EDUCATION

SYSTEM OF
BABYLON AND
ASSYRIA
Neil Trezley S. Balajadia
 • Assyria was an ancient
Babylon King of the Northern

and Mesopotamia centered

on the cities of Ashur and
Assyria Nineveh. Babylon was an
ancient city which ruled
over Southern
Mesopotamia.
BABYLON
 Babylon
• Babylonia was situated in the area
known as Mesopotamia (Greek for
“between the rivers”). Mesopotamia
was in the Near East in roughly the
same geographical position as
modern Iraq. Two great rivers flowed
through this land: Tigris and
Euphrates. Along these two rivers
were many great trading cities such as
Ur and Babylon on the Euphrates.
Babylon
• Babylon is the most famous city
from ancient Mesopotamia
whose ruins lie in modern-day
Iraq 59 miles (94 kilometres)
southwest of Baghdad. The
name is thought to derive from
bav-il or bav-ilimwhich, in the
Akkadian language of the time,
meant ‘Gate of God’ or `Gate of
the Gods’ and `Babylon’ coming
from Greek.
 • Education was first established for
Ancient the purpose of training the
scribes, a person who writes
Babylonia books or documents by hand as a

– Schools profession and helps keep track of

records. This was necessary to
satisfy the economic and
administrative needs of the land,
primarily, of course, those of the
temple and palace.
 • By the time of Hammurapi (1792-
Ancient 60) the language of Sumerian had
Babylonia – been replaced by Akkadian as the
Schools commonly spoken language in
Babylonia but Sumerian was still
used for nearly all religious texts. It
was therefore necessary to train
students, not only in the script,
cuneiform, but in the language as
well.
 • The students' education
Ancient would begin when he was
eight or nine years old. Each
Babylonia day he would get up at sunrise
– Schools and go to school, which was
commonly known as the
tablet house. At the tablet
house there would be a man
like a schoolmaster. His title
literally meant "the Expert."
 • The Sumerian term é-dub-ba-a

Ancient (Akkadian bīt ṭuppi), "the house of

the tablets" (or lit. in Sumerian, "the

Babylonia house where tablets are allotted"),

stands for school, library and

– Schools scriptorium at the same time.

• The function of the edubba was two-
fold: to train the scribe in the skills of
his profession, equipping him to
record day-to-day affairs; and to
maintain and hand down the huge
Mesopotamian cultural heritage.
 • Modern scholars, while
Ancient reconstructing the Old
Babylonian scribal curriculum,
Babylonia have identified two clearly
distinguished stages of
– Schools education. In the earlier stage,
students were introduced to the
cuneiform writing system as well
as metrology. This included
Sumerian vocabulary, grammar,
as well as sentence structure.
 • In contrast, during the second stage,

Ancient when advanced literary texts were

copied, the students were more

Babylonia autonomous and did not have a

master's model to copy. Not all the
– Schools scribes continued onto the advanced
curriculum. Whoever intended to
specialize in a particular
administrative field, such as legal
affairs, palace or temple
administration, etc., did not need to
widen his knowledge of literary texts.
Cuneiform
 • Mesopotamian education was a

Cuneiform cornerstone of elite life for all empires

that dwelt in the Fertile Crescent.
The first schools were started by the
Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia.
The invention of writing in the mid-
4th millennium B.C. made kings and
priests realize the need for educating
scribes. At first, the writing was
simple pictograms, but it gradually
developed into cuneiform, wedge-
shaped marks inscribed on clay.
 • The wedge shapes were due to
Cuneiform the triangle-shaped tip of the
stylus, a reed used as a pen. With
the invention of writing, the
Sumerians began to record
everything they saw: business
records, inventories,
observations of daily life,
religious hymns, poems, stories,
palace orders and temple
records.
 • It took 12 years to learn the
Cuneiform cuneiform marks and the general
knowledge of scribes. Temples
established schools in which to
educate boys as scribes and
priests. At first, scribal schools
were aligned with the temples,
but gradually secular schools
took over. Established scribes
opened schools and charged
costly tuition.
 • The costly tuition ensured that only

Cuneiform boys of wealthy families could afford

to acquire any level of Mesopotamian
education. The sons of the nobility,
government officials, priests and rich
merchants went to school from dawn
to dusk each day. Due to the
difficulty in learning cuneiform
script, few Sumerians were literate,
although they could probably
recognize some common words.
 • Boys probably started school when they

Cuneiform
were seven or eight years old. Learning
scribal skills was hard work. Girls did not
learn to read or write unless they were a
king’s daughters or were training as
priestesses. Teachers, mostly former
scribes or priests, were harsh
disciplinarians; mistakes were often
punished by whipping. Teachers
punished students who spoke out of
turn, spoke without permission, dressed
inappropriately, or got up and left
without permission. They expected
students to be obedient as well as hard
working.
ASSYRIA
 •The Assyria, kingdom of
Assyria northern Mesopotamia
that became the center
of one of the great
empires of the ancient
Middle East. It was
located in what is now
northern Iraq and
Southeastern Turkey.
 • The daily life of the
Daily Assyrians is much akin to

life in that of the Babylonian

people. The only difference
Assyria is that war a very central
way of life in Assyria while
it was not as important in
civilization such as
Babylonia.
 • Education was applied to the
Assyrian upper classes, mainly to the
priests and scribes. Schools were
Education attached to the temples. Only
boys went to school. It was not
available to the public. As with
women, they were not allowed
to go to school or become a
scribe. Their schools were usually
attached to the town temple
which shows the large role that
religion played in daily life.
 • Language – they spoke a
Assyrian dialect of Akkadian language
• 1st inscriptions, called “Old
Education Assyrian?”, were made during
Old Assyria
• Aramaic language became
common during the Neo –
Assyria
• Wrote using a cuneiform
script.
Akkadian
language
 • The walls of Babylon were once
considered one of the Wonders of the
Interesting Ancient World.
Facts about • May have invented the simple machine
Mesopotamian called “Archimedes Screw”. This would
help raise the water to the heights
Technology needed for plants in the famous Hanging
Gardens of Babylon
• The Assyrians developed glasswork as
well as glazes for pottery and art to help
it last longer
• 18 different canals have been found that
brought water to the Assyrian Empire
capital of Nineveh
Hanging Gardens Archimedes’ Screw
 – https://www.bible-
history.com/babylonia/BabyloniaGeography.ht
References m
– https://www.ancient.eu/babylon/
– https://www.bible-
history.com/babylonia/BabyloniaSchools.htm
– https://www.historyonthenet.com/mesopotami
an-education-and-schools/
– http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/obmc/oldbaby
lonianschool/index.html
– https://www.Britannica.com/place/Assyria
– https://Webserver.sms.org/intranet/classes/hist
ory/worldhist/Mesopotamia/Assyrians/daily_lif
e_in_Assyria.html
•Thank you
for listening
and
Godbless