Decad (Sumerian Texts)
The Decad is a name given to a standard sequence of ten scribal training compositions in ancient Sumer. Sources and evidence The grouping of compositions known as the Decad is attested in several literary catalogues of tablets dating to Mesopotamia's Old Babylonian period. Sumerian literary catalogues were lists of literary compositions recorded by their initial lines or incipits. While literary catalogues were normally used for administration of a library, the Decad is argued to have been written on curricular tablets. The best attestation of the Decad is on a tablet originating in ancient Nippur and now stored at the University Museum in Philadelphia (referred to in this article as P). This tablet lists sixty-two Sumerian literary compositions in all (fifty-five of which have been identified and translated.), organized into six groups of about ten entries each. The first group of ten compositions comprises the Decad. Another curricular list (L), of unknown origin and cur ...
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Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of civilization in the world, along with ancient Egypt, Elam, the Caral-Supe civilization, Mesoamerica, the Indus Valley civilisation, and ancient China. Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Sumerian farmers grew an abundance of grain and other crops, the surplus from which enabled them to form urban settlements. Proto-writing dates back before 3000 BC. The earliest texts come from the cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr, and date to between c. 3500 and c. 3000 BC. Name The term "Sumer" ( Sumerian: or , Akkadian: ) is the name given to the language spoken by the "Sumerians", the ancient non- Semitic-speaking inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia, by their successors the East Semitic-speaking Akkadians. The Sumerians ...
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