4. Alphanumeric Notation and the Calendrical-Musical Kosmos
From The Observatory
This book was produced by Human Bridges.
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- Frontmatter
- Preface
- Prologue: What Are the Roots of Civilization?
- Chronology and Maps
- Spring: Establishing Society’s Structural Proportions
- 1. How the Archaic Kosmos Integrated Nature and Society
- 2. The Shift From Lunar to Solar Calendars and Counting
- 3. Measures, Rules, and Prices
- Summer: Balancing Self-Expression With Group Order
- 4. Alphanumeric Notation and the Calendrical-Musical Kosmos
- 5. Music, Temperament, and Social Concord
- 6. The Distributive Justice of Group Feasts and Banquets
- Autumn: The Division of Labor and Economic Justice
- 7. Social Division Into Calendrical Tribes and Ranks
- 8. From the Temple Corporation to the Family Oikos (Household)
- 9. The Archaic Cosmology of Cities: Building the Kosmos on Earth
- Winter: The Archaic Order in Motion and Its Collapse
- 10. Social Justice Sanctified, From Inanna and Nanshe to Nemesis
- 11. Periodicities of Property and Debt
- 12. The Cosmology of War
- Epilogue: Modern Civilization as the Destruction of Archaic Order
- Backmatter
- Acknowledgments
- Bibliography
- Lecture: How Temples and Religion Played a Central Role in Creating the Ancient Economic Order That Has Become Secularized Today
- Help Us Edit and Join This Collaborative Research Project
- Navigate the Query Pages Throughout This Book
- Style Guide for This Book
Editor’s Note
This chapter is a stub that would benefit from Collaborative Research volunteer expansion. Please see this page for notes.
Could you help us expand this chapter to include more of what is teased in the Key Concepts section?
Introduction
Out of the need for economic accounting in Sumer’s temples developed the first writing, in large part as an internal control device to keep track of inventories and check theft. Temple granaries stored barley and wheat for use as seed, fodder during the summer months, and grain for human consumption in times of drought, floods, or war. Symbols for these stored goods had to be devised to tabulate their deposits and disbursements, as well as for the trade which the Sumerians conducted to obtain foreign metals, wood, and other raw materials.
The development from word-signs via syllable-signs to alphabetic symbols represents an evolution from complexity to simplicity. The earliest syllabaries were so unwieldy that only trained public scribes could read them. This complexity helped keep writing within the temples, and probably is why early myths depict writing as having been “brought by the gods.” Certainly it was first used mainly for public functions such as storage, inventory-keeping, and rationing. Only later, and with some awkwardness, were these symbols used for narrative purposes, the inscription of official laws, and, eventually, the composition of epics, songs, and prayers.
The breakthrough to alphabetic writing seems to have been inspired from quite a different direction. A set of about 28 symbols had been created to signify the days in the lunar month, the gamut of tones in the musical scale, or perhaps both. These signs were applied to the verbal phonemes which became the basis for the Canaanite-Greek-Roman alphabet, which has cuneiform precedents going at least as far back as Ugarit c. 1400 BC.Transition NoteOriginally here, the author had a note: “Transition from MUSIC chapter to ALPHABET chapter 5:”
Snodgrass[1] (1980: p. 79) has remarked that “Linear BAdd ContextCan you help add context about what Linear B is? was essentially an administrative script, used by palace scribes for official documentation, and occasionally by craftsmen… But graffiti hardly appear, and public inscriptions not at all. We infer that very few people could read the script… If it was the almost exclusive preserve of the palace bureaucracies, as seems likely, then their disappearance will have removed its raison d’être. The early alphabetic inscriptions show a sharp contrast. … They refer to private matters—ownership, entertainment, personal comments; a striking proportion of them are in verse. … and permanent inscriptions on stone follow” “[a]lready before 700 BC.”
Furthermore, “none of the early surviving Greek inscriptions has anything to do with commerce.”[2] State accounting was not the key, nor were religious dedications, rituals, and contributions. The key seems to have been to write down popular epics (Snodgrass[3] 1980: p. 82, following H.T. Wade-Gery 1952).Verify CitationCan you help us figure out the full citation for this source so we can add a footnote and a bibliographic note? This would explain the many verse inscriptions in early Greek writing.
Alphabetic writing spread only in the first millennium BC (although its roots go back at least as far as 1500 BC). The earlier syllabic scripts were developed in the centralized temple and palace institutions, where they were used primarily for economic record-keeping.
The first literary applications were so sketchy as to be barely more than mnemonic aids. The Sumerian language had no grammatical declensions or conjugations. This sufficed to indicate lists of commodities, their quantities and values, the names of persons who received and distributed them, and the date.
But narratives written in this (non)grammatical format with its agglutinative word formation were difficult to follow for someone who did not already know their basic content. Many functions that today are expressed in writing had to be committed to memory. In sum, cuneiform texts were nowhere near as self-explanatory as are modern books. They are especially hard for modern outsiders coming in cold.Add ContextOriginally written here was a note from the author: “an archaic Natural Law to ground social traditions in the rhythms of physical nature.” If you can help flesh this out and add a paragraph, please let us know.
It may not be merely coincidental that the Akkadian sign for water, mem,Spelling of TermCan you help us check the spelling of this term? It's mû not mem according to Wikipedia. occupying the first position in the cuneiform syllabary described by Zimmern[4] (1896Verify CitationCan a German-speaker please confirm this text by Heinrich Zimmern is the right citation for this point or correct it if not?; see also Driver[5] 1948: pp. 157–158),Verify CitationOriginally in Chapter 4, this was cited as “Driver 1976: 179”: the full citation was missing, and both the year and page numbers were different than what we found. Can you help us verify the citation? subsequently evolved into the Canaanite (and hence Greek and modern) letter m, originally μῦ,Symbol QueryThere was a missing symbol here; μῦ was our best guess. recalling the wavy zigzag line traditionally used to denote water.
Key Concepts
This glossary of key concepts will help readers who are new to the subject of archaic human history.
Keywords: Alphanumeric and order: The fixed sequence of letters enabled them to serve as numerals, initially for notating calendrical sequences as well as the notes of the musical scale. The alphabet (alpha, beta, etc.) was developed as a gamut of the range of sounds along phonetic lines.
Key image: Hermes (Sumerian Enki, Egyptian Thoth, and Roman Mercury),Key Concept Missing in Chapter BodyThis Key Concept is not discussed in this chapter’s body. Can you help us add it? the patron deity of commerce (from which early cuneiform word and syllable-signs developed), was also the putative inventor of the calendar, the lyre and its music, magic, and letters, all using alphanumeric notation.
Lunar symbol: Nisaba of Umma, the Sumerian patron goddess of scribes, seems to derive from Inanna.Key Concept Missing in Chapter BodyThis Key Concept is not discussed in this chapter’s body. Can you help us add it? The lunar zodiac may have inspired the first alphanumeric symbols. This would explain the typical number of letters: 28, with extra ones added later to round out the 30-day solar month.
Solar symbol: The Ugaritic cuneiform alphabet of 30 signs,Key Concept Missing in Chapter BodyThis Key Concept is not discussed in this chapter’s body. Can you help us add it? showing a modification from originally 27 signs.
Principle of regularity: Writing served to fix and standardize laws, as well as literary texts and ultimately language itself.
International interface: The transition from word-symbols to phonetic script was catalyzed by contacts among peoples speaking alien languages. Instead of resulting in the Tower of Babel,Key Concept Missing in Chapter BodyThis Key Concept is not discussed in this chapter’s body. Can you help us add it? the language gap inspired phonetic writing, beginning with the writing of foreign proper names.
Integration with the calendrical kosmos: The alphabetic symbols may have originated as a calendrical and/or musical notation.
Public character: Bronze Age symbol-writing first developed within the temples for economic accounting. Writing was used for official documentation (public laws were written down), and for contracts as enterprise spread to the nonpublic sector.
Religious sanctification: Early seals were a kind of “signature,” often illustrated with sacred scenes implying that it would be sacrilegious to violate their sealings. Spells were written down, and Hermes served as their patron in his manifestation as magician.Key Concept Missing in Chapter BodyThis Key Concept is not discussed in this chapter’s body. Can you help us add it? Written contracts were held inviolate, and as such they were stored in temples as archaic “halls of public records.”
Ultimate dissolution: With writing, mental systems no longer had to be organized along standardized cosmological mnemonic lines.
Bibliography
Anton Deimel, Schultexte Aus Fara (Leipzig: 1923).Verify CitationThis citation was a guess. Can a German-speaker please confirm this is the right citation?
G.R. Driver, Semitic Writing From Pictograph to Alphabet (Oxford: 1948), p. 157–158.Verify CitationOriginally in Chapter 4, this was cited as “Driver 1976: 179”: the full citation was missing, and both the year and page numbers were different than what we found. Can you help us verify the citation?
I.J. Gelb, A Study of Writing (Chicago: 1962).
M.W. Green, “The Construction and Implementation of the Cuneiform Writing System,” Visible Language, Vol. 15 (1981), pp. 345–372.
J.V. Kinnier Wilson, “The Case for Accountancy,” in B.B. Lal and S.P. Gupta, Frontiers of the Indus Civilization (New Delhi: 1984), pp. 173–178.
B.B. Lal and S.P. Gupta (eds.), Frontiers of the Indus Civilization (New Delhi: 1984).
Mogens Trolle Larsen, “The Mesopotamian Lukewarm Mind: Reflections on Science, Divination, and Literacy,” in Francesca Rochberg-Halton (ed.), Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner, American Oriental Series, Vol. 67 (New Haven: 1987), pp. 203–225.
Iravatham Mahadevan, “Terminal Ideograms in the Indus Script,” in Gregory L. Possehl (ed.), Harappan Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective (New Delhi: 1982), pp. 311–317.
Hans J. Nissen, Mesopotamia Before 5000 Years (Rome: 1988b).Verify CitationCan you help us verify the year in this citation?
Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the World (New York: 1982).
Asko Parpola, “Interpreting the Indus Script,” in B.B. Lal and S.P. Gupta, Frontiers of the Indus Civilization (New Delhi: 1984), pp. 179–191.
Anthony Snodgrass, Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment (London: 1980), pp. 79, 82.
Wolfram von Soden, “Leistung und Grenze sumerische und babylon ischer Wissenschaft,” Die Welt als Geschichte, Vol. 2 (1936), pp. 411–464 and pp. 509–557 (repr. Darmstadt: 1965).
H. Zimmern, “Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung des Alphabets,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Vol. 50 (1896), pp. 667–670.Verify CitationCan a German-speaker please confirm this text by Heinrich Zimmern is the right citation for this point or correct it if not?
The Alphabet and Writing
Expand SectionCan you help us continue this section and add an up-to-date section on Paleolithic writing systems? And can you help us work it into the body of Chapter 4 with a transition, so this section is not placed below the Chapter 4 Bibliography?
The complexity of Ice Age notations increased from c. 28,000 BC to the end of the Ice Age c. 10,000 BC. Paleolithic artifacts were engraved or carved with patterns which often turned out not to be “a non-arithmetic form of observational lunar/solar record-keeping”Citation NeededCan someone with access to the Marshack 1991 text verify the page number and quoted text? rather than merely decorative (Marshack 1991: p. 9).Verify CitationCan you help us identify which text was meant here so we can add a full citation? Notation from the late European Ice Age—the Magdalenian period—“is the end product of a long tradition of non-arithmetical astronomical observation and record-keeping.”Citation NeededCan someone with access to the Marshack 1991 text verify the page number and quoted text? Marshack found “a developing, highly structured year—ritual, social, and economic.”Citation NeededCan someone with access to the Marshack 1991 text verify the page number and quoted text?
- ↑ Anthony Snodgrass, Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment (London: 1980), p. 79.
- ↑ Anthony Snodgrass, Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment (London: 1980), p. 82.
- ↑ Anthony Snodgrass, Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment (London: 1980), p. 82.
- ↑ H. Zimmern, “Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung des Alphabets,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Vol. 50 (1896), pp. 667–670.Verify CitationCan a German-speaker please confirm this text by Heinrich Zimmern is the right citation for this point or correct it if not?
- ↑ G.R. Driver, Semitic Writing From Pictograph to Alphabet (Oxford: 1948), p. 157–158.Verify CitationOriginally in Chapter 4, this was cited as “Driver 1976: 179”: the full citation was missing, and both the year and page numbers were different than what we found. Can you help us verify the citation?
