Scribal school (edubba) and written curriculum

What it is

Teaching institution with a master, assistants and pupils who memorised sign lists, word lists, mathematical tables and canonical literary texts, copying onto practice tablets. It is the first formal school and the first standardised curriculum.

The oldest school tablets come from Shuruppak (Fara) and Abu Salabikh (c. 2600 BCE).

What it led to

• A class of literate officials recruited by school merit and not only by lineage
• Sumerian literary canon copied and preserved for centuries after the language died
• Transmission of mathematical knowledge and word lists (proto-science) throughout the Near East
• Texts about school life, the first literature on education

Built on

• Clay tabletc. 3300 BCE
• Cuneiform writingc. 3200 BCE
• Accounting ledgers and balancesc. 3100 BCE

Made possible

• Written epic literature (Gilgamesh)c. 2100 BCE
• Positional number notationc. 2000 BCE
• Lexical lists and dictionaries
• Written literature (Gilgamesh)
• Babylonian mathematics
• Egyptian House of Life

Links