#Ancient scribe definition manual

Excavations suggest that all the male children from the wealthier families of Mesopotamia were educated. The older students appear to have been bribed into proffering preferential treatment, such as to avoid punishing certain children. The youngest of the Mesopotamian students typically received their first instruction from older students. As in Egypt, he was generally male and belonged socially to an elite class. The Mesopotamian scribe, or dubsar, received his education in the 'tablet house,' or é-dubba. Written in year 4 of King Urukagina (circa 2350 BCE).

#Ancient scribe definition manual

A scribe was exempt from the heavy manual labor required of the lower classes, or corvee labor.Īn account of monthly barley rations issued to adults (30 or 40 pints) and children (20 pints) written in cuneiform script on a clay tablet. The scribal profession had companion professions, the painters and artisans who decorated reliefs and other relics with scenes, personages, or hieroglyphic text. Scribes were also considered part of the royal court and did not have to pay tax or join the military. Monumental buildings were erected under their supervision, administrative and economic activities were documented by them, and tales from the mouths of Egypt's lower classes or from foreign lands survive thanks to scribes putting them in writing. Much of what is known about ancient Egypt is due to the activities of its scribes. Sons of scribes were brought up in the same scribal tradition, sent to school and, upon entering the civil service, inherited their fathers' positions. The Ancient Egyptian scribe, or sesh, was a person educated in the arts of writing (using both hieroglyphics and hieratic scripts, and from the second half of the first millennium BCE the demotic script, used as shorthand and for commerce) and dena (arithmetics).