By Charles Halton on Saturday, 22 December 2007 at 9:37 am
Were people in the royal court, particularly Ashurbanipal himself, literate or not? This is the question that Alasdair Livingstone addresses in his article, Ashurbanipal: literate or not? (Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 97 (2007): 98-118). Previous scholars have been on both sides of this question (e.g. Parpola and Lieberman are more optimistic about royal literacy while Pongratz-Leisten is more pessimistic).
Livingstone believes that Ashurbanipal and others within the royal court were literate (we must keep in mind that there are different levels of literacy and Livingstone does not advocate that the royal court were all top-notch expert scribes). Livingstone brings some very fascinating new collations and texts to his treatment of this topic.
One of the most fascinating new collations of this article concerns a “royal memo” from the king’s eldest daughter, Sheru’a-etirat to her sister-in-law, Libbi-ali-sharrat:
Why don’t you write your tablets and recite your exercise, or people will say “Is this the sister of Sheru’a-etirat, the eldest daughter of the succession palace of Assur-etel-ilani-mukinni, the great king, the legitimate king, king of the world, king of Assyria?” And you are a daughter-in-law, the lady of the house of Ashurbanipal, the great crown prince of the house of succession of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria.
This new translation indicates that there was not court rivalry between these two women at this time (as Amelie Kuhrt indicates in her ANE history). Also, according to Livingstone:
Libbi-ali-sharrat is letting her sister-in-law and her husband down by not studying, by not writing her tablets and reciting her lesson. This is of course negative evidence of literacy. The princess was not writing her tablets or reciting her lesson. But the memo demonstrates extremely clearly that there was an expectation that she should be doing lessons. And if this was the case, it would be surprising if other young people at the royal court were not similarly expected to learn to read and write.
I have a feeling that literacy, while certainly not something that the average person attained, was more common in the royal court, priestly caste, and military ranks than the scholarly consensus. Every now and then evidence seems to bubble up to give hints to this and I think that Livingstone’s article is the latest example.
What do you think of ancient literacy in general and the Neo-Assyrian court in particular?
Comments (5)
Category: Akkadian Language,All,Mesopotamia
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Comment by tim bulkeley
Made Saturday, 22 of December , 2007 at 3:00 pm
Surely, at least functional literacy makes really good sense for the key members of the royal court, why leave such a source of power in the exclusive hands of “specialists”? I suspect the more interesting question is the levels of literacy elsewhere…
Comment by Charles Halton
Made Saturday, 22 of December , 2007 at 3:45 pm
Very true Tim–the issue of power and the desire to double-check the “specialists” is one of the points that Lieberman makes in his fine article:
“Assurbanipal took this royal effort to rest control of such matters from the experts a step further, by learning how to interpret the written sources himself.”
–Lieberman, Stephen J. “Canonical and Official Cuneiform Texts: Towards an Understanding of Assurbanipal’s Personal Tablet Collection,” in Tsvi Abusch et al (eds.), Lingering over Words: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William J. Moran (HSM 37; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), pp. 305-336: 328.
Comment by Duane
Made Sunday, 23 of December , 2007 at 1:24 pm
Extremely interesting post. Thanks! I plan to take up the issue of literacy in my own post on a couple of tablets from Ugarit. Rochelle Altman, for one, distinguishes several levels of literacy. Working mostly with Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions, she believes that one can see the work of professional scribes, the active students of professional scribes, literate professionals (literate elites) who are not professional scribes but had formal training, and what she calls semi-literates. While, I’m not sure I can find Ugarit texts that unquestionable reflect the work of literate elites, I do believe that there are a few tablets in Ugaritic that are the work of semi-literates. More in a day or two.
Comment by Alan Lenzi
Made Sunday, 23 of December , 2007 at 7:35 pm
I’ve cast my lot with the folks who think there is reason to believe literacy was less limited than often thought (so Parpola, Lieberman, etc.). I think it was still quite infrequent compared to modern standards, but literacy was a good investment for many who were (or wanted to be) in government or business.
My argument about scribal secrecy banks on at least some literacy among certain sectors of Neo-Assyrian society.
Comment by Ashurbanipal
Made Saturday, 29 of August , 2009 at 5:12 am
“The god Nabu, scribe of all the universe, bestowed on me as a gift the knowledge of his wisdom.”
