Sumerians Achievement of Written Communication
I. Introduction
Communication through the form of writing has evolved drastically in the history of mankind. Some civilizations advanced quickly, acquiring a form of communication while others lagged. For example, once an officer asked a native American to give a friend a message for him. After writing the letter the Indian looked at the officer perplexed because he did not believe information could be traveled in any other way than through vocal methods. In order to persuade the Indian that he was not wasting his time, the officer wrote a note instructing the receiver to give the Indian a piece of candy upon delivery. Unbelieving the officer the Indian carried out the task and received a piece of candy which changed his view of written communication (Puhvel, Jaan) Stories like this, whether true or not are prime examples of the unawareness of written communication, boundaries that set apart civilizations, and the slowness of technological advancement in cultures separated by geography. The Sumerians were among the first civilizations to create a simple form of written communication, known as cuneiform. Therefore, the ability to establish a comprehendible communication gave a clear pathway for the Sumerian culture to higher advancement, better functioning society, replication from other civilizations, and gave humans the ability to positively impact cuneiform writing methods.
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As many people may believe, written forms of communication did not happen overnight. Just like cuneiform and other forms evolved until its simplest form was derived. Sumer in 3500 B.C.E had become more advanced and its merchants were beginning to reach out beyond it boundaries to other young civilization in order to trade for foreign products. However, when transporting numerous products merchants had to derive a way to keep track of their products. The first thing merchants created was by carving out clay coins to represent a certain amount of merchandise. For instance, three pounds of salt may have equaled to three circular clay tokens. Many merchants also relied on workers to transport their products to these faraway lands. However, in many cases the transporter would temper with the merchandise to derive a profit themselves. After time of having to deal with untrustworthy workers, merchants began to put their clay tokens in a lock box or envelop with a seal on it. This made it so if the seal was broken upon delivery the merchant would realize the merchandise was tampered with and the thief would ultimately serve the consequence. However, not all transporters were thieves and having to transport material without knowing the amount made it difficult to have successful deliveries. Therefore, transporters began getting wet clay tablets and making impressions into a square tile to keep track of the quantity or quality of the merchandise. This opened the door to written communication. Eventually someone had the idea that tokens were pointless to have if a tablet with all the information on it was available. Therefore, envelopes and lock boxes stopped being used and the worlds first form of written communication was born. (The Flow of History, no author)
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With the first writing symbols able to represent merchandise, the fathers of this form of written communication then began making more complex notions using sharp rocks to make indentions in moist clay tablets. After this, they began to find other uses for this new form of communication. Religious and town records began being recorded and preserved using cuneiform. Being the first form of writing beside the complicated forms of glyphs, more people could eventually learn the writing style for their own benefit. Starting out with large amounts of symbols eventually decreased and made the language simpler. By simplification, more people could read and write. This ability gave people the ability to express themselves by literature and poetry for the first time in history. However, few people had the ability to read or write. These people who could were known as scribes and mainly consisted of the higher social class in Mesopotamia society. Furthermore, with this new ability to express emotions, thoughts, ideas, and opinions literature began to be made. The very first epics this world has ever known was written on cuneiform clay tablets. Epics such as, The Saga of Gilgamesh and The Curse of Agaade were written.
(Figure 1: Tablet containing The Saga of Gilgmesh. One of the first epics written and preserved using cuneiform writing methods.)
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This form of writing and its worthiness of learning quickly spread to other parts of Mesopotamia and other regions of the Middle East. Originally forming in the southern Mesopotamia, their northern neighbors, the Akkadians soon adopted the written form. However, the Akkadians impacted cuneiform by forming a much simpler form by using less symbols and using symbols to act as sounds rather than entire words. Unfortunately, to deciphers many of their words resembled Sumerian cuneiform. This text created by the Akkadians is known as “old Akkadian cuneiform. This written communication can be seen in the world’s first written law doctrine, known as the Code of Hammurabi. Such as many instances of the transportation of communication in history this set a format for many other current and future nations to embody. Eventually, in the 3rd millennium, cuneiform reached and was adopted by the southern region of modern day Iran, known as the country Elam. Finally, in the 2nd Millennium cuneiform was reaching much further than its origins. Mesopotamia and its surrounding regions began expanded militarily to other parts of the world by conquering land. Taking this written communication with them thus became a universal written communication to the small world people new in this age of history. (Puhvel)
5. Conclusion
Cuneiform, even though not used to today and unreadable by a majority except those who learn it, is and obsolete language. However, this point in history is a keystone which put future advancement in place to be made. Without this writing system there would have been not platform from which to expand from. Therefore, due to the invention of cuneiform by humans, merchandise, religious records, town records, and more were able to be saved for the remainder of history. The expansion of this form of writing quickly reached other states which were close to Sumer. This gave the opportunity for other civilizations to be affected, in addition, gave the ability for humans to impact this young writing form. These impacts included the simplification and decreasing of letters to make the form more comprehensible to others. This language opened the door to the future ways of communication between humans and also the preservation of historical records which allow us to take a small look of were we came from.
References
Jaan Puhvel, “Cuneiform: Writing Systems”
The Flow of History, “The Birth of Writing and its Impacts” (Author not found)