As a group we were struggling to come up with an appropriate message to write on our clay tablet. I had to start thinking critically about linguistic issues that arose, and I was ever so glad when our group decided to consult with an expert. It worked so beautifully for my oral interview, and we actually ended up consulting with the same Professor that I interviewed.
However, as intriguing as some of those linguistic concepts were, most of my musings came along with the assignment I was designated for the group effort. It was my job to procure the clay. The current frigid conditions discouraged me from attempting to dig for clay, not to mention BYU grounds crew might be a little upset. Also, the clay I might find would be far from the quality we wanted for this project. So I got in my car and ventured forth to find myself some clay. Michaels, here I come. A quick question to a friendly employee and 13 dollars later, I had myself some high quality, air hardened clay.
But through what process acquired clay in early Mesopotamia? I have thought about this question a lot in the last two days. It is possible that every time somebody needed a tablet that they just went outside, dug up some clay, mixed it up, and made a tablet. However, in a business driven society such as the Sumerians, I figure that there were probably merchants that made their living as clay/tablet suppliers.
Writing, books, printing, and all the associated processes can have major economic ripples. Thinking about the modern process of printing a book was illuminating. Books are made out of paper. Paper is made in a mill, which employs many workers. Paper is made of wood, which is logged by other companies, which also employs many workers. Other companies make their tools. Authors write books. They use commercial products such as computers, word processing software, pens, and pencils. Editors, publishing houses, promoters, bookstores, online retailers, and Oprah all get into the mix. While some of these things could only happen today, many of these things were applicable as early as there has been writing.
The economic effects of Written and Printed Knowledge are far-reaching and impressive. I’d be interested to talk to my Econ professor more about this next semester.
Seeing how small your clay block was in class yesterday, I realized how incredibly small the writing must be. This in turn made me realize why there were less (if any?) curves in the writing systems of Mesopotamia. They don't have anything as curved as the letter S at all!
ReplyDeleteAlso, I agree that there must have been merchants who sold clay tablets, especially in what we've seen to be such a business-oriented civilization.
Ours was actually the larger tablet, but they were able to write very small, and legibly. There are no curves from what I've seen. Just lines and triangles.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Alex. I must say that clay is not the most reliable medium. . . Unfortunately someone did not handle it with the utmost care, picked it up with one hand, and it broke. Thus we took a picture to preserve the message so we didn't have to handle it and risk further damage. Thank goodness for modern mediums!
ReplyDeleteYes thanks goodness! Mesopotamians must have used a firing process, or figured out some mixture with greater strength..because if we still have entire tablets preserved, I doubt that they would break that easily. Ha, something for our group to think about this time around.
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