Criteria for the canonization will be analyzed: was there a standard for number and order of tablets and their content? Did canonized texts have special designations? Did they use a specific vocabulary? In addition, the research focuses on the types of texts that were canonized (in contrast to those that were not continued in this way). In this context, the transmission of Sumerian and Akkadian literature is also significant. In order to gain access to the respective structures, the rulers who ordered these works, which institutions were central in transmitting knowledge and the relation of the individual experts to these institutions.
The Function of Canonization in the Transmission of Knowledge in Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia has left us one of the oldest cultures of written knowledge. From the end of the 4th millennium BCE until the third century CE, texts were recorded in cuneiform script. Since the decipherment of the cuneiform script at the end of the 19th century, a large number of scholarly texts from Mesopotamia have been discovered. These texts, which were collected in libraries and archives and mainly belong to the disciplines of mathematics, astronomy, medicine and divination, are the basis of this project on the transmission of knowledge. The aim is to analyze the ways of transmitting knowledge in Mesopotamia, and which instruments were used in collecting and transmitting written knowledge. The project focuses on the canonization of texts from the Neo-Assyrian period, especially during the 7th century BCE, which in some instances document the existence of large compendia and whose written predecessors may go back as far as the Old Babylonian period (19th-16th centuries BCE).
