The Western Gate

The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the making of history
Selena Wisnom
Allen Lane : Penguin Books

Quite by chance I happened to be listening to a radio show, the lovely Cerys Matthews and that gorgeous Welsh voice of hers, she was interviewing someone who had written a book concerning the advent of written language. It sounded interesting and as I am teaching myself pigeon archaic languages and cuneiform it worthied a recce.
Far from being a guide to how cuneiform works, though it does explain the methods, it really is an, almost, biography of the peoples who created these clay tablets and writings.
The stories and the detailed explanation gives a human side, of course they’re human, not some lizard being with magic wands. Despite the obvious records of war and victories, there are letters, many of which could have been written yesterday, they describe concerns about the ability of one person or another, general bitchiness, of course there are tablets grovelling homage to the King, but what is abundant is the humanity, us.
The stories are as fascinating as they are unexpected. Legends and Myths give way to concerns about, “Where’s my wheat delivery!”, “Why have you sent me Clay instead of straw !!!” “The astrologer is a buffoon.”
There are no incredible parting of the red seas, nor spacemen in flaming wheels of eyes, just everyday political intrigue and social commentary. Human existence for all its bare bones and beautiful mundane normality. However! let’s not be naïve, amongst all this seemingly soap opera everyday chitter chatter there is a wealth of superstition from the examples and description of entrails divination (haruspicy) to notions about what Mars entering Capricorn would mean, there are also lamentations and prayers, spells, curses and superstitions. Then there are of course, war correspondence, back patting, tributes and threats.
It wasn’t the book I thought it would be, I assumed I’d get a running commentary on the linguistics, the phonetics, the structure, there’d be a lexicon and a list of core words and sentences to learn, I assumed it would be a boring yawn as a guide to first learning, Sumerian/ Babylonian/ Akkadian Cuneiform and I was prepared for that, in fact that’s what I wanted. Instead, I have delved and spied into a scrying glass to witness visions of the ancients, eavesdropping conversations and peeping at personal letters berating a princess for not being good at her schoolwork.
There finishes an imagined day in the life of Ashurbanipal, King of Assyria, which condenses all the prior knowledge into one scene, and finally the aftermath of the end of cuneiform, which accounted for half of all written human history.
the book is not written in a scholarly or academic way, there’s no word salad, just a fantastic thoroughfare through the ancients world. Yes I could moan there’s not a formal guide to Cuneiform, there’s no linguistics, no dictionary as such but in fact, the whole book makes the pursuit to learn these archaic languages all the more intoxicating.
Copious Notes, Bibliography and Index for completion sake.
A great Archaeological find, a great unexpected treasure, let’s do a dance of finding gold.

Header Illustration: The Babylonian Marriage Market ~ Edwin long ~ 1875