Elementary education in early second millennium BCE Babylonia / by Alhena Gadotti and Alexandra Kleinerman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gadotti, Alhena, author.

Kleinerman, Alexandra, author.

Series:

Cornell University studies in Assyriology and Sumerology ; Volume 42.

Cornell University studies in Assyriology and Sumerology ; Volume 42

Language:

Akkadian

English

Sumerian

Subjects (All):

Sumerian language--Texts.

Sumerian language.

Education, Elementary--Iraq--Babylonia--History--To 1500.

Education, Elementary.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (305 pages).

Place of Publication:

University Park, Pennsylvania : Eisenbrauns, [2021]

Summary:

In this volume, Alhena Gadotti and Alexandra Kleinerman investigate how Akkadian speakers learned Sumerian during the Old Babylonian period in areas outside major cities. Despite the fact that it was a dead language at the time, Sumerian was considered a crucial part of scribal training due to its cultural importance. This book provides transliterations and translations of 715 cuneiform scribal school exercise texts from the Jonathan and Jeanette Rosen Ancient Near Eastern Studies Collection at Cornell University. These tablets, consisting mainly of lexical texts, illustrate the process of elementary foreign-language training at scribal schools during the Old Babylonian period. Although the tablets are all without provenance, discrepancies between these texts and those from other sites, such as Nippur and Ur, strongly suggest that the texts published here do not come from a previously studied location. Comparing these tablets with previously published documents, Gadotti and Kleinerman argue that elementary education in Mesopotamia was relatively standardized and that knowledge of cuneiform writing was more widespread than previously assumed.By refining our understanding of education in southern Mesopotamia, this volume elucidates more fully the pedagogical underpinnings of the world's first curriculum devised to teach a dead language. As a text edition, it will make these important documents accessible to Assyriologists and Sumerologists for future study.

Contents:

Intro

COVER Front

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

Chapter1: INTRODUCTION

Chapter 2: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Chapter 3: THE NIPPUR CURRICULUM

Chapter 4: THE SUMERIAN ELEMENTARY CURRICULUM OUTSIDE NIPPUR

Chapter 5: THE ROSEN SCHOOL TABLETS

Chapter 6: SIGNATURES

Chapter 7: CONCLUSION

Chapter 8: CONVENTIONS

Transliterations, Translations, and Remarks

Appendix

References

Plates

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-64602-180-0

OCLC:

1265464732