The Status of Scribes

As was seen in many of the readings from this semester, civilizations of the ancient near east put great weight on the keeping of records. Records pertaining to economic affairs have been found, as well as letters sent between kings. Also, scribes made sure that knowledge was preserved by making copies of various works. The importance of records can be traced back all the way to the city of Uruk and their importance can be seen in records found from the kingdom of Babylonia.

Because record-keeping was so important, people had to be taught the art. These people were scribes. Scribes wrote in Aramaic on parchment and in cuneiform on clay. Clay tablets written in cuneiform dealt with management, contracts, and tradition. The first stage in scribe training was done by direct transmission, and a teacher would only have few students. Because of this selectivity in students, not anyone could be a scribe. Scribes were not plentiful in society, and the ability to read and write gave the scribe somewhat higher social status. This can be seen in the fact that sometimes certain members of notable's families could draw up their own contracts. However, not all scribes had the same social status; the places where the scribe would end up working depended on his social status, his ambitions, and his abilities.

Scribes could also attain a higher level and become literary scribes, and these scribes often held religious offices. This is another example of how even between scribes, there were different social levels.