Revisiting the Early Uses of Writing in Society Building: Cuneiform Culture and the Chinese Imperium.

Charles Bazerman

doi:10.29344/0717621X.46.3156

Autores/as

Charles Bazerman University of California Santa Barbara

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29344/0717621X.46.3156

Palabras clave:

China, culture, social uses of writing, law, scribes, Sumeria, writing history

Resumen

Recent studies of ancient documents illuminate how writing transformed governance, law, and culture in the two earliest re- gions where writing emerged: Mesopotamia and China. By 3000 BCE the profession of scribes had emerged in Sumeria, with scri- bes soon becoming central in finances, accounting, government, administration, law, courts, astronomy, agriculture, land surve- ying and ownership, magic and divination, medicine, literature, and prayers. An elite urban scribal culture supported the repu- tation, power, and administration of royalty and royal states. In China the Qin and Han dynasties created a unified state and ex- tended regulatory control over a large empire through a standar- dized written language, regulation, documentation, monitoring, and administration by literates. The hierarchical state enforced coherence and unity among layers of government administra- tors through systems of written regulation, documentation, and review backed by highly restrictive laws and draconian punish- ments. Ordinary inhabitants were documented, regulated, and held in geographic locales through registration; attempting to avoid documentary control by unauthorized travel was itself a crime of abscondence. In both regions literacy concentrated land ownership, property, and wealth in privileged and powerful classes. Ideology, beliefs, knowledge, and values become articu- lated, spread, maintained, and enforced through literate means,including religious artistic, social, and educational formations, as they continue to today.

Citas

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