The invention of writing and the earliest literaturesHow was oral traditional literature preserved?

The invention of writingLong before people learned to write, they made up storiesPeople had to develop an accurate memoryStories could be preserved in their original form; they could be improved or expandedCan such oral literature be preserved?If it is not transferred to a written medium, it can be irrevocably lostE.g. a sudden catastrophic break in the life of the community-foreign conquests might easily, through massacre, enslavement, and mass deportation, wipe out the memory of what had been a shared inheritance

OlsensThe Invention of Writing

Why and how was writing invented?

Invention of writingThe earliest written documents are records of the first advanced, centralized civilizations, those that emerged in the area we know as the Middle EastThese documents contain commercial, administrative, political, and legal information

Where and how did ancient civilization develop?

Origins of civilizationIt was based on agricultureIt flourished in regions where the soil gave rich rewards:Valley of the Nile annual floods under the Egyptian sunValleys of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, which flowed through the Fertile Crescent, a region centered on modern Iraq

How did cities come into being?

Development of citiesCivilization begins with cities; the word itself is derived from a Latin word that means citizenThebes, Memphis in EgyptBabylon, Nineveh in the Fertile CrescentCities were centers for the administration of the irrigated fieldsCenters for government, religion, and culture

How did civilization begin?

The beginning of civilizationWriting and cities3000 B.C. the pharaohs of Egypt began to build their pyramids as well as to record their political acts and religious beliefs in hieroglyphic scriptThe Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians began to build the temples of Babylon and record their laws in cuneiform script on clay tablets

Where was writing first developed?Region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers3300 B.C. earliest textsCharacters were inscribed on tablets of wet clay with a pointed stickThe characters were pictographic ox2800 B.C. scribes began to use the wedge-shape end of the stick to make marks the resulting script is known as cuneiform, from the Latin word cuneus, a wedge

CuneiformEfficientIt stayed in use through the vicissitudes of two millennia (Akkadians, Babylonians, etc)It was on clay tablets and in cuneiform script that the great Sumerian epic poem Gilgamesh was written down totally forgotten until modern excavators discovered the tablets and deciphered the script

Phoenician alphabetUnlike cuneiform and hieroglyphic, this ancient writing system was destined to survive until the present day (22 signs for consonantal sounds)Who developed the script?Phoenicians, the Semitic peoples of the Palestine coastThe Phoenicians have left us no literary texts, but the Hebrews, another Semitic people, used the system to record their history in what Christians call the Old TestamentWhat is the Old Testament?Sorrows and triumphs of the HebrewsConcept of a single God, unique in the polytheistic ancient world

What is the legacy of the Hebrews?

Legacy of the HebrewsUnlike the rulers of the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile valleys, the Hebrews, located in Palestine, did not control territory of economic or military importanceFrom their beginnings as a pastoral tribe to their high point as a kingdom with a capital in Jerusalem, they accomplished little in the political or military spheresLater history- unsuccessful struggle for freedom against a series of foreign masters- Babylonian, Greek, and Roman

Religious legacy of the HebrewsAfter the period of expansion and prosperity under the great kings David and Solomon (1005-925 B.C.), the kingdom fell apart into warring factions, which called in outside powers.Internal and external struggle resulted in the destruction of the cities and the deportation of the population to Babylon (586 B.C.)The period of exile (ended in 539 B.C. when Cyrus,the Persion conqueror of Babylon, released the Hebrews from bondage) was a formative period for Hebrew religious thoughtThe return to Palestine was crowned by the rebuilding of the Temple and the creation of the Torah the first five books of the Bible

How did the Hebrews become the people of the Diaspora?

DiasporaThe independent state of Israel was not destined to last longBy 300 BC. the Macedonian successors of Alexander the Great had encroached on its bordersIsrael became part of a Hellenistic Greek-speaking kingdomFinally, Israel was absorbed by the Roman empireRevolt against Rome was crushed by emperor Titus in A.D. 70A second revolt against the emperor Hadrian resulted in the final extermination and removal from Palestine of the Hebrew peopleHenceforward, they were the people of the Diaspora, the scattering: religious communities in the ancient world who maintained local cohesion and religious solidarity but who were stateless, as they were to be all through centuries until the creation of the state of Israel in the mid-twentieth century

What is the true legacy of the Hebrews?Political history - a series of disastersNo painting, sculpture or secular literatureWhat they did leave us is a religious literature which is informed by an attitude different from that of any other nation of the ancient world.It is founded on the idea of one God, all-powerful and just a conception of the divine essence so simple that it seems obvious to us.However, in its time it was so revolutionary that it made the Hebrews a nation apart, sometimes laughed at, sometimes feared, but always alienThe consonantal script in which their literary legacy was handed down to us was a great step forward from the hieroglyphic and cuneiform systemsBut the absence of the notation for the vowels made for ambiguity and misreadingWhat were the vowel sounds in the sacred name of God? YHWHTraditional English version: JehovahSigns for the vowels were needed: contribution of the Greeks who adopted the Phoenician script for their own language

What is Gilgamesh?2500-1500 B.C.First great heroic narrative of world literatureTablets throughout the Middle East written in cuneiform charactersAssurbanipals synthetic version Standard VersionWritten on twelve hardened clay tablets in Akkadian, a Semitic language

Gilgamesh"Gilgamesh: Fame haunts the man who visits Hell, who lives to tell my entire tale identically. So like a sage, a trickster or saint, GILGAMESH was a hero who knew secrets and saw forbidden places." The Bible is best understood by knowing the background to the myths of ancient Mesopotamia. Gilgamesh may be one of the oldest epics.

GilgameshWhy does the story of Gilgamesh speak to modern readers with astonishing immediacy?

The Art of FictionArt lives upon discussion, upon experiment, upon curiosity, upon variety of attempt, upon exchange of views, and the comparison of standpoints. Henry James

*****