Schooldays and Hours: The Temporality of Learning to Write in Mesopotamia
Paul Delnero
This book is in the series
When the question of time is treated in studies of ancient Mesopotamia,
the focus tends to be on long periods of time that extend over decades,
centuries, and even millennia. This is evident both in the historical
and archaeological division of time into periods, as well as in studies
of cultural memory that consider how earlier historical periods are
re-imagined and constructed in a later period. Less frequently is the
question of how time is perceived and differing temporalities are
experienced in shorter durations of an hour, a day, a week, a month, or a
year by individuals (as opposed to societies or institutions)
considered. This book addresses the experience of time on a shorter,
individual scale, by examining the objective and subjective experience
of time when learning to write in ancient Mesopotamia. The basis for
this study is a list of simple cuneiform signs, known as Syllable
Alphabet B, which survives in hundreds of copies produced by scribal
pupils at the beginning of their education and which is examined to
determine how long it took to learn to write in early Mesopotamia, and
how the temporality of the learning process might have been experienced.
eBook published on:
November 16, 2026
eBook ISBN:
9783112244517
Paperback published on:
November 16, 2026
Paperback ISBN:
9783112244500
Front matter:
8
Main content:
128
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