had existed in the system. To what meaningful end would they have indulged in
extended flights of fancy, and would such fancies really have become canonized?
Veldhuis’ proposition ( 2006 : 189 ) that lists contain signs regardless of how often they
would be needed is probably closer to reality.
OPENING THE MIND AND WIDENING THE SOCIAL GAP –
THE EARLY DYNASTIC AND OLD AKKADIAN PERIODSThe rise of the scholar scribeIn the city-states of third millennium Sumer, we see writing being used in a different
form and for a much wider range of purposes. We see now the first unambiguous
evidence of cuneiform signs being used to convey sounds, and those sounds belong to
the Sumerian language. By this stage, cuneiform is definitely writing proper. And the
use of signs to convey sounds as well as whole words opens the way for many new uses
of the system. In addition to representing concrete objects, animals, plants, and people,
writing now conveyed abstract ideas. We see the first literature, letters, royal inscrip-
tions, and legal texts. Every major urban center had its scribes and its scribal traditions.
Now we also see the beginnings of the habit of writing signs in the order in which they
were to be read. Yet most people were still illiterate, and this would remain the case
throughout the history of cuneiform. What did this all mean for the scribes?
The scribal control of goods gave them status. Now they performed other roles and
their status must have grown accordingly. City rulers could command their services to
write inscriptions recording royal piety and marking boundaries. Scribes would also
put into visible form the terms of state treaties. Their activity was no longer behind
the scenes but could be very public and high profile. We see the rise of scholar scribes.
Practical training was carried out using practice tablets and ad hoc lists of signs and
words. We also see the first examples of mathematical training, with exercises to equip
scribes with the skills to manage quantities or survey fields. But scribes still assiduously
copied the sign lists of the Uruk period. By now the contents of these lists bore very
little relation to what was in use in administrative documentation. They were already
ancient, and prestigious. These copies of lists are signed by several scribes, sometimes
a dozen or more (Krebernik 1998 : 325 – 333 ). One scribe is said to have written the tablet,
another seems to own it, the others perhaps jointly certify the correctness of the text
according to its traditional form. An interesting oddity at Fara and Abu Salabikh is the
existence of elaborate drawings on some of these tablets, and on some otherwise
uninscribed tablets. The scribes were obviously also skilled draftsmen, although it is
not clear what the purpose of this training may have been. Its origins may be traced
back to the Uruk period, through examples such as W 20921 and W 21163 , 1 (Lenzen
1965 : pl. 16 ), W 23997 , 2 (Cavigneaux 1991 : 71 ) or W 9851 (Englund 1994 : pl. 118 ).
New standard lists of words were created, similar to the old Uruk lists in that they
typically collect words of similar meanings together, but with contents more relevant
to contemporary texts. There are, for example, another four lists of professions. The
most common of these is Lu E, which is found at sites across northern Mesopotamia
and Syria. Its contents are not related to the old Standard Professions List, but rather
to the professions known from contemporary texts. Appropriately enough, the first two
entries of that list are dub-sarand umbisag, words for “scribe.” There was also the
–– The first scribes ––