§1. According to the
BBC Science Report May 4th, 1999, the first known examples of
writing may have been (subject to conclusive comparison and radioactive-dating methods) unearthed at the site remains of an ancient village in southern
Pakistan (ironically in the same province of that country's first nuclear detonation a few months later). These written components consisting of what are believed to be 'contents markings' found on a wide range of fragmented earthen
pottery, initially carbon-dated on-site in the range of being
5500 years old, in an area widely known as
Harappa in the valley region where the
Indus civilization rose to its height four and a half millennia ago.
Harappa became a major urban center by 2600 BC, and the discovery suggests writing may have developed both concurrently and independently in a least three separate places-
Egypt,
Mesopotamia and the
Indus Valley between 3500 - 3100 BC.
§2. It is not difficult to imagine that these first cuneiform 'labels', carved into the sides of clay pots, may have representing nothing more profound than 'oil' or 'barley', and produced by no more noble an instinct than the owner being tired of having to look inside each individual container to find what was sought. However, not long after that first brilliant trouble-saving measure took place- in
Mesopotamia, the
Sumerian culture by 3000 BC had developed an extensive system of trade, which this time out of necessity rather than convenience spurred the development of written communication. Their civilization lasted some 1300 years (until its eclipse under
Babylonian influence around 2000 BC) between the
Tigris and
Euphrates rivers, during which time their writing evolved from purely
pictographic to wedge-like symbols of
phonetic cuneiform.
§3.
Sumerian temples, besides their
mystical and
social functions, also served as
economic centers by acting as commercial
archives in the aid of conducting trade, managing estates and lending money. Using beveled sticks they marked these records into clay and then stored them for later
reference, along with libraries which also contained the works of
scribes written on subjects such as
grammar,
mathematics (they used both decimals and fractions), treatises on
medicine,
astrology,
prayer, history, law and even literary forms. The
oldest written story in the world,
The epic of Gilgamish, was traced out in
clay form in this manner, and was responsible for the lasting impact of the Sumerian language, which outlived the
vernacular use of its own people for centuries (much like
Latin), while the
creation myth served as source of transmission and instruction for temple and scribe schools teaching new generations of transcribers. However, it is only with the rise of
Babylonian culture, perhaps that we see the potential for the
library, as a site of administrative and political acumen, first being fully utilized by a societal leader, and the idea presented above, about the necessity in a society for being able to validate or verify its leadership becomes centered around the resources of
information.
§4. It is in particular under
Hammurabi (c. 1750 BC) that the first articulated step towards the wide-spread
dissemination of written information, with the tacit motivation of ensuring social stability, as it first appears in history. By this time,
Babylon had grown into the largest unified empire in history thus far (from the
Persian Gulf to the
Euphrates, reaching as far north as
Assyria and as far south as
Nineveh and
Nimrod) with a complex administrative system, necessitated by a large standing army, massive
irrigation and flood prevention projects. Again, as with the growth of trade in Sumerian society, all this demanded careful
record keeping, technical planning and clear written
communication in order to function. Similarly, as society expanded and complicated, law became increasingly important for the expedient conduct of commerce and peaceful settlement of disputes.
§5. As mentioned, the libraries of this time were centered in temples, and in every major temple under the reign of
Hammurabi any citizen could freely consult a clay brick
obelisk known as
Hammurabi's Stele, listing 282 articles dealing with wages, divorce, medical fees as well as family, property and trade law. This open-to-all presentation of
legal information (granted to the extremely limited number of people who did not have to rely on the translation of a nearby
scribe or priest who could actually read the codes) is not seen again until the establishment of '
public' Roman libraries under
Augustus in 4th cen. AD, almost two millennia later. At the Palace of
Mari (by 1000 BC) and the library at
Nineveh (c. 750 BC), by the time the first empires of the Fertile Crescent were at their height, these stores of collected histories and records allowed priests to predict lunar eclipses and the path of the sun and near planets through the sky with great accuracy and they inherited the
Sumerian system of 360 degree circles and 60 minute hours in relation to this astronomical knowledge. King
Sargon II and his successor
Ashurbanipal had both placed an emphasis on the scribes and scholars of libraries to not only preserve and study old records & texts, but to serve as
reference points for the entire community and to collect tablets or 'texts' from other lands on a wide range of subjects. "So it was that the first issues and logistical matters of selection and storage were placed directly into the hands of
librarians, as they were also required to locate and acquire specific materials abroad, oversee their
translation or
transcription,
classification by
subject and
language and then provide access to their
contents."
*
Notes:
* Kathryn McChesney, "History of Libraries, Librarianship, and Library Education."
The Library in Society (Library Science Text Series) Libraries Unlimited, Inc.: Littleton, CO, 1984. p. 36
Other sources:
Schottloher, Karl.
Books and the Western World (London: McFarland, 1989)