Early Mesopotamian Fraud

After reading through this, I could not help but think about the evolution of the literacy system in ancient Mesopotamia. Since it was located in a very trade and communications centralized area, documentation or trades and such would have to be necessary to function properly. This is what writing originated from, and it appears to have derived out of the necessity for uniformity. Having relatively constant fluctuating of dominate forces in the region, a unified system of trade that was the same no matter the force in control would be the only way to successful manage the network.
Out of necessity for trade writing started, but the came people who were using their rarely seen literacy to essentially write-in their ancestry in any way they chose, and since previously there were no other writing systems or records to view, these texts were impossible to deny. This led people to make their ancestry date back far before their society, and even to the 'apkallu', which were thought to be "creatures that were half-human, half-fish, who had received directly from the god Ea the knowledge on which the Mesopotamian civilization was founded"(Joannes 12). This allowed educated people to shape their past, which created a greater draw of people to become literate.
As more people wanted to become literate, and be able to use the trade system functionally, the kings started to generate texts that emphasized the importance of the ruler who created it, and their divine command. The ability for people of power to create so many essentially false texts resulted in many texts that are seen as the scholarly texts, which represent portions of the culture. This makes it interesting to think of other ancient texts, such as The Epic, and the Bible, since they likely could have been written by a single person in order to express and idea someone had, not to voice truth. Gilgamesh could have had The Epic written to glorify his name and honor him, while someone could have written the Bible to create a following behind them, without any real reason other than the Bibles stories and meanings.