No wonder they say that the greatest value on the date the information is.With the right information, people can do anything.They knew about it and our ancestors.Created thousands of years ago clay books prove that they tried to fix them all more or less valuable.
By the way, what is a clay of the book?If you do not know the answer to that question, we suggest you read this article.In it you will find answers to all their questions from the field.
Background
Today, scientists believe that the most ancient human civilization, which reached an all-time to his heyday, was Mesopotamia.It originated about seven thousand years before Christ, in a wonderfully successfully chosen place, in the valley of the merger of the great rivers - the Tigris and Euphrates.That this land was inhabited by strange and mysterious Sumerians, who called themselves the "people of the Blackheads."
Information breakthrough
Sumerians are known as the ancient astronomers.It astronomers, but not astrologers, which makes them the ancient teachings of our world.Their outstanding inventions became cuneiform.It is a system of writing, signs which look like ordinary bars, wedges.Due to this, their alphabetic system got its unusual name.
In those centuries the only available material for the letter was clay.Of course, something could be written on the skin.But!Firstly, dressed leather - a piece not cheap, even by today's standards.Secondly, people are well aware that the leather scroll would not survive a fire, the invasion of rodents or rainy period.Particularly concerned about this tax collectors, money-lenders, doctors ... In short, all those people whose work is directly dependent on the preservation of the information they receive.But what is the clay of the book?Of course, the data on the surface is much smaller ...
Technical information
fact is burnt clay tablets, the surface of which the scribes were applied before the information is to stick a soft billet into the furnace.Modern bricks, on the surface of which there is the stigma of the manufacturer, in fact - the same "book".
first "media" of this type were created four thousand years before the Christian era.The shape and size of these "books" were very different.Have been flat, convex, oval and square, "a book" ... Some of them were the size of a regular notebook, but it was the other diagonal greater than 45 centimeters!That's what the book clay.
how to create such a book?
technology was simple, even very, first scribe put prepared and formed the workpiece to a firm and level surface, and then, armed with a sharpened stick, began to squeeze out on the label of the cuneiform characters of the alphabet.His "handle" ancient scribe kept approximately the same way that today we are holding a pencil.Look at the children playing, something trying to write in the sandbox: in fact, they are likened to the ancient masters.
To ensure flatness and parallelism of clay applied to the characters, to start the tablet is often marked out using a taut string.Often the scribe filled not only the two sides of the book, but even he managed to put the information on its ends.Ancient "office workers" burned in the oven finished document.However, often unimportant "paper" simply dried in the sun.If for some reason, the clerk did not have time to finish their work in one go, it is wrapped in a wet cloth workpiece.
As people were guided in the set of tablets?Sumerian cuneiform
compact view of the letter was not.Naturally, to create a more or less extensive collection of decrees, the list of goods or something like that left dozens if not hundreds of clay tablets.How it was arranged by the "content" of these books?After all, an intuitive search was not there !?
The average Sumerian book and in fact consisted of a dozen baked tablets.From a position out - at the last character on the page we put a deep cross the line, and under it wrote book number, which is the continuation of the text.Names were often formed as of their first words.Is not it reminiscent of the option to save documents by default in the same Microsoft Word?
So we know what the clay books.And where it is kept all the wealth of the ancient world?As at present, for this purpose there library.So that the profession of librarian - one of the oldest and most respected in the world.
ancient library
All this is extremely important ... But where is the library of clay books?The one that was the first in the history of mankind?
Back in 1841 has shocked the French capital telegraphed message from Arabia: "I believe that my discovery of ancient buildings.Perhaps they can reasonably be attributed to the time of flowering of Nineveh. "The person who sent the message, was Paul-Emile Botta.He instructed the Asia Society in France to open a biblical Nineveh.Oddly enough, but he was able to do this, and the first library of clay books once again become available to mankind.
In just a few hours all the major newspapers of the time were full of sensational headlines reporting the greatest archaeological discoveries.And for such a fuss it had good reason: after all, but until that day the official science does not have any data that is at least as far as some would have left by the time of the ancient Egyptian pyramids.Among the finds was Botta and clay library books.The city of Nineveh, not only proved to be a reality, but also enriched the mankind the most valuable information, contained in the "pages" of unique clay tablets.
Library Assyria
In 1852, one of the greatest archaeologists of his time, Henry Austen Layard, too, surprised the world a unique discovery.He was able to dig out the last palace of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, which contemporaries respectfully called "House of guidance and advice."That there was a great intellectual value of those times - the great library of clay books, which the kings of Assyria collected throughout his reign.
historical paradox: almost three decades of valuable written monuments of bygone centuries were lying side by side in the basement of the British Museum.It was only after the first steps were made in deciphering the writings of ancient peoples, historians finally realized how valuable (but what's there, priceless!) Treasure aimlessly collecting dust in storage ... Since then began a systematic decoding of all found books.
great achievements Ashurbanipal
More than three thousand years separate us from the moment when the last king of warlike people dictated to his scribe, obscure words that have survived from the depths of centuries.He says that commanded to knock on the stone inscriptions, works of literary art that did not study and did not read his predecessors.King noted, he is proud of his ability to read and his command to divide the library into partitions.
By the way, what was the organization of library books clay?In principle, it is not much different from today.Of course, the division of genres was not, but the book just to sort by author, country and so on.. All the written sources were placed on huge racks.Library was headed by rangers.This is where there was a library of clay books, which opened the first modern civilization.
must say that remained of it not so much.Most of the books at that time was divided into separate shards, so that the transcript goes so far.
great stacks
must say that the name of Ashurbanipal knowingly survived the millennium.The fact that the king has shown himself to be extremely talented organizer, a clever politician and a man who were really interested in culture and science.It seems that in the complex for the time, another Assyrian emperor would hardly find time for such training.
He put a truly Herculean effort for his country came at the best time of clay library books.The city of Nineveh was the scientific and cultural center not only of Assyria, but of all the then existing countries.He issued a special decree, according to which the country began to drive hundreds of scribes, looking for all the patterns of verbal art.Finding such, they are of exactly copied and sent to the capital for storage.Here's how library books in clay Nineveh received the priceless book collection.
here get exact copies of texts written in ancient times in Egypt, and most of Assyria, Babylon and Akkad.When the library was found Botta, it was about 20,000 tiles.Modern scientists, who analyzed the data is preserved, deeply lamented, probably originally in the vaults of the repository have been at least 100 000 texts!Alas, they certainly lost our civilization forever.The famous library of clay books was powerless to force destructional time.
most valuable specimens of ancient storage
It soon became clear that the Assyrians and Babylonians knew the math.Already two thousand years before the Christian era of the scientists were able to solve very complex geometrical problems.In principle, the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon create no such calculations would be impossible, so researchers only confirmed in their conjecture.
where great value works on astronomy.Many of them were written almost a half thousand years before the time of Ashurbanipal.The value of these books is that for them it was easy to keep track of the development of astronomy in ancient times.It turned out that the ziggurats, who praised by many visionaries of our time, was the world's first observatory.Every year, the priests led them to monitor the movement of celestial bodies, accumulating invaluable knowledge.Their greatest thrill of a skid in the mud of the book, which is in the photo paper.
Ancient calendars
According to the information that scientists have of ancient books, the people of Assyria and Babylon were able to predict lunar and solar eclipses, perfectly aware of all the orbits of celestial bodies, which could be seen with the naked eye.Planet of the stars in those days they also have learned to distinguish.There are numerous tables with calculations of interstellar distances.Surprisingly, but many of them are quite accurate.It was not so long ago even wrote a famous Kazakh writer Suleimenov."Clay Book", his last work, the story is just about the old times.
Based on centuries-old observations of the Moon and the Sun priests made their calendar.He was incredibly valuable for those times, because it allowed to know the start time of sowing and harvesting of crops.Not surprisingly, astronomers Assyria and Babylon enjoyed such respect and honor in the ancient world.
geographical knowledge of the ancient
very interested ancient historians "geographical atlases", also found among the surviving books.Although the maps and were very primitive, for it is quite possible to know the outline of the land of Egypt to Urartu.Assyrians have turned even the geography of this handbook, which indicates the names of countries and their capitals, the names of rivers and large geographic areas.However, on the device of the world they knew very little, mostly guided by fantastic theories.
For clay the first books on the geography of our world is viewed as the center of all things.However, almost the same thoughts were the scientists of the Middle Ages, so there is nothing surprising.
Medical Branch
Better yet, it was evident from the preserved medical treatises.Civilization Assyrians and Babylonians still believed that diseases are caused solely by evil spirits.The book contains a lot of spells to expel the latter.Historians have found even the authoritative opinion of the healer of those times, who reported on the need to fashion a clay image of a demon that torments the patient's body.After this doll urge to destroy.
Oddly, but in such conditions has reached startling heights of surgery.Thus, the medical books on clay tablets considering even very difficult (including by modern standards) abdominal surgery.However, the Assyrians have reached such heights in everything: in the work of physicians of the period considered the heart as a "repository of the soul," and the role of the brain in general people did not suspect anything.
