[24] Naphtali Lewis, L'Industrie du papyrus dans l'Égypte Gréco-Romain (Paris, 1934), p. 117.
[25] Alfred Lucas, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries (London, 1934), pp. 133 ff.
[26] Alexander Moret, The Nile and Egyptian Civilization (London, 1927), p. 457 n.
[27] Lynn Thorndike, A Short History of Civilization (New York, 1927), pp. 37-8.
[28] Moret, The Nile and Egyptian Civilization, p. 457.
Till to astonish'd realms PAPYRA taught
To paint in mystic colours Sound and Thought,
With Wisdom's voice to print the page sublime,
And mark in adamant the steps of Time.
Erasmus Darwin, The Loves of the Plants (1789).
[29] Cited Moret, The Nile and Egyptian Civilization, p. 270.
[30] Cited V. Gordon Childe, Man makes Himself (London, 1936), p. 211.
[31] Cited T. Eric Peet, A Comparative Study of the Literatures of Egypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia (London, 1931), pp. 105-6.
[32] Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (New York, 1945), p. 80.
[33] Cassirer has described language and myth as in original and indissoluble correlation with one another and as emerging as independent elements. Mythology reflected the power exercised by language on thought. The word became a primary force in which all being and doing originate. Verbal structures appeared as mythical entities endowed with mythical powers. The word in language revealed to man that world that was closer to him than any world of material objects. Mind passed from a belief in the physio-magical power comprised in the word to a realization of its spiritual power. Through language the concept of the deity received its first concrete development. The cult of mysticism grappled with the task of comprehending the Divine in its totality and highest inward reality, and yet avoided any name or sign. It was directed to the world of silence beyond language. But the spiritual depth and power of language was shown in the fact that speech itself prepared the way for the last step by which it was transcended. The demand for unity of the Deity took its stand on the linguistic expression of Being, and found its surest support in the word. The Divine excluded from itself all particular attributes and could be predicated only of itself.
[34] Sir William Ridgeway, The Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse (Cambridge, 1903). On the significance of the Hyksos invasion in introducing the horse and chariot see H. E. Wenlock, The Rise and Fall of the Middle Kingdom in Thebes (New York, 1947), ch. viii.
[35] See Herman Ranke, ‘Medicine and Surgery in Ancient Egypt’, Studies in the History of Science (Philadelphia, 1941), pp. 31-42.
[36] George Thomson, Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origins of the Drama (London, 1941), p. 121.
[37] The influence of a matriarchal system probably persisted, as it has been regarded as a basis of brother and sister marriages, in which brothers obtained property of sisters. J. G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris (London, 1906), p. 322.
[38] Lynn Thorndike, A Short History of Civilization (New York, 1927).
[39] See G. R. Driver, Semitic Writing from Pictograph to Alphabet (London, 1948), p. 62.
[40] Ibid., p. 139.
[41] A. C. Kroeber, Configurations of Cultural Growth (Berkeley, 1946), p. 485.
[42] W. M. Flinders Petrie, The Revolutions of Civilization (London, 1922).
[43] T. Eric Peet, A Comparative Study of the Literatures of Egypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia (London, 1931), p. 78.
[44] Ibid., p. 99.
[45] Ibid., p. 129.
[46] Ibid., p. 97.
II
BABYLONIA
In Egypt ability to measure time and to predict the dates of floods of the Nile became the basis of power. In the Tigris and Euphrates valleys in southern Mesopotamia the rivers were adapted to irrigation and organized control, and less exacting demands were made on capacity to predict time. Sumer was a land of small city-states in which the chief priest of the temple was the direct representative of the god. The god of the city was king, and the human ruler was tenant farmer with the position and powers of a civil governor.
It has been suggested that writing was invented in Sumer to keep tallies and to make lists and hence was an outgrowth of mathematics. The earliest clay tablets include large numbers of legal contracts, deeds of sale, and land transfers, and reflect a secular and utilitarian interest. Lists, inventories, records, and accounts of temples and small city-states suggest the concerns of the god as capitalist, landlord, and bank. Increased revenues necessitated complex systems of accounting and writing intelligible to colleagues and successors. Temple offices became continuing and permanent corporations. Growth of temple organizations and increase in land ownership were accompanied by accumulation of resources and differentiation of functions. Specialization and increased wealth brought rivalry and conflict.
Alluvial clay found in Babylonia and Assyria was used for the making of brick, and as a medium in writing. Modern discoveries of large numbers of records facilitate a description of important characteristics of Sumerian and later civilizations, but they may reflect a bias incidental to the character of the material used for communication. On the other hand, such a bias points to salient features in the civilization. In preparation for writing, fine clay was well kneaded and made into biscuits or tablets. Since moist clay was necessary and since the tablet dried quickly it was important to write with speed and accuracy. Pictographs of fine lines made by an almost knife-sharp reed were probably followed by linear writing such as might be easily cut on stone records. But the making of straight lines tended to pull up the clay, and a cylindrical reed stylus was stamped perpendicularly or obliquely on the tablet. A triangular stylus of about the size of a small pencil with four flat sides and one end bevelled was introduced, probably in the second half of the third millennium. It was laid on a sharp edge, and if the tip was pressed deeply a true wedge or cuneiform appeared on the tablet. If the stylus was pressed lightly a large number of short strokes was necessary to make a single sign. Economy of effort demanded a reduction in the number of strokes, and the remnants of pictorial writing disappeared. As a medium clay demanded a shift from the pictograph to formal patterns, ‘The gap between picture and word is bridged.’[47] Cuneiform writing was characterized by triangles and the massing of parallel lines. The complexity of a group of wedges of different sizes and thicknesses and an increase in the size of the tablets which changed the angle at which they were held in the writer's hand hastened the tendency toward conventionalization. A change in the direction of the angle meant a change in the direction of the strokes or wedges and hastened the transition from pictographs to signs.[48] Conventionalization of pictographs began with signs most frequently used and advanced rapidly with the replacement of strokes by wedges. Pictographic expression became inadequate for the writing of connected religious or historical texts and many signs were taken to represent syllables. By 2900 B.C. the form of the script and the use of signs had been fully developed, and by 2825 B.C. the direction of writing and the arrangement of words according to their logical position in the sentence had been established. Signs were arranged in compartments on large tablets. The writing ran from left to right and the lines followed horizontally. Cylinders could be rolled on wet clay to give a continuous impression, and cylinder seals of hard stone were introduced. Engraved with various designs they served as personal symbols and were used as marks of identification of ownership in a community in which large numbers were unable to read and write. Seals were carried around the neck and served to stamp signatures to contracts concerning property and ownership.
Concrete pictographs involved an elaborate vocabulary with large numbers of items. To show modifications of the original meaning signs were added to the pictures and as many as 2,000 signs were in use. By 2900 B.C. the introduction of syllabic signs in a vocabulary which was largely monosyllabic had reduced the number of signs to about 600. Of these signs about 100 represented vowels, but no system was devised for repr
esenting single consonantal sounds or creating an alphabet. Cuneiform writing was partly syllabic and partly ideographic or representative of single words. Many of the signs were polyphonic or had more than one meaning. Sumerian had no distinctions of gender, and often omitted those of number, persons, and tenses. An idea had not fully developed to the symbol of a word or syllable. Pictographs and ideograms took on abstract phonetic values, and the study of script became linked to the study of language.
Sun-dried tablets could be altered easily and this danger was overcome by baking in fire. Indestructibility assured inviolability for commercial and personal correspondence. Though admirably adapted by its durability to use over a long period of time, clay as a heavy material was less suited as a medium of communication over large areas. Its general character favoured the collection of permanent records in widely scattered communities. Adaptability to communication over long distances emphasized uniformity in writing and the development of an established and authorized canon of signs. Extensive commercial activity required a large number of professional scribes or of those who could read and write. In turn the difficulties of writing a complex language implied a long period of training and the development of schools. Temple accounts and sign lists with the names of priests inventing the signs were made into school texts. In order to train scribes and administrators, schools and centres of learning were built up in connexion with temples and special emphasis was given to grammar and mathematics. Since the art of writing as the basis of education was controlled by priests, scribes, teachers, and judges assumed the religious point of view in general knowledge and in legal decisions. Scribes kept the voluminous accounts of the temples and recorded the details of regulations in priestly courts. Practically every act of civil life was a matter of law which was recorded and confirmed by the seals of contracting parties and witnesses. In each city decisions of the courts became the basis of civil law. The growth of temples and extension in power of the cult enhanced the power and authority of priests. The characteristics of clay favoured the conventionalization of writing, decentralization of cities, the growth of continuing organization in the temples, and religious control. Abstraction was furthered by the necessity of keeping accounts and the use of mathematics particularly in trade between communities.
The accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of the priests and the temple organizations which accompanied the development of mathematics and writing was probably followed by ruthless warfare between city-states and the emergence of military specialization and mercenary service. It has been suggested that the control of religion over writing and education entailed a neglect of technological change and military strength. Temple government or committees of priests were unable to direct organized warfare and temporal potentates appeared beside the priest. The latter enjoyed a prerogative and led the prince into the presence of the deity. Priests were organized in hierarchies but war increased the power of kings because of the need for a unified command. ‘Armies are essentially monarchist.’ As a leader in war the king commanded a nucleus of organized specialists. The army opened a career to ability, but the head of an army concerned with the advancement of talent was constantly exposed to dangers from rivals. Success implied an emphasis on territorial control in which jurisdiction was given to army leaders and the danger of rivalry lessened. Extension of territory and delegation of authority necessitated an interest in the administration of justice. The king checked the extensive rigour of law and injustice which characterized religious control.[49] About 2590 B.C. Urukagina rescued classes of the population from the priests, restrained the lavishness of funeral rites, and made serfs free men. Civil law was slowly developed with less regard to the small city-state with its laws, constitution, ruler, and god.
The supreme merit of monarchy was its intelligibility. ‘Men are governed by the weakness of their imaginations’ (Bagehot). The influential chief became a man god. The age of magic had passed to the age of religion but left the magician who became a divine king. Dynasties of absolute monarchs tended to become unstable, not only because of threats from rivals in the army but also because of problems of succession and the difficulties of securing popular support. Destruction of old capitals as a means of destroying the prestige of conquered rulers and creation of new capitals were accompanied by attempts to reorganize the system of deities by admitting the gods of conquered peoples to the pantheon. Attempts were made to make religion flexible and suited to the needs of political units based on force. The difficulties contributed to the downfall of the first dynasty of Ur and later to successful resistance against Semitic invaders.
The Sumerians had used archers effectively and had introduced chariots drawn by four asses, but the Akkadians succeeded in conquering them. Under Sargon of Agade (about 2568-2513 B.C.) they built up an empire probably extending to Asia Minor and the Mediterranean. The dynasty was brought to an end probably by the resistance of the conquered and a new invasion from Gutium. Sumerian opposition finally succeeded and the third dynasty was founded by M-Engur about 2474 B.C. The power of city governors was weakened by expansion of a bureaucracy and the concentration of authority in a centralized government. Under the second king of this dynasty a system of laws was developed to ensure the uniformity of business and scribal custom. The practice of Semitic invaders in making themselves deities was followed by Dungi, who disregarded the Sumerian practice of making the chief god the real ruler of the city-state and the king merely a vice-regent, and took the final step of deifying the reigning monarch. The cult of the sovereign was designed to achieve religious unity as a foundation for political unity. Under the Sumerians land had been vested in the god and rent was paid, but the Semites established the practice of allowing land to be held in fee simple on which taxes were exacted.
The emergence of kings and a unitary economic system in contrast with decentralized temples were followed by interminable dynastic wars reflected in the concern of documents with wars and treaties. The moral and cultural superiority of Sumerian civilization and the Sumer-Akkadian empire were destroyed by the savagery of the Elamites about 2187 B.C. The Amorite Sumer-Abum had himself proclaimed king of Babylon about 2125 B.C. and by 2007 B.C. the dynasty controlled a large part of Akkad. The Elamites were defeated by Hammurabi about 1955 B.C. and the empire was greatly extended.
The subordination of Sumerian civilization by Semitic peoples had an important effect on the conventionalization of writing. Sumerian was apparently an agglutinative language to which the conquerors would not adapt themselves. The difficulty of uniting languages with different structures involved supplanting the older language. The Sumerians had limited need for signs representing syllables, but the Babylonians were compelled to spell out every single word of the syllables. The basis of the Sumerian system was word values and of the Akkadian system, syllable values.[50] The Akkadians developed a syllabary of 275 signs in which the welding of consonants and vowels checked the possibility of an alphabet. The conquerors abandoned their proto-Elamite script, adapted the signs and characters of the conquered, and wrote inscriptions in cuneiform. Sumerian became a dead language preserved largely by priests in religious writing, but signs which had been used as single syllables free of relationship to pictographs were taken over by the conquerors, as were those which had been used to represent objects or ideas, and were read as ideographs with Semitic translations. The Sumerian pronunciation of the more important ideographs was followed. Contact with Sumerian written texts brought an appreciation of abstract symbols such as became the basis for symbolic algebra.[51] Hammurabi completed the change from Sumerian to Akkadian and made the Semitic language official. The Amorites reinforced the Akkadians and their language became the popular speech and the official medium. The Babylonians wrote words in non-Semitic form but in the main pronounced them as Semitic. Influenced by Sumerian script they never developed an alphabet and at the most expressed one vowel and one consonant by a sign.
Though Sumerian was no longer spoken and became the
fossilized sacred language of priests, its decline was marked by defiance of the conquerors and by intense literary and historical activity. Cultural pre-eminence was emphasized by religious scribes who made fresh copies of ancient texts which were arranged and stored in the library of the god, and prepared hymns, books, and litanies for the temple services. Priests trained in the Sumerian tradition and with the scholastic attitude emphasized the systematic organization of knowledge. Grammars and huge dictionaries or ‘syllabaries’ were prepared for the translation of Sumerian literature for the Semitic reader. Oral traditions were written down and literature became the bond slave of religion. The epic was invented as a means of ‘working up the story of the demigods and heroes for use in the service of religion’.[52] Lyric poetry was entirely devoted to the service of religion and reached a standard of composition ‘very close to the best work’ of the psalms.[53] Though contributing little to wisdom literature and showing little evidence of writing for writing's sake,[54] Babylonia reached ‘a high point of aesthetic excellence of hymns to deities, of prayers in lyric form, and of psalms of penitence’.[55]
Though religion became less important following the consolidation of power it was reduced to a system and acquired pontifical authority in the minds of the conquered. Sumerian gods continued but with Semitic names. The number of gods was reduced and impetus given to monotheism. Anu the sun god had a centre of worship in Uruk and Er the water deity in Eridu. Enlil, the chief god of Nippur and head of the pantheon under the Sumerians, was storm-god who absorbed the attributes of the solar and agricultural deities. His consort Ninlil became the mother goddess. He was made subordinate to Marduk who became the god of Babylon and assumed the powers and attributes of other gods in the empire and as sun-god became the god of heaven and earth. A threefold division of heaven, earth, and water was developed and a deity given to each division. Nabu, the son of Marduk, was the god of writing who gave understanding and wisdom and had the stylus of the scribe as a symbol.
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