They Wrote on Clay: The Babylonian Tablets Speak Today

Rating:
Summary: The perfect introduction to Ancient Babylon
Review: Before the beginning of this century, the only information we had about Ancient Babylon was from the Bible. Consequently, most of the literature that I have read on the subject (written during the height of Iraqi Archeaology in the 1920's and 30's) has been on a religious note rather than a historical one. This book changed all that. It brought a highly academic subject to the layman. It is a simple, informative account of how the real Babylonians lived. It describes the Babylonians as an advanced people who appreciated art and literature, as well as entering into contracts and having mortgages. It is a great introduction to an ancient civilisation.

Rating:
Summary: An excursion into the life of a vanished civilization
Review: THEY WROTE ON CLAY : The Babylonian Tablets Speak Today. By Edward Chiera. Edited by George G. Cameron. 235 pp. Chicago and London : The University of Chicago Press, 1964 (1955). (pbk.)

The civilizational achievements of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians only started to become known over the course of the last century or so. For our new understanding of the past we have to thank archaeology, in particular for its discovery of many tens of thousands of baked clay tablets which have miraculously preserved the complex cuneiform writing system, languages, and literatures of the ancient Mesopotamians, and for the patient decipherment of these tablets and other cuneiform-bearing artefacts by a small and dedicated group of international scholars.

The literature on this subject today is vast, and much of it is accessible only to specialists. Of the studies that are generally available - such as those by A. Leo Oppenheim, Samuel Noah Kramer, and Thorkild Jacobsen - most tend to be aimed at a more scholarly type of audience, the kind of people who like detailed footnotes, precise references to sources, bibliographies, etc., and little seems to be available in the way of a more popular treatment for the general reader.

This is where the present book comes in. Edward Chiera, though a competent and respected scholar, was exceptional in having an ardent desire to share his knowledge by making the results of his research readily and entertainingly available to the general reader. Consequently, instead of giving us, for example, a lengthy and detailed analysis of the religious ideas or political history of the Babylonians, he has chosen instead to offer an absorbing excursion into the common life of this ancient civilization.

Chiera's 'They Wrote on Clay' is both well-written and easy to read since the pages are small, the font used is gratifyingly large and readable, and there are numerous black-and-white photographs and line drawings which illustrate various aspects of life in the near East : people, places, animals, domestic scenes, archaeological sites, buildings, artworks and other artefacts etc. These illustrations perfectly supplement Chiera's written account, and although many are contemporary, they do serve to suggest something of what life must have been like in the past.

Chiera has managed to pack an awful lot into this small book. We learn about the discovery of the ancient cities, the amazing libraries of clay tablets that were unearthed, the exciting story of the decipherment of the complex cuneiform writing system, the worlds of business and religion, of kings, priests, scribes and ordinary folk, and of their multifarious doings, and of much else besides.

The author clearly loved his subject, and it's invariably from such writers that we get the best books. So if you're looking for a well-written, well-illustrated, easy-to-read popular treatment of this fascinating world, a world that is vastly more important to you than you may realize since it is there and not in Greece that the real roots of Western civilization lie, you'd be hard put to better 'They Wrote on Clay.'

And if Chiera succeeds in whetting your appetite, as I'm sure he will, you might go on to read one of the best-loved stories to come out of that world, the deeply moving story of the adventures of Gilgamesh, his friendship with the wild man Enkidu, and his search for immortality. I'm pretty sure that, if you don't already know it, you would very much enjoy that too. One good popular edition of this story that can be recommended is:

THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH : An English Version with an Introduction by N. K. Sandars. Penguin Classics Revised Edition. 128 pp. London : Penguin, 1972 (1964) and Reissued.

Rating:
Summary: An excursion into the life of a vanished civilization
Review: THEY WROTE ON CLAY : The Babylonian Tablets Speak Today. By Edward Chiera. Edited by George G. Cameron. 235 pp. Chicago and London : The University of Chicago Press, 1964 (1955). (pbk.)

The civilizational achievements of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians only started to become known over the course of the last century or so. For our new understanding of the past we have to thank archaeology, in particular for its discovery of many tens of thousands of baked clay tablets which have miraculously preserved the complex cuneiform writing system, languages, and literatures of the ancient Mesopotamians, and for the patient decipherment of these tablets and other cuneiform-bearing artefacts by a small and dedicated group of international scholars.

The literature on this subject today is vast, and much of it is accessible only to specialists. Of the studies that are generally available - such as those by A. Leo Oppenheim, Samuel Noah Kramer, and Thorkild Jacobsen - most tend to be aimed at a more scholarly type of audience, the kind of people who like detailed footnotes, precise references to sources, bibliographies, etc., and little seems to be available in the way of a more popular treatment for the general reader.

This is where the present book comes in. Edward Chiera, though a competent and respected scholar, was exceptional in having an ardent desire to share his knowledge by making the results of his research readily and entertainingly available to the general reader. Consequently, instead of giving us, for example, a lengthy and detailed analysis of the religious ideas or political history of the Babylonians, he has chosen instead to offer an absorbing excursion into the common life of this ancient civilization.

Chiera's 'They Wrote on Clay' is both well-written and easy to read since the pages are small, the font used is gratifyingly large and readable, and there are numerous black-and-white photographs and line drawings which illustrate various aspects of life in the near East : people, places, animals, domestic scenes, archaeological sites, buildings, artworks and other artefacts etc. These illustrations perfectly supplement Chiera's written account, and although many are contemporary, they do serve to suggest something of what life must have been like in the past.

Chiera has managed to pack an awful lot into this small book. We learn about the discovery of the ancient cities, the amazing libraries of clay tablets that were unearthed, the exciting story of the decipherment of the complex cuneiform writing system, the worlds of business and religion, of kings, priests, scribes and ordinary folk, and of their multifarious doings, and of much else besides.

The author clearly loved his subject, and it's invariably from such writers that we get the best books. So if you're looking for a well-written, well-illustrated, easy-to-read popular treatment of this fascinating world, a world that is vastly more important to you than you may realize since it is there and not in Greece that the real roots of Western civilization lie, you'd be hard put to better 'They Wrote on Clay.'

And if Chiera succeeds in whetting your appetite, as I'm sure he will, you might go on to read one of the best-loved stories to come out of that world, the deeply moving story of the adventures of Gilgamesh, his friendship with the wild man Enkidu, and his search for immortality. I'm pretty sure that, if you don't already know it, you would very much enjoy that too. One good popular edition of this story that can be recommended is:

THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH : An English Version with an Introduction by N. K. Sandars. Penguin Classics Revised Edition. 128 pp. London : Penguin, 1972 (1964) and Reissued.