Mesopotamian Orality and the Anthropology of Writing

Introduction

This project seeks to understand the interplay between writing and orality in Ancient Mesopotamia (c. 3400 BCE – AD 100): what was written down, what circulated only in the oral realm, and why. The result will be a cohesive model of orality and writing in Ancient Mesopotamia, which will in turn shed light on ancient societies with less documentation, enabling a much-needed ‘leap forward’ in the study of ancient writing and orality beyond Mesopotamia alone. It will also open up a new sub-field within Mesopotamian studies and offer new ways of thinking about Mesopotamian writings.

Project Goals

MESOR’s goals will be met by three work packages.

Work Package 1: Establishing Facts

First, it aims to establish the facts about what sort of things were usually written down, and what sort of things were not; and about how this varied across time, place, context, and type of written document.

Work Package 2: Interpretation and Explanation

Secondly, the project aims to interpret and explain the distribution which it identified. To take some simple examples:

1. Why are there no cuneiform graffiti?
2. Why do cuneiform sources hardly mention begging?
3. What did and did not get embraced by the ‘written tradition’?

The project will be the first time such questions are addressed in an organic and systematic way. Use will be made of wide-ranging ethnographic parallels.

Work Package 3: Implications and Applications

Thirdly, the project will work out the implications and applications of its findings. These extend across all aspects of the lived experience, from administration to education to religion.

Methods

The project’s methods will unite traditional close reading with corpus-driven quantitative data analysis, and its investigation will transcend established disciplinary boundaries. It will combine:

• Akkadian and Sumerian philology
• The anthropology of reading and writing
• The history of literacy studies
• Orality studies
• Socio-cultural history