The Babylonian World - Historia Antigua

— Late Babylonian intellectual life —
of literature promoting the royal ideology, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Legend
of Sargon, the Cuthean Legend of Narām-Sîn, and the Weidner Chronicle. Students with
higher intellectual ambitions started with the same basic education, but soon branched
out to an enriched curriculum which was very heavily oriented towards the craft of
the exorcist (āsˇipūtu). They copied incantations, such as the series Utukkū Lemnūtu,
magical and exorcistic series (Sˇ urpu and Maqlû), literary hymns and prayers, and the
advanced corpus of lexical lists, including the encyclopedia Har-ra = h ˘ ubullu. They
also studied the fundamental theological texts that promoted the vision of Babylon
as cosmic center and of its god Marduk as demiurge, namely the Babylonian Epic of
Creation (Enūma elisˇ) and the topographical series Tin.tir = Babilu. Here the focus was
not on the king, but on the gods.
Specialized training did not take place in schools. After completing the basic
curriculum, students who found employment in the administration presumably
perfected their skills under the guidance of senior colleagues. As for students oriented
towards the intellectual sphere, they could specialize in one of the three recognized
disciplines of scholarship: the āsˇipūtu “craft of the exorcist,” the kalûtu “craft of the
lamentation singer,” and the bārûtu “craft of the diviner.” At this point they continued
training under the guidance of master scholars who often happened to be older
members of their family. Indeed, if we rely on the colophons of library manuscripts
and the information gleaned from private and temple archives, it appears that young
aspiring scholars usually embraced the profession of their fathers. Writing in the first
century BC, the Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily confirms the cuneiform evidence
on this point. He gives us a vivid portrait of Chaldean scholarship, insisting particularly
on its hereditary nature:
For among the Chaldeans the scientific study of these subjects is passed down in
the family, and son takes it over from father, being relieved of all other services
in the state. Since, therefore, they have their parents for teachers, they not only
are taught everything ungrudgingly but also at the same time they give heed to
the precepts of their teachers with a more unwavering trust.
(Library of History II.29.4; Oldfather 1968: 447)
Families of scholars congregated into larger clans claiming descent from a common
ancestor. Some clans maintained a virtual monopoly on a particular discipline. In
Seleucid Uruk, for instance, all the lamentation singers (kalûs) descended from Sînlēqi-unninni
(Beaulieu 2000). The exorcists (āsˇipus), on the other hand, were divided
among several clans, such as the descendants of Ekur-zākir, H ˘ unzû, and Sˇangû-
Ninurta, and we find astronomers (t.upsˇar Enūma Anu Enlil) among the descendants
of both Sîn-lēqi-unninni and Ekur-zākir. Some families can be traced over several
generations through the colophons of library texts copied by junior scribes, and the
history of the Sîn-lēqi-unninnis can be followed, albeit with some gaps, from the
sixth until the second century. A number of colophons contain additional notations
on the purpose of the scribe in copying a particular text (Pearce 1993). Often texts
were copied “for perusing” (ana tāmarti), “for learning” (ana ah ˘ āzi), or “for recitation,
reading” (ana sˇitassi). This last term is based on the root sˇasû, whose primary meaning
is “to shout, call.” It indicates that reading in Babylonia, as in many ancient cultures,
was not internalized (silent), but performed by reciting the text sotto voce. The expressions
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