Mesopotamia (an excerpt from the book)

2.1 Mesopotamia

Even in the earliest civilizations in history, such as those of Sumer and Egypt, education played a vital role.

The Sumerian civilization arose in the southern part of Mesopotamia ca. 3000 BC. The Sumerians were advanced in mathematics and astronomy, developed standardized weights and measures, and invented the sexagesimal number system, which is still used to measure time and angle. The Sumerian text Epic of Gilgamesh, which may have been composed around 2100 BC, is often regarded as the first great work of literature.

Writing is said to have developed in Sumer around 3200 BC. Scribal arts was highly prized, and scribal class held a privileged position in the Sumerian society. Scribal education prepared pupils not just for scribal profession, it was also a path toward a wide range of other careers, including those of priests and the many officials responsible for managing the affairs of the state. Sumerian and the later Mesopotamian societies were highly bureaucratic. Bureaucrats and officials surveyed land, assessed crop yields, implemented taxation, carried out complex building projects, and in general helped govern society. Hence, in these societies, highly coveted jobs often required literacy and numeracy. 

Literacy and numeracy were also valued by merchants and traders since it helped them in running a business. In fact, it was commerce that necessitated the invention of writing. When writing first emerged in Sumer in the late 4th millennium BC, it did not involve poetry or literature, but rather writing was a means to keep records about traded goods. 

In ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, society’s development and the demand for education likely went hand in hand. Together, these factors might have created a virtuous cycle. High levels of bureaucracy, commerce, and the complex organization of these societies might have increased the demand for literacy and numeracy, which in turn contributed to society’s further development. Nobles, merchants, scribes, and officials sent their children to school. 

In Sumerian schools called Edubba, children underwent extensive and lengthy education. An ancient Sumerian proverb advised, “He who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn.” Pupils were required to memorize the complicated and enormous cuneiform syllabary. They were also taught grammar, literature, and mathematics. The late Samuel Noah Kramer, a foremost expert on Mesopotamian history, writes:

As early as 3000 BC, some scribes were already thinking in terms of teaching and learning. Progress was slow in the centuries that followed. But by the middle of the third millennium, there must have been a number of schools throughout Sumer where writing was taught formally. In ancient Shuruppak . . . there were excavated, in 1902–1903, a considerable number of school “textbooks” dating from about 2500 BC.

From the large amount of children’s school work that has survived, Kramer deduced that the school curriculum was composed of two groups, one “semi-scientific and scholarly” and the other “literary and creative.” Memorization and copying were the chief methods of learning and discipline was harsh. As Kramer notes:

In the matter of discipline, there was no sparing of the rod. While teachers probably encouraged their students, by means of praise and commendation, to do good work, they depended primarily on the cane for correcting students’ faults and inadequacies. The student did not have an easy time of it. He attended school daily from sunrise to sunset. He must have had some vacation in the school year, but on this we have no information. He devoted many years to his studies, staying in school from his early youth to the day when he became a young man.

Although harsh discipline is often counterproductive, it may have been their faith in education that prompted the Sumerians to adopt harsh discipline. A Sumerian text called the School Days described the story of a schoolboy who was incessantly beaten at school. It was composed around 2000 BC. According to Kramer, twenty-one copies of this text have survived. The text provides a vivid narration of a Sumerian schoolboy’s daily life:

Schoolboy, where did you go from earliest days ?
I went to school.
What did you do in school ?

I recited my tablet, ate my lunch,
prepared my (new) tablet, wrote it, finished it;
then they assigned me my oral work,
and in the afternoon they assigned me my written work.
When school was dismissed, I went home,
entered the house, and found my father sitting there.
I told my father of my written work,
then recited my tablet to him,
and my father was delighted . . . When I awoke early in the morning,
I faced my mother and said to her:
“Give me my lunch, I want to go to school.”
My mother gave me two “rolls” and I set out;
my mother gave me two “rolls” and I went to school.
In school the monitor in charge said to me “Why are you late?”
Afraid and with pounding heart, I entered before my teacher and made a respectful curtsy.

In school, the boy is caned by his teacher and the monitors:

My headmaster read my tablet, said:
“There is something missing,” caned me.
The fellow in charge of neatness (?) said:
“You loitered in the street and did not straighten up (?) your
clothes (?),” caned me.
The fellow in charge of silence said:
“Why did you talk without permission,” caned me.
The fellow in charge of the assembly (?) said:
“Why did you ‘stand at ease (?)’ without permission,” caned me.
The fellow in charge of good behavior said:
“Why did you rise without permission,” caned me.
The fellow in charge of the gate said:
“Why did you go out from (the gate) without permission,” caned me.
The fellow in charge of the whip said:
“Why did you take . . . without permission,” caned me.
The fellow in charge of Sumerian said:
“Why didn’t you speak Sumerian” caned me. [Akkadian was the vernacular language at the time]
My teacher [ummia] said:
“Your hand is unsatisfactory,” caned me.

After being incessantly caned, the boy begins to hate scribal arts. In the latter part of the story, the boy and his concerned father invite the irascible headmaster home to appease him. In the end, the headmaster showers his pupil with blessings.

Another text called A Scribe and His Perverse Son describes a case of juvenile delinquency. In the text, a father is portrayed as correcting his wayward son who has neglected his studies and taken to the ways of the streets. In the following excerpt, the father exhorts his son to be diligent in school:

Go to school, stand before your ‘school­father,’ recite your assignment, open your schoolbag, write your tablet, let your ‘big brother’ write your new tablet for you. After you have finished your assignment and reported to your monitor, come to me, and do not wander about in the street.

He continues by admonishing his son for loafing around the street:

Come now, be a man. Don’t stand about in the public square, or wander about the boulevard. When walking in the street, don’t look all around. Be humble and show fear before your monitor.

The father laments his son’s neglect of namlulu (a Sumerian word meaning humanity or the “conduct and behavior fit for humans”):

Because you do not look to your humanity [namlulu], my heart was carried off as if by an evil wind. Your grumblings have put an end to me, you have brought me to the point of death.

Good education cultivates intellect and instills moral character in children. Good education, therefore, fosters one’s humanity. Street culture, on the other hand, paves the way for intense peer pressure, the oversocialization of youth, and delinquent behavior. Street culture promotes the avoidance of books and academic knowledge. As for the Sumerian boy in the aforementioned story, he was fortunate to have a father adamant about mending his son’s delinquent ways.

In the three millennia before Christ, ancient Mesopotamia gave rise to the Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires. The famous Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (reigned 668 to 627 BC) was a scholar and had an extensive library. Extant tablets from his library in the ancient city of Nineveh have provided archaeologists with copies of the Epic of Gilgamesh, ancient Sumerian flood stories, and other priceless works of ancient literature. 

Some of these literary works had been composed more than a thousand years before this library came into existence. The library at Nineveh was the Mesopotamians’ valiant effort to safeguard their heritage and pass it down to future generations. Many of the clay tablets in the Nineveh library are etched with the words “for the sake of distant days.”