Scribal Culture & the Tablet-House (Eduba)
In the tablet-house, under the cane, a small elite kept the entire memory of a civilization alive.
Cuneiform writing was hard-won, mastered only through years in the 'tablet-house' (eduba), the scribal school. A small literate elite copied, memorized, and transmitted the whole stream of Mesopotamian knowledge — myth, hymn, law, omen, mathematics, and lexical lists. Sumerian school texts vividly depict student life: the discipline, the canings, the rivalry, the pride of the accomplished scribe. The scribal goddess was Nisaba (later the god Nabu); the scribe's exactness — copying 'according to its original' and naming the source-tablet — is the very habit of mind that preserved this civilization's ideas for us.
Key passages(7)
The advice of a supervisor to a younger scribe (E-dub-ba-a C)
(The supervisor speaks:) One-time member of the school, come here to me, and let me explain to you what my teacher revealed. Like you, I was once a youth and had a mentor. The teacher assigned a task
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To make his name famous for all time until distant days, and to transmit to posterity and the days to come the praise poems of his power, the songs of his might, and the lasting fame of his exceptiona
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I, Ashurbanipal, the creation of (the god) Aššur and the goddess Mullissu, the senior son of the king of the House of Succession, the one whom (the god) Aššur and the god Sîn — the lord of the (lunar)
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Lacuna of about 5 or 6 lines [ governor of B ] abylon, king of [ the land of Sumer and Akkad; grands ] on of Sennacherib, [ great ] kin [ g, strong king, king of the world, king of Assyria; de ] scen
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I, Ashurbanipal, the creation of (the god) Aššur and the goddess Mullissu, the senior son of the king of the House of Succession, the one whom the god Sîn nominated in distant days, while (he was) in
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I, Ashurbanipal, great king, [ strong king ], king of the world, king of Assyria, king of [ the four quarters (of the world) ], creation of the hands of (the god) Aššur (and) the goddess Mullissu; one
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(traces) [ The short side is 1 hundred cubits. What length should I survey be so that (the area is) 1 kurru seed-measure? [ Because you do not understand ], you raise the [ reciprocal ] of the short s
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