literature: The Middle East who petitions to get his goods back through dialogue and a lament that has a somewhat didactic undertone Most of Egyptian literature was anonymous The emphasis was not placed on the author, and the texts were identified by their protagonists The narratives also lacked titles; only the wisdom texts had titles Specifically in the New Kingdom, there existed a series of literary texts that praised the scribal profession The Egyptians held the idea that the tomb could crumble, but writing was imperishable This idea was probably reinforced in society by the fact that ancient wisdom was clearly admired and wisdom literature was cherished Certain preserved texts patently declare that the idea of being a scribe was a virtuous occupation One such text states, “As for those scribes and sages from the time which came after the gods—those who would foresee what was to come, which happened—their names endure for eternity, although they are gone, although they completed their lifetimes and all their people are forgotten Be a scribe! Put it in your heart, that your name shall exist like theirs!” This text is a eulogy to dead scribes from Papyrus Chester Beatty IV The ancient Egyptian scribes imagined writing as a means to immortality Ancient Egyptian literature was written in either hieroglyphic or hieratic (cursive) script There was also an intermediary stage of cursive hieroglyphs If hieroglyphic script corresponds to our modern printing, then hieratic script corresponds to our writing Hieroglyphs were inscribed on stone, plaster, or wood and could be written from left to right, right to left, or top to bottom Cursive hieroglyphs usually appear on wood or papyrus, and hieratic script usually appears on papyrus or writing boards The Egyptians used papyrus as their main writing surface This material came from the papyrus plant, which was grown in the marshy delta region in the north Strips were cut from the plant and made into sheets The papyrus rolls were used over and over again Some papyri have various documents on them while others had the original text erased and then were reused These are called “palimpsests.” Scribes used both red and black ink The red was used for titles and headings, corrections, insertions, and highlighting THE MIDDLE EAST BY KIRK H BEETZ Among the world’s earliest civilizations were those of the Near East, particularly those that arose in and around the modern-day countries of Iran and Iraq The people who forged these civilizations thousands of years ago, including the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians, developed advanced and sophisticated cultures, with cities, libraries, scientific inquiry, legal codes, mathematical systems, trade and commerce, and religious institutions They also gave the world some of its earliest written literature For this reason, the ancient Near East, stretching from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea to the easternmost border of modernday Iran, has often been called the “Cradle of Civilization.” 647 The most common literary form that survives from ancient Mesopotamia is the epic An epic is a long narrative poem that chronicles the adventures of a heroic individual This individual was often thought of as partly human and partly divine, so he was able to serve as a kind of mediator or link between gods and humankind Typically, an epic has many of the characteristics of an adventure story Historians as well as literary critics are interested in epics because they record myths and legends that are important to the culture from which they arose because of their legendary, religious, and historical significance Like many epics, the epics that emerged from ancient Mesopotamia were not strictly speaking “written” by one author as authorship is understood in modern life Rather, these epics were compilations of stories and legends that had been transmitted orally for hundreds of years Accordingly, while we sometimes have a colophon, in effect, the name of the scribe who copied a particular text and sometimes a date, at the end of a text, such names are only those of the learned scribes involved in the transmission of a given work, not its original composition Mesopotamian literature was widely transmitted in written form wherever the tradition of cuneiform writing (a wedge-shaped script) was found Thus, copies of well-known works also have been found at archaeological sites in Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Lebanon THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH One of the world’s great epic poems is the Epic of Gilgamesh, which was written sometime around 2000 b.c.e The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest surviving works of literature, and its author, Shin-eqi-unninni, is the oldest writer of literature whose name is known To call Shin-eqi-unninni the text’s “author,” though, is a little misleading, for stories and legends had been told about Gilgamesh for hundreds of years, and while the epic is the main Gilgamesh text, other poems and stories claim to record his deeds Shin-eqi-unninni was therefore as much a compiler as he was an author, for he did not make up the stories and legends However, he gave them a form that remains memorable, and the Epic of Gilgamesh has been translated into virtually all the world’s major languages It is also a common text read in literature courses, especially those that deal with ancient literature or the development of the epic form Its topic is a historical king named Gilgamesh, who ruled the city of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia and is credited with building its city wall, probably around 2700 b.c.e The Epic of Gilgamesh was written on 12 clay tablets in Sumerian This language has no resemblance to any other language in the world The version of the epic that survives, though, is written in Akkadian, a Semitic language that was related to Arabic and to Hebrew Akkadian was the language spoken by the Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians The first exemplar of the Epic of Gilgamesh known to Western scholars was found at Nineveh, near the modern-day Iraqi city of Mosul, in the ruins of a library amassed by Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria from 669 to 633 b.c.e