Names and Professions List, found in several versions, and of course various other
thematic lists, as well as graphically ordered lists. An innovation of this period is the
god list; interestingly, the Fara and Abu Salabikh versions differ significantly from each
other. There are few lists surviving from the Sargonic period, but the same corpus of
material seems to have been copied, in much the same way as before.
Literature is by now known at several sites: Abu Salabikh, Fara, Girsu, Nippur,
Adab, Ebla, Mari. This in turn suggests that the origins of written literature are to be
found even earlier, and W 19412 , 2 (van Dijk 1960 : 58 – 59 ) and U 12576 (Burrows 1935 :
no. 69 ) may be examples of such earlier literature. The Uruk period “Tribute List” has
been claimed as literature, but the explanation as a practice text (Veldhuis 2006 ) is
more convincing. Some of the Early Dynastic literary texts survived into much later
periods: the Instructions of Shuruppak and the Kesh Temple Hymn are known from
Old Babylonian manuscripts. Other compositions were lost. The latter include hymns
that are difficult for us to understand because of the scarcity of explicit linguistic
information, and partly also because of the use of a special form of orthography,
discussed below. Proverbs and incantations are also known from this period. The Fara
material is paralleled in the Ebla sources, mirroring the shared lexical traditions. Such
incantations are usually found on practice tablets. Perhaps more significant here are
another fragment of exercise – recording a story about Lugalbanda (whose dynasty
would become popular in later literature) – and an Akkadian hymn to Shamash.
The first references to a dub-sar“scribe” may occur at ED I Uruk (Nissen 1974 : W
21906 , pl. 27 a,b). By the time of Fara and Abu Salabikh (c. 2600 – 2500 BC) dub-saris a
well-attested status. There are various types known, including scribe of the city ruler,
no doubt a prestigious and powerful role; presumably these were the men who
composed the first royal inscriptions. There is clear evidence of hierarchy among
scribes, in the titles dub-sar-mah“senior scribe”, and less commonly ugula-dub-sar
“overseer of scribes” or dub-sar-gal“chief scribe”. Some of the designations are so
specific that they look more like descriptions of a function in a transaction than full-
time jobs. We can sometimes trace career progression. From Fara there are suggestions
that, for example, a dub-sar-gana 2 “scribe of the fields” could work his way up to
positions such as sa 12 – du 5 “land registrar” or um-mi-a“master” (who acted as land
surveyor). Possibly already in Early Dynastic but certainly by the Old Akkadian period,
scribes could be elevated to the position of ensi 2 “city governor”, such as happened to
Lugalushumgal of Lagash (who left us an unusual attempt to copy the archaic list of
professions) or Lugalgish of Adab (Yuhong 1995 ).
In the scholarly texts, ED IIIa scribes typically refer to themselves as SANGA,
apparently to be read umbisag. Those claiming this title at Abu Salabikh are known to
have performed dub mu-sar“written the tablet”, and at Fara some are attested in the
administrative corpus as dub-sar. Visicato ( 2000 : 4 ) compares the types of dub-sar
known from Early Dynastic texts to the types of SANGA known from Jemdet Nasr
and Uruk III texts, and finds many similarities. It is not entirely clear what the
difference was between umbisagand dub-sar, but perhaps it was simply “administrator”
versus “scribe.” Later in the third millennium “scribe” was a status attained through
training, and which led to one of several jobs. Umbisagseems to fall out of mainstream
use, with dub-sartaking over as the standard expression for “scribe,” although scribal
training can be assumed behind various other official titles. At least 100 scribes are
known each from Fara and Abu Salabikh (Visicato 2000 : 22 , 50 ).
–– Jon Taylor ––