Coda

Abstract

AbstractCuneiform, the script invented in southern Babylonia in the late fourth millennium BC, was soon used there to write two very distinct languages, Sumerian and Akkadian, as well as the two combined in bilingual texts. Part I of this book showed that already in the third millennium the script and languages became the only acceptable means to record highly literate materials throughout the Near East. Irrespective of what language writers throughout the region spoke, they all contributed to the preservation and development of Babylonian literate culture. The upheavals of 1200 BC ended this cosmopolitan system, however, and triggered a new world in which vernaculars became acceptable means of literate expression. That new world will be discussed in Part II.