Summary of They Wrote On Clay

1998-02-15

Here is a book review and brief summary of Chiera’s book on ancient Mesopotamia. I have included it because of its relevance to the study of the ancient Near East. The book is definitely worth reading.

Working with a language gives abundant insight on the particular culture in which it is associated. This is exactly what Edward Chiera articulates in They Wrote On Clay. Chiera particularly focuses on Mesopotamia. In the case of the ancient Near East, written language is the most significant of ways to delve into the strata that compose an otherwise forgotten history. Chiera therefore discusses the deriving of ancient pictographs, to cuneiform, where the clay tablets of the ancient era were found, and exactly what was learned from what was found. What archaeologists have found from their excavations brought light to the life of kings, business, religion and folklore, science, education, and the common life.

The ancients built and wrote on clay. If the clay is of good quality clay and baked, it is extremely durable (page 17). Temples were erected from clay because of this. It was also the ingredient of written documents. Clay did have an advantage over paper for the ancients. First, clay allows the archaeologists of the present day to learn about ancient civilizations. Archaeologists thousands of years from now will not see many of today’s writings because the paper and the books would have long disintegrated (page 232). Secondly, clay can be erased if one makes a mistake, or if needed, made permanent by baking the document or drying the document out. Documents of importance can be preserved in clay envelopes. In business relations, a document may be sealed in such a sleeve of clay so that both parties doing business as well as witnesses can observe and stamp their approval. This sealing of the envelope would guarantee that neither party would be able to tamper with the document without destroying the envelope.

Chiera, being an archaeologist, tells where to find different tablets, for they are the links to the partly uncovered past. The author discusses “layered cities”, or cities that gain strata of new civilizations literally built on top of the older through time. Some cities that are still occupied today that are layered above past civilizations; the city is elevated from the surrounding plane. One example of this is the city of Arbil, located in Iraq, which requires a ramp to enter the gates (page 36). Tablets of ancient Babylon and Assyria, however, did tend to mysteriously migrate, however. Babylonian tablets were found in Egypt, for example, with inscriptions requesting the exchange of “presents” for a bit of the ample gold supply of Egypt (page 207). Assyrian tablets were excavated in Turkey because of many Assyrian merchants that had settled in Asia Minor (page 212). These two examples are among numerous other examples. These two lands were great empires, and by no means were they isolated. The language of Babylon was the “official language of diplomacy” because of Babylon’s cultural influence (pages 209-10). Because of this, searching for evidence of Babylonian tablets should not be restricted to the land between or north of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

Like Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Rosetta Stone, the cuneiform languages were found in translation in Persia, or current day Iran. The symbols in the inscriptions were made by the same types of wedges, and the languages represented were Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite (page 45). The written language of the ancients began as mere pictographs, and later the same pictographs rotated counter-clockwise ninety degrees (page 59). The Babylonians and Assyrians then began forming words with different combinations of wedges, as shown on the rocks found in Persia. The marks were created by a stylus, which is the writing utensil fit to write on clay. Wedges were vertical, horizontal, or oblique page (page 61). There was also a symbol created with the tip of the stylus. All pictures were made up of only these types.

From the inscriptions on the baked bricks on palaces, archaeologists learned about the great deeds of kings. Kings ruled by divine right and were also mediators from the gods themselves (page 80). Kings also recorded all of their courageous and religious deeds. Chiera also stresses, “He who was at the head of the state was both king and priest” (page 80). Interestingly enough, however, Chiera goes on to say that “in Babylonian times political power gradually began to rid itself of church control” and there was a fight for the separation of church and state (page 172).

Despite the gradual shift to the church-state separation, religion was an integral part to the ancients’ lives. There was family worship, and though not much was recovered about what family worship entailed, the singing of psalms was important (page 109-110). Religion and medicine were closely linked as well. Certain prayers were spoken by the doctor after medicine was administered or surgery was completed (page 150). This is quite contrary to modern practice, it seems; in the late twentieth century science and religion are on two opposite ends of the spectrum fighting to find truth.

Folklore of Babylon seemed to have been not only important to her people, but also inspiring to other peoples to come. For example, the story of the earth’s creation is the defeating of chaos, that is governed by Tiamat, by the gods. When Hammurabi came to power to Babylon, the gods that collectively defeated the chaos dragon were replaced by Marduk, the new god of Hammurabi’s new city. The Assyrians replaced the dragon slayer, Marduk, with their god Ashur.

An aspect of the title They Wrote On Clay may hint to the reader that the story to be unraveled will be about an ancient empire and maybe the corresponding language. However, one quality that the Babylonians and the Assyrians have is that each of them were an advanced people for their times. One can say this because much of what they learned was there own work. In other words, the work of humankind today was all built off of generations of trial and error, in the ways of science, art, and writing. The ancients had no models, unlike today’s world. Today’s world has the Greeks, the Romans, and every other culture that has risen and fallen to date.

As one can see, much of what we know of ancient Mesopotamia is through the clay tablets on which the people wrote. The tablets tell archaeologists how the ancients thought, what they believed in, when kings reigned and if they did so successfully, science, and many things about everyday life.

Source

Chiera, Edward. They Wrote On Clay. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1938.