Cuneiform Tablets

ISAAC MENDELSOHN

A BOUT twenty-two years ago Prof. Edward Chiera of the
/-\\ Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago wrote
A )\ a popular little volume describing the great finds dug
up by archaeologists in Iraq, Ancient Babylonia. The book was
published in 1938 under the title They Wrote on Clay, and since
then ten impressions of it have appeared—an extraordinary event
indeed! It demonstrates the fact that an essay dealing with a cul¬
ture that had its beginnings some 5000 years ago had aroused the
interest of such a large body of readers that it has almost become
a bestseller. Of course, the success of Chiera's book may be partly
ascribed to the fascination Ancient Babylonia has on the reading
public. Babylonia was part of "The Fertile Crescent" where stood
the cradle of Western Civilization, and it was an integral member
of "The Bible Lands." It was there that man made the first attempt
to reach the heavens by building "The Tower of Babel"; it was the
birth place of Abraham, the ultimate source of the later great reli¬
gions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and last, but not least,
in its territory was located "The Garden of Eden" in the Age of
Innocence.

The inhabitants of Babylonia (Sumerians in the third millen¬
nium and Semites in the second millennium B.C.) are credited with
the invention of practically every "first" in man's recorded his¬
tory: the first script, the first law code, the first epic composition,
the first mathematical and medical hand-books; they were also the
first city builders, and the first organizers of public schools. These
claims are not exaggerated. They are fully attested in the large
number of clay tablets written in cuneiform (wedge-shaped signs)
dating from the beginning of the third millennium B.C. to the
first century A.D.