Voices from Babylon

When we think of the ancient world, our minds automatically turn to ancient Greece and Rome. They were the newcomers, however, the upstarts, if you will. To the east, in the area that we today call the Middle East, as well as in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean Sea, there were kingdoms and city-states that created a global network far earlier than that of the Greeks and Romans. Here, we are looking at the world of ancient Babylon, at cuneiform tablets found near the city-state of Umma (near the modern city of Johka). The two tablets on display date to approximately 2350 BCE. To put that in context, we today are closer in history to Cleopatra (who died in 31 BCE) than these tablets. The span of time is simply mindboggling.

Writing was first invented in Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BCE at the same time as the development of cities. The earliest tablets rely heavily on pictographs. These then evolved into ideograms and ultimately into a syllabic language where each sign represented a syllable. At the time that cuneiform started to rely on syllabic signs, the script corresponded to the Sumerian language, rather than being a type of "code" that could be read in any language.

Scribes used a stylus, made from a cut reed, to draw signs and mark horizontal lines and vertical columns in lumps of clay. These lumps of clay fit into the palm of the hand. These materials were easily found in ancient Mesopotamia. The clay, worked into a flat shape, could be written on while wet and then dried in the sun so that the text would be preserved. Once dried, tablets could not be altered.

A tablet could be authenticated through the application of a seal to it before it dried. We see an example of this with one of the tablets on display. The use of such seals meant that even the illiterate could authenticate a legal document. Many tablets are receipts and records of other transactions or votive dedications to the gods. The two tablets on display here are examples of records of transactions.

The first is a bill for merchandise of various kinds, including oils, apparently for medicinal purposes or for illumination in the temple. The second tablet on display is a typical record of the temple offerings. It bears the impression of a seal with the name of the scribe and his father, a seated figure, and a standing figure supporting an animal on a pole.

The peoples of ancient Mesopotamia believed that they had been created to serve the gods, who they saw as responsible for the capricious natural environment in which they lived. Only by serving the gods could they attempt to control nature, and hopefully bring some control over their own lives. The image of the god, which lived in a temple (the largest and tallest building in the city) would be cared for, fed, and clothed. It might also require entertainment, exorcism, and other types of services. Each meal included two courses, and was accompanied by music and incense.

In this context, we can see the crucial importance of the items represented by these receipts - oils to provide light or medicine, offerings to the gods to feed them. Some texts list large amounts of food consumed on a daily basis - one text lists more than 500 kilograms of bread, forty sheep, two bulls, one bullock, eight lambs, seventy birds and ducks, four wild boars, three ostrich eggs, dates, figs, raisins, fifty four containers of beer and wine, and other offerings. Clearly a considerable amount of the available resources were put towards appeasing the gods.

Displayed here alongside the tablets are two glass pieces; these are considerably later, dating to the Roman period. These are both unguentaria, and would have been used to hold oil and perfumes, such as those listed in the first tablet. Presumably the oils purchased for the temple would have been in some sort of similar vessel, at least in terms of shape and size. These two unguentaria represent the physicality of the items represented in the receipts.

These texts are much more opaque than the others on display here, but they allow us to see a people devoted to their gods, and for whom devotion to their gods was a matter of life and death.

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