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11 Language, communication, libraries and education
11 Language, communication, libraries and education
Keywords
Babylon
education
scripts
Period
Hellenistic Empires
Channel
Late Babylonian texts
Text
The Babylonian scribes in the Hellenistic times were accustomed to writing both in cuneiform on clay and in Aramaic or Greek on papyrus or parchment. So-called Graeco-Babylonian clay tablets are known with cuneiform on one side and Greek transcriptions on the other, inscribed with texts which all seem to be school exercises for learning to write one or the other language. They show the closest link between Babylonian and Greek traditions of learning, reflecting the start of a major shift towards Greek as the cultural language of instruction, rather than any Near Eastern language. This shift may be related to political developments under the Seleucids, in which complex legal transactions began to be documented in Greek in addition to cuneiform and Aramaic.
Bibliography
Dalley and Reyes 1998, 112-113
Dalley, S. and A. T. Reyes. “Mesopotamian Contact and Influence in the Greek World.” In: S. Dalley (ed.). The Legacy of Mesopotamia. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998, 85-124.
