The Sumerians needed to train a large body of scribes to carry out the administration of the empire, and for this purpose, schools were attached to most of the temples. Both boys and girls were taught how to write the cuneiform script, something that was not easily mastered. The script had hundreds of signs, many of which had more than one meaning. The students’ tablets that have been recovered indicate something of the immensity of the task. The student had to memorize long lists of signs together with their phonetic values, plus lists of ideograms, which represented a single word or idea. After that, the student had to learn grammar and practice writing short sentences.
Apart from learning to write the cuneiform script, students were taught mathematics. The counting system used by the Sumerians was the duodecimal system, which probably predated the Sumerian period. This system uses 12 (which is divisible by six, four, three, and two) as its basic unit rather than 10 (as in the metric system). Aspects of the Mesopotamian system survive to this day, however; for example, a circle is divided into 360 degrees, the year has 12 months, and there are 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute. The Sumerian students learned multiplication and division tables and were familiar with tables that gave square and cube roots. They were taught about weights and measures and how to calculate the area of an irregular plot of ground.
Other students studied to enter a specialized profession such as that of an architect. After graduation, some students would be employed by the temple, while others would go into the civil service or be employed by private individuals.
This dagger and gold sheath were found in the royal tombs at Ur.
See also:
The Babylonians (page 62)
World History
