Paul Delnero, Associate Professor of Assyriology, Johns Hopkins University
As showcased in the exhibit “Back to School in Babylonia” at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, there is a wealth of evidence for education in ancient Mesopotamia exceeding that of any culture or period of the ancient or pre-modern world. At the city of Nippur, the religious center of Mesopotamia in the early second millennium BCE, and at “House F” in particular, the entire sequence of lists and texts that were taught to pupils learning to read and write can be reconstructed from the beginning until the end of their training. By studying the thousands of exercise copies produced by Mesopotamian pupils at different stages in their education a vivid picture emerges of not only what students learned, but also how and why they learned it. In this talk an overview of what has, and what can still be discovered by examining the discarded homework of pupils almost 4000 years ago will be presented to paint a portrait of a day in the life of a Mesopotamian student.
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