and Textual Standardization in Mesopotamian Lexical Lists)
Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2024-08-31
Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project
The ScriPTS research project, hosted at the CNRS and within the UMR 7041 joint research unit, challenged models of unified culture and canonization of scholarly texts in the transmission of lexical lists, essential to the training of scribes during the first millennium BC. The main objective was to analyse how writing practices within local communities influenced the variation and stability of lexical lists, which were fundamental to learning the cuneiform writing system and the Sumerian and Akkadian languages. The project focused on the transmission of 'Syllabary B', as it provides equivalences between characters, indicating their Akkadian and Sumerian readings. The project had two concrete objectives:
1) to establish the distribution of texts according to their archaeological context, but also according to scribal circles and institutions, in order to define specific repertoires within textual communities;
2) to define transmission within these scribal communities in terms of dynamic scribal practices, on the basis of a close reading of the interaction between the form, format and content of a subset of around 147 cuneiform tablets.
The results showed a regional diversity in scientific and intellectual life, while revealing communities of practice among scribes. Finally, it was possible to reconstruct the Babylonian scribal curriculum, including the learning of signs, lists of deities, literary texts and mathematical exercises, while drawing parallels with education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt.
1) to establish the distribution of texts according to their archaeological context, but also according to scribal circles and institutions, in order to define specific repertoires within textual communities;
2) to define transmission within these scribal communities in terms of dynamic scribal practices, on the basis of a close reading of the interaction between the form, format and content of a subset of around 147 cuneiform tablets.
The results showed a regional diversity in scientific and intellectual life, while revealing communities of practice among scribes. Finally, it was possible to reconstruct the Babylonian scribal curriculum, including the learning of signs, lists of deities, literary texts and mathematical exercises, while drawing parallels with education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt.
Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far
The research project (WP 1) was based on the edition and evaluation of around 500 tablets and fragments that preserve all or part of a composition known as Syllabary B (WP 1.1). This text contains in its most complete form a list of cuneiform signs with their pronunciation in Sumerian and a translation into Akkadian. The most recent sources for Syllabary B include the so-called Graeco-Babyloniaca, tablets dating from the Hellenistic period in which cuneiform signs are given in Greek alphabetic transcriptions and which provide valuable evidence of how late-period Babylonian was read. The list deserves particular attention because it is one of the most widely distributed school texts, used throughout the first millennium as a basic text for learning cuneiform writing. During the two years of the project, I have been deciphering and analysing the main sources for Syllabary B, i.e. 147 clay tablets distributed throughout Assyria and Babylonia in the 1st millennium. This study was done partly on photo and partly travelling to the main museums and collections where these tablets are preserved, including the De Liagre Böhl collection at Leiden University (Netherlands), the British Museum in London (UK), the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin (Germany) and the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations in Ankara (Turkey). This last collection has been underexploited until now and I had the great chance to spent there several weeks in September 2023 and spring 2024.
In focusing on Syllabary B, the proposed methodology was based on two main objectives with bottom-up approaches that sought to go beyond traditional philological methods.
The first objective (WP 1.2) was to use archaeological, prosopographic, and collection data to define the spatial and social distribution of the lists. This objective was reached with an in-depth study of the archaeological context of each of the 500 fragments, focusing on a subset of 147 different tablets. The resulting correlations aimed to establish individual repertoires at different scales of scribal communities, some of which have been identified thanks to in-depth prosopographical analysis.
The second objective (WP 1.3) examined material and physical features of the lists in order to define these communities in terms of dynamic practices of writing. This second objective was achieved thanks to a detailed analysis of both the materiality of the tablets, based on the criteria highlighted by my supervisor, and the palaeography of the tablets, making it possible to link together scribes using the same writing characteristics.
An important part of my fellowship was dedicated to training (WP 2). During my stay in Nanterre, I followed several levels of French courses at the Alliance Française, being able, after three months to speak fluently in French with the colleagues of the joint research unit ArScAn my host institution (WP 2.2.1). I was also trained in soft skills in Nanterre and at CNRS, through a workshop on project management (WP 2.2.2) and another one on grant applications (WP 2.2.3). I received a training by Damien Agut, member of the HAROC team for implementing data into Achemenet (http://www.achemenet.com/(opens in new window) WP 2.1.2). I attended during the fall of the second year courses offered by the Institut des textes et manuscrits modernes on genetic criticism, and on the integration of manuscript data into textual datasets. During my secondment in Berkeley, I was taught by Prof. Niek Veldhuis proper data input in ORACC; including ORACC conventions and the ORACC tools available for data input. In addition, I took a course in Natural Language Processing (in Python) at the D lab (https://dlab.berkeley.edu/home(opens in new window)) and I participated in the Berkeley Digital Humanities Working Group (also organized by the D-lab, WP 2.1.3).
An important part of the dissemination of my project (WP 3) was my active contribution to the two open-access database projects, the Digital Corpus of Cuneiform Lexical Texts (DCCLT; https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/dcclt/signlists/AboutSignLists/index.html(opens in new window)) and the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI: https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/search?update_authors=hess(opens in new window)) in order to make the sources freely accessible.
As part of my communication activities (WP 4), I have contributed with lectures to two Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, the 68th RAI in Leiden in July 2023, with the following presentation: “A DIŠ for a pauper, a DIŠ for a king: On the transmission history of Syllabary B”, and I co-organised one of the workshops which took place during the 69th RAI in Helsinki in July 2024, Between Anarchy and
Hierarchy: Creating Epistemic Order in the Ancient Near East, and contributed to it with the following presentation “Hierarchies and Heterachies in the Organisation of Syllabary B”. I have also submitted an article “Reading Sumerian at Sultantepe” to the Journal of Ancient Near Eastearn History. A second article is being revised and will be submitted very soon. Last but not least, I have open and managed a blog dedicated to my project, https://scripts.hypotheses.org/(opens in new window) making the content accessible also to the colleagues of the Middle East, with translation of articles in Arabic and Turkish. I participated as a Marie Curie Ambassador to the intensive Masterclass organized by my supervisor for applicants to a MSCA PF in May 2023 and May 2024, coaching the applicants and sharing my own experience. And I also contributed to two Sciences Festival in workshops for a wider public organized by supervisor as well.
In June 2024 I organized two big events. A day workshop was the occasion to welcome three Iraqi colleagues from Baghdad and to initiate a working collaboration between the ArScAn team and the Baghdad Museum, the sessions focused on presenting the work of the participants, enabling them to work collaboratively. The second event was a two-day symposium, hosted at the CNRS in Nanterre, on scribal practices and textualization, which provided important impulses for the analysis of the relevant data within a comparative framework.
The project management (WP 5) was continuous as planned in the application. Thus the five WPs that I had planned have been successfully completed.
In focusing on Syllabary B, the proposed methodology was based on two main objectives with bottom-up approaches that sought to go beyond traditional philological methods.
The first objective (WP 1.2) was to use archaeological, prosopographic, and collection data to define the spatial and social distribution of the lists. This objective was reached with an in-depth study of the archaeological context of each of the 500 fragments, focusing on a subset of 147 different tablets. The resulting correlations aimed to establish individual repertoires at different scales of scribal communities, some of which have been identified thanks to in-depth prosopographical analysis.
The second objective (WP 1.3) examined material and physical features of the lists in order to define these communities in terms of dynamic practices of writing. This second objective was achieved thanks to a detailed analysis of both the materiality of the tablets, based on the criteria highlighted by my supervisor, and the palaeography of the tablets, making it possible to link together scribes using the same writing characteristics.
An important part of my fellowship was dedicated to training (WP 2). During my stay in Nanterre, I followed several levels of French courses at the Alliance Française, being able, after three months to speak fluently in French with the colleagues of the joint research unit ArScAn my host institution (WP 2.2.1). I was also trained in soft skills in Nanterre and at CNRS, through a workshop on project management (WP 2.2.2) and another one on grant applications (WP 2.2.3). I received a training by Damien Agut, member of the HAROC team for implementing data into Achemenet (http://www.achemenet.com/(opens in new window) WP 2.1.2). I attended during the fall of the second year courses offered by the Institut des textes et manuscrits modernes on genetic criticism, and on the integration of manuscript data into textual datasets. During my secondment in Berkeley, I was taught by Prof. Niek Veldhuis proper data input in ORACC; including ORACC conventions and the ORACC tools available for data input. In addition, I took a course in Natural Language Processing (in Python) at the D lab (https://dlab.berkeley.edu/home(opens in new window)) and I participated in the Berkeley Digital Humanities Working Group (also organized by the D-lab, WP 2.1.3).
An important part of the dissemination of my project (WP 3) was my active contribution to the two open-access database projects, the Digital Corpus of Cuneiform Lexical Texts (DCCLT; https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/dcclt/signlists/AboutSignLists/index.html(opens in new window)) and the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI: https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/search?update_authors=hess(opens in new window)) in order to make the sources freely accessible.
As part of my communication activities (WP 4), I have contributed with lectures to two Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, the 68th RAI in Leiden in July 2023, with the following presentation: “A DIŠ for a pauper, a DIŠ for a king: On the transmission history of Syllabary B”, and I co-organised one of the workshops which took place during the 69th RAI in Helsinki in July 2024, Between Anarchy and
Hierarchy: Creating Epistemic Order in the Ancient Near East, and contributed to it with the following presentation “Hierarchies and Heterachies in the Organisation of Syllabary B”. I have also submitted an article “Reading Sumerian at Sultantepe” to the Journal of Ancient Near Eastearn History. A second article is being revised and will be submitted very soon. Last but not least, I have open and managed a blog dedicated to my project, https://scripts.hypotheses.org/(opens in new window) making the content accessible also to the colleagues of the Middle East, with translation of articles in Arabic and Turkish. I participated as a Marie Curie Ambassador to the intensive Masterclass organized by my supervisor for applicants to a MSCA PF in May 2023 and May 2024, coaching the applicants and sharing my own experience. And I also contributed to two Sciences Festival in workshops for a wider public organized by supervisor as well.
In June 2024 I organized two big events. A day workshop was the occasion to welcome three Iraqi colleagues from Baghdad and to initiate a working collaboration between the ArScAn team and the Baghdad Museum, the sessions focused on presenting the work of the participants, enabling them to work collaboratively. The second event was a two-day symposium, hosted at the CNRS in Nanterre, on scribal practices and textualization, which provided important impulses for the analysis of the relevant data within a comparative framework.
The project management (WP 5) was continuous as planned in the application. Thus the five WPs that I had planned have been successfully completed.
Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)
My project was centred on the history of the educational curriculum of apprentice scribes learning cuneiform. Moving beyond a uniform view of cuneiform education in Mesopotamia, one of the main hypotheses of the project was that variations in long-term changes in cultural traditions can be observed more closely in educational contexts. The objective was to integrate Babylonian educational materials into a history of Babylonian learning, particularly focusing on the understudied Achaemenid period data. In the early stages of cuneiform decipherment, scholars attempted to determine whether this writing system functioned as an alphabetic or syllabic system. In the 1850s, the first Assyrian syllabaries were discovered: K 62 (Syllabary A) and K 110 (Syllabary B). E. Hincks and J. Oppert notably worked on these two texts.
Syllabary B is directly relevant for this the study as it provides equivalences between signs, indicating their Akkadian and Sumerian readings. This syllabary was used in education. However, significant variation exists among different versions of the list. There are inconsistencies in the reading of certain signs (for example, the sign designating "brewer"). Recent studies on the Achaemenid period have demonstrated the influence of Achaemenid culture on local cultures. The project’s results show that regional diversity and heterogeneity also existed in scientific and intellectual life. This raises questions about the circulation of knowledge. Despite this diversity, communities of practice among scribes are also evident, with shared objectives.
For this, an important part of my research was carried at the museum of Anatolian civilisations in Ankara, working on the corpus of tablets from the site of Sultantepe, located ca. 15 kilometers south of modern Şanlıurfa in Şanlıurfa Province, in Turkey. The mound shows signs of significant occupation from at least the 2nd millennium to the 3rd century AD (Yardımcı 2004). A particular focus of the excavations was Level VI, which represents the center of Huzirina during the Neo-Assyrian period in the 7th century BC. The large residential building yielded a large tablet deposit which remains the best evidence for the adaptation of cuneiform culture in first millennium BC Anatolia. Despite its importance as evidence for a regional Anatolian center within the Neo-Assyrian empire, however, the material remains largely under-studied.
I could thus study the evolution of cuneiform writing in school and scholarly contexts during the first millennium BC. The current understanding of this period of history is often dominated by evidence from the imperial capitals such as Nineveh and Aššur. One goal of the project was thus to establish the ways in which writing was transmitted and adapted in local settings, including important regional centers such as Sultantepe. The available tablets were photographed using a DSLR, detailed images of select features were recorded using a microscope camera attachment. Preliminary transliterations and hand copies were made in the museum and later finalized using the photographs.
The study of these tablets contributed significantly to the understanding of local scribal practice at Sultantepe during the 7th century. In accordance with the conditions of the permit, all photographs made during the visit are accessible under the following link: https://mycore.core-cloud.net/index.php/s/8QAsN06zzo6MR79(opens in new window) and relevant meta-data on the tablets is published through the database of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/(opens in new window)). An updated transliteration of the tablets which incorporates the results of the research will be made available through the site of the Digital Corpus of Cuneiform Lexical Texts (http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/dcclt/(opens in new window)). The results of the collation will otherwise be incorporated into the final monograph publication of the project. The expected publication date is 2025.
The first results of the analyses of the Syllabary B corpus were presented in a paper at the 68th International Asssyriological Meeting in Leiden, the Netherlands, in July 2023. The paper (‘A DIŠ for a Pauper, a DIŠ for a King: The Transmission History of Syllabary B’) established variations in reading traditions during the first millennium in comparison with the older traditions from ancient Babylonia that form the basis of most current work on Sumerian.
The project also included the organisation of a symposium entitled ‘Deviant Readings: Local and Communal Variation in the Sumerian Reading Tradition’, which took place at MSH Mondes in Nanterre on the 6th and 7th June 2024. This symposium was designed to bring together an international group of scholars to specifically address the question of what variation in cuneiform readings look like once we leave the big centers in Nippur or Nineveh, and whether that variation give us evidence of something like a localized reading community, or a community of practice. Though the papers of the symposium were looking specifically at Sumerian, the topic does take me back to one of the big questions of first millennium Mesopotamian writing. One of the question was: How did cuneiform disappear? One way to think of the answer is to look at the languages involved: across the long arc from the Neo-Assyrian and Babylonian empires to the Hellenistic-Parthian period, spoken Akkadian was progressively replaced by Aramaic and other West Semitic language. While the use of Aramaic as an administrative language under the Achaemenid empire will have accelerated this process considerably, personal names and place names give us some clue that it took off first in the Babylonian countryside in the first centuries of the first millennium BC. People would have stopped writing cuneiform because they stopped speaking Akkadian. Another way to look at the problem of the shift from Akkadian to Aramaic is to look more closely at practices of writing. What particular writing systems were used for what sort of content, by whom, where, and when? Are there changes in how these systems were used? Since its origins in the late 4th millennium, syllabic cuneiform writing remained a pillar of Mesopotamian administration and cultural identity until at least the first centuries of the 1st millennium AD. The use of a West Semitic alphabet in Babylonia is in turn first attested on individual alphabetic epigraphs on the Sealand Tablets from the late 16th and early 15th century. This means that both systems were used side by side for well over a millennium. A number of Assyrian reliefs and wall paintings, for example, show two scribes working together, one writing on a clay tablet, the other on parchment. How did these two writing systems – syllabic cuneiform and the alphabet – interact? Alphabetic epigraphs on clay tablets first appear astonishingly early, in the Sealand Tablets from the late 16th and early 15th centuries, but seem largely to disappear again from Babylonia for the next 800 years. This lack of Aramaic alphabetic texts means that it’s harder to trace how these two writing systems in the 10th–7th centuries relate, in the time when we think these big changes start to really take off. The two systems seem to converge in an “alphabetization” of cuneiform. Cuneiform changes in particular ways, losing many of its syllabic qualities in expressing vowels, because the scribes were growing used to thinking in terms of an alphabet and not a syllabary. It also lets us push the question of change and disappearance from the mechanics of writing to a more social dimension. Do particular regions, social groups, or scribes show more evidence of alphabetization than others? My own contribution to the symposium focused on the Sumerian tradition of Sultantepe. The proceedings are planned to appear in Berlin in the series OBO on open access current 2025.
Last but not least, another aspect of the project was the way in which the syllabary lists are organised: it is generally accepted that texts such as syllabary B are derived from a combination of several older lists dating from the late Bronze Age. To place this question in the wider context of knowledge practices in the Near East, I have co-organised a workshop entitled ‘From Anarchy to Hierarchy: Creating Epistemic Order in the Ancient Near East’, in collaboration with Paul Delnero (Johns-Hopkins University, Baltimore) and Grégoire Nicolet (Musée du Louvre), which took place at the Rencontre assyriologique internationale in Helsinki in July 2024. One of the most notable features of the Ancient Near Eastern sciences is the syntagmatic grouping of signs into ordered systems. While this is traditionally linked to lists and omens, the paradigm also extends to other text types, as well as the broader question of how epistemic orders are created, preserved, and abandoned. It is also generally accepted that these orders are culturally embedded and that they mirror, reinforce, or even generate any number of hierarchies drawn from all aspects of life. Most overviews point to some basic motivating principles, including paradigmatic, homonymic, or binary associations. Though ordering is thus at the heart of the Ancient Near Eastern sciences, it has remained notably difficult to trace the underlying principles beyond individual lines or segments. More recent work has also called into question the basic assumption of an inherent hierarchical ranking present in horizontal or vertical orders, while pointing to heterarchic arrangements in which multiple principles intersect and serve as affordances to the re-incorporation of material in different contexts. The proposed workshop thus meant to address one of the key themes of the Helsinki RAI through a diachronic and comparative examination of the relationship between epistemic organization and its social setting.
As a case study, I could reconstruct the Babylonian educational curriculum. At the first level, apprentice scribes learned to draw the signs diš and bad, followed by various signs; they learned Syllabaries A and B, memorized lists of deities and thematic lists, then worked on non-standardized lists, mathematical exercises, contract templates, proverbs, and wisdom literature. At the second level of learning, they approached more complex texts: incantations, literary texts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh or Enuma Elish, and topographical lists. Some educational texts were found in temple walls, possibly serving a votive function. Comparison of the scribal curriculum in Mesopotamia with those of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt reveals similar organizational patterns.
Syllabary B is directly relevant for this the study as it provides equivalences between signs, indicating their Akkadian and Sumerian readings. This syllabary was used in education. However, significant variation exists among different versions of the list. There are inconsistencies in the reading of certain signs (for example, the sign designating "brewer"). Recent studies on the Achaemenid period have demonstrated the influence of Achaemenid culture on local cultures. The project’s results show that regional diversity and heterogeneity also existed in scientific and intellectual life. This raises questions about the circulation of knowledge. Despite this diversity, communities of practice among scribes are also evident, with shared objectives.
For this, an important part of my research was carried at the museum of Anatolian civilisations in Ankara, working on the corpus of tablets from the site of Sultantepe, located ca. 15 kilometers south of modern Şanlıurfa in Şanlıurfa Province, in Turkey. The mound shows signs of significant occupation from at least the 2nd millennium to the 3rd century AD (Yardımcı 2004). A particular focus of the excavations was Level VI, which represents the center of Huzirina during the Neo-Assyrian period in the 7th century BC. The large residential building yielded a large tablet deposit which remains the best evidence for the adaptation of cuneiform culture in first millennium BC Anatolia. Despite its importance as evidence for a regional Anatolian center within the Neo-Assyrian empire, however, the material remains largely under-studied.
I could thus study the evolution of cuneiform writing in school and scholarly contexts during the first millennium BC. The current understanding of this period of history is often dominated by evidence from the imperial capitals such as Nineveh and Aššur. One goal of the project was thus to establish the ways in which writing was transmitted and adapted in local settings, including important regional centers such as Sultantepe. The available tablets were photographed using a DSLR, detailed images of select features were recorded using a microscope camera attachment. Preliminary transliterations and hand copies were made in the museum and later finalized using the photographs.
The study of these tablets contributed significantly to the understanding of local scribal practice at Sultantepe during the 7th century. In accordance with the conditions of the permit, all photographs made during the visit are accessible under the following link: https://mycore.core-cloud.net/index.php/s/8QAsN06zzo6MR79(opens in new window) and relevant meta-data on the tablets is published through the database of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/(opens in new window)). An updated transliteration of the tablets which incorporates the results of the research will be made available through the site of the Digital Corpus of Cuneiform Lexical Texts (http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/dcclt/(opens in new window)). The results of the collation will otherwise be incorporated into the final monograph publication of the project. The expected publication date is 2025.
The first results of the analyses of the Syllabary B corpus were presented in a paper at the 68th International Asssyriological Meeting in Leiden, the Netherlands, in July 2023. The paper (‘A DIŠ for a Pauper, a DIŠ for a King: The Transmission History of Syllabary B’) established variations in reading traditions during the first millennium in comparison with the older traditions from ancient Babylonia that form the basis of most current work on Sumerian.
The project also included the organisation of a symposium entitled ‘Deviant Readings: Local and Communal Variation in the Sumerian Reading Tradition’, which took place at MSH Mondes in Nanterre on the 6th and 7th June 2024. This symposium was designed to bring together an international group of scholars to specifically address the question of what variation in cuneiform readings look like once we leave the big centers in Nippur or Nineveh, and whether that variation give us evidence of something like a localized reading community, or a community of practice. Though the papers of the symposium were looking specifically at Sumerian, the topic does take me back to one of the big questions of first millennium Mesopotamian writing. One of the question was: How did cuneiform disappear? One way to think of the answer is to look at the languages involved: across the long arc from the Neo-Assyrian and Babylonian empires to the Hellenistic-Parthian period, spoken Akkadian was progressively replaced by Aramaic and other West Semitic language. While the use of Aramaic as an administrative language under the Achaemenid empire will have accelerated this process considerably, personal names and place names give us some clue that it took off first in the Babylonian countryside in the first centuries of the first millennium BC. People would have stopped writing cuneiform because they stopped speaking Akkadian. Another way to look at the problem of the shift from Akkadian to Aramaic is to look more closely at practices of writing. What particular writing systems were used for what sort of content, by whom, where, and when? Are there changes in how these systems were used? Since its origins in the late 4th millennium, syllabic cuneiform writing remained a pillar of Mesopotamian administration and cultural identity until at least the first centuries of the 1st millennium AD. The use of a West Semitic alphabet in Babylonia is in turn first attested on individual alphabetic epigraphs on the Sealand Tablets from the late 16th and early 15th century. This means that both systems were used side by side for well over a millennium. A number of Assyrian reliefs and wall paintings, for example, show two scribes working together, one writing on a clay tablet, the other on parchment. How did these two writing systems – syllabic cuneiform and the alphabet – interact? Alphabetic epigraphs on clay tablets first appear astonishingly early, in the Sealand Tablets from the late 16th and early 15th centuries, but seem largely to disappear again from Babylonia for the next 800 years. This lack of Aramaic alphabetic texts means that it’s harder to trace how these two writing systems in the 10th–7th centuries relate, in the time when we think these big changes start to really take off. The two systems seem to converge in an “alphabetization” of cuneiform. Cuneiform changes in particular ways, losing many of its syllabic qualities in expressing vowels, because the scribes were growing used to thinking in terms of an alphabet and not a syllabary. It also lets us push the question of change and disappearance from the mechanics of writing to a more social dimension. Do particular regions, social groups, or scribes show more evidence of alphabetization than others? My own contribution to the symposium focused on the Sumerian tradition of Sultantepe. The proceedings are planned to appear in Berlin in the series OBO on open access current 2025.
Last but not least, another aspect of the project was the way in which the syllabary lists are organised: it is generally accepted that texts such as syllabary B are derived from a combination of several older lists dating from the late Bronze Age. To place this question in the wider context of knowledge practices in the Near East, I have co-organised a workshop entitled ‘From Anarchy to Hierarchy: Creating Epistemic Order in the Ancient Near East’, in collaboration with Paul Delnero (Johns-Hopkins University, Baltimore) and Grégoire Nicolet (Musée du Louvre), which took place at the Rencontre assyriologique internationale in Helsinki in July 2024. One of the most notable features of the Ancient Near Eastern sciences is the syntagmatic grouping of signs into ordered systems. While this is traditionally linked to lists and omens, the paradigm also extends to other text types, as well as the broader question of how epistemic orders are created, preserved, and abandoned. It is also generally accepted that these orders are culturally embedded and that they mirror, reinforce, or even generate any number of hierarchies drawn from all aspects of life. Most overviews point to some basic motivating principles, including paradigmatic, homonymic, or binary associations. Though ordering is thus at the heart of the Ancient Near Eastern sciences, it has remained notably difficult to trace the underlying principles beyond individual lines or segments. More recent work has also called into question the basic assumption of an inherent hierarchical ranking present in horizontal or vertical orders, while pointing to heterarchic arrangements in which multiple principles intersect and serve as affordances to the re-incorporation of material in different contexts. The proposed workshop thus meant to address one of the key themes of the Helsinki RAI through a diachronic and comparative examination of the relationship between epistemic organization and its social setting.
As a case study, I could reconstruct the Babylonian educational curriculum. At the first level, apprentice scribes learned to draw the signs diš and bad, followed by various signs; they learned Syllabaries A and B, memorized lists of deities and thematic lists, then worked on non-standardized lists, mathematical exercises, contract templates, proverbs, and wisdom literature. At the second level of learning, they approached more complex texts: incantations, literary texts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh or Enuma Elish, and topographical lists. Some educational texts were found in temple walls, possibly serving a votive function. Comparison of the scribal curriculum in Mesopotamia with those of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt reveals similar organizational patterns.