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The Babylonian Scribes and Their Libraries

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Approaches to the History of Written Culture

Part of the book series: New Directions in Book History ((NDBH))

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Abstract

Cuneiform script was in widespread use over the whole of Mesopotamia by the second millennium bc. The Sumerian language did not disappear as a result, but became the language of a dead and esoteric culture. This chapter examines the status of scientific writing in Mesopotamia on the basis of the examples of the libraries of Babylon and Nineveh. It discusses the transmission of the Mesopotamian intellectual tradition through the medium of scribal practices.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Conventionally, phonetic values of characters which make up Akkadian words are rendered in italics, while ideogrammatic characters, inherited from Sumerian, are in roman font.

  2. 2.

    David Stronach, ‘Notes on the Fall of Nineveh’, in Simo Parpola and Robert M. Whiting, eds., Assyria 1995, Helsinki (Helsinki University Press), 1997, pp. 245–257 (Stronach 1997).

  3. 3.

    Giovanni B. Lanfranchi, ‘The Library at Nineveh’, in Joan G. Westenholz, ed., Capital Cities: Urban Planning and Spiritual Dimensions, Jerusalem (Bible Lands Museum), 1998, pp. 147–156 (Lanfranchi 1998); Jeanette C. Fincke, ‘The Babylonian Texts of Nineveh. Report on the British Museum’s Ashurbanipal Library Project’, Archiv für Orientforschung 50, 2003–2004, pp. 111–149 (Fincke 2003–2004).

  4. 4.

    Simo Parpola, ‘Assyrian Library Records’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 42, 1983, pp. 1–30 (Parpola 1983).

  5. 5.

    David Damrosch, The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh, New York (Henry Holt), 2007 (Damrosch 2007).

  6. 6.

    Joachim Menant, La bibliothèque du palais de Ninive: découvertes assyriennes, Paris (E. Leroux), 1880, pp. 16–18 (Menant 1880).

  7. 7.

    Stephen L. Lieberman, ‘Canonical and Official Cuneiform Texts: Towards an Understanding of Assurbanipal’s Personal Tablet Collection’, in Tzvi Abusch, John Huehnergard and Piotr Steinkeller, eds., Lingering Over Words. Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran, Atlanta GA (Harvard Semitic Studies 37), 1990, pp. 305–336. (Lieberman 1990).

  8. 8.

    Cf. the old but very thorough description by Maximilian Streck, Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Könige bis zum Untergange Niniveh’s, Vorderasiatische Bibliothek 7/1–3, Leipzig (J.C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung), 1916, pp. lxv–lxxxii (Streck 1916).

  9. 9.

    Cécile Michel, ‘Une liste paléographique de signes cunéiformes. Quand les scribes assyriens s’intéressaient aux écritures anciennes.…’, in Fabienne Wateau, ed., in collaboration with Catherine Perlès and Philippe Soulier, Profils d’objets, Approches d’anthropologues et d’archéologues, colloque no. 7 de la maison René-Ginouvès, Nanterre, 16–18 juin 2010, Paris (De Boccard), 2011, pp. 245–257. (Michel 2011).

  10. 10.

    Cella = a temple sanctuary with a statue of its deity.

  11. 11.

    Olaf Pedersen, Archives and libraries in the Ancient Near East, 1500–300 B.C., Bethesda MD (CDL Press), 1998. (Pedersen 1998); Daniel T. Potts, ‘Before Alexandria: Libraries in the Ancient Near East’, in Roy MacLeod, ed., The Library of Alexandria, London (I. B. Tauris), 2000, pp. 19–33. (MacLeod 2000).

  12. 12.

    Adolf Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, Portrait of a Dead Civilization, Chicago (University of Chicago Press), 1964, pp. 15–22. (Oppenheim 1964).

  13. 13.

    Parpola, ‘Assyrian Library Records’.

  14. 14.

    Hermann Hunger, Babylonische und assyrische Kolophone, Alter Orient und Altes Testament 2, Neukirchen-Vluyn (Verlag Butzon and Bercker Kevelaer), 1968, p. 97. (Hunger 1968).

  15. 15.

    Teratology = the study of birth defects and abnormalities.

  16. 16.

    That is, a list of signs.

  17. 17.

    Extispicine = a technique of divination by examining the viscera of sacrificed animals.

  18. 18.

    Parpola, ‘Assyrian Library Records’, p. 6.

  19. 19.

    Julian E. Reade, ‘Rassam’s Babylonian Collection: the Excavations and the Archives’, in Erle Leichty, Catalogue of the Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum. Volume VI: Tablets from Sippar 1, London (British Museum Publications), 1986, pp. xiii–xxxvi. (Leichty 1986).

  20. 20.

    This reconstruction is the work of Philippe Clancier, Les bibliothèques en Babylonie dans la deuxième moitié du premier millénaire avant J.-C., Alter Orient und Altes Testament 363, Münster (Ugarit-Verlag), 2009. (Clancier 2009).

  21. 21.

    Clancier, Les bibliothèques en Babylonie; Markham J. Geller, ‘The last wedge’, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 87, 1997, pp. 43–95. (Geller 1997); Aage C.F. Westenholz, ‘The Graeco-Babyloniaca Once Again’, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 97, 2007, pp. 262–313. (Westenholz 2007).

  22. 22.

    Paul-Alain Beaulieu, ‘De l’Esagil au Mouseion: L’organisation de la recherche scientifique au IVe siècle avant J.C.’, in Pierre Briant and Francis Joannès, eds., La transition entre l’empire achéménide et les royaumes hellénistiques, Paris (De Boccard), 2006, pp. 17–36 (Briant and Joannès 2006).

  23. 23.

    Francesca Rochberg, The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture, Cambridge, UK (Cambridge University Press), 2004. (Rochberg 2004).

  24. 24.

    According to the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, letter M, volume 2, p. 197b.

  25. 25.

    Dominique Charpin, ‘Les mots et les choses: girginakku ‘bibliothèque’, Notes Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires 60, 2007, pp. 75–76. (Charpin 2007).

  26. 26.

    Dominique Charpin, Lire et écrire à Babylone, Paris (Presses Universitaires de France), 2008. (Charpin 2008).

  27. 27.

    By the first millennium, the canonical versions of the essential corpus of great literary works had become fixed. The only notable addition seems to have been the Epic of Erra. This development does not concern scientific literature, in particular the astronomical corpus.

  28. 28.

    Parpola, ‘Assyrian Library Records’; Paul-Alain Beaulieu, ‘New Light on Secret Knowledge in Late Babylonian Culture’, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 82, 1992, pp. 98–111. (Beaulieu 1992).

  29. 29.

    Andrew George, ‘The Colophon of MS 5007’, in Miguel Civil, ed., The Lexical Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology 12, Bethesda, MD (CDL Press), pp. 274–279 at p. 275. On the training of Babylonian scribes from the first millennium generally, Petra Gesche, Schulunterricht in Babylonien im ersten Jahrtausend v. Christ, Alter Orient und Altes Testament 275, Münster (Ugarit-Verlag), 2001. (Gesche 2001).

  30. 30.

    Clancier, Les bibliothèques en Babylonie, first part.

  31. 31.

    Beaulieu, ‘New Light on Secret Knowledge in Late Babylonian Culture’.

  32. 32.

    Erica Reiner, ‘The Etiological Myth of the Seven Sages’, Orientalia Nova Series 30, 1961, pp. 1–11. (Reiner 1961).

  33. 33.

    Piotr Michalowski, Correspondence of the Kings of Ur: Epistolary History of an Ancient Mesopotamian Kingdom, Winona Lake, IN (Eisenbrauns), 2011. (Michalowski 2011).

  34. 34.

    Francis Joannès, ‘Le parcours intellectuel des lettrés de la Babylonie récente’, Revue Historique 302:3, 2000, pp. 693–717. (Joannès 2000).

  35. 35.

    Beaulieu, ‘New Light on Secret Knowledge in Late Babylonian Culture’. Nevertheless, the notion of the secret text had long existed: colophons on Middle Assyrian tablets from the second millennium stipulated that they were not to be divulged, no doubt to prevent rituals from being carried out by non-specialists which could have catastrophic consequences. See Hunger, Babylonische und assyrische Kolophone, p. 32.

  36. 36.

    Abraham J. Sachs and Herman Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia, Volumes I–III, Vienna (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaft), 1988–1996. (Sachs and Hunger 1988–1996).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ancient History and Civilisation, University of Paris-1, Paris, France

    Francis Joannès

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  1. University of New South Wales , Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Martyn Lyons

  2. Centro de Linguística, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Rita Marquilhas

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Joannès, F. (2017). The Babylonian Scribes and Their Libraries. In: Lyons, M., Marquilhas, R. (eds) Approaches to the History of Written Culture. New Directions in Book History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54136-5_2

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