LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA - Presentation.pdf

History of the Library LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA Scholars commonly believe that civilization began in the fertile valley called Mesopotamia, which means land between rivers. It is located between Rivers Tigris and Euphrates in the Middle East. The valley was one of the progressi...

History of the Library LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA Scholars commonly believe that civilization began in the fertile valley called Mesopotamia, which means land between rivers. It is located between Rivers Tigris and Euphrates in the Middle East. The valley was one of the progressive areas in the ancient world and the cradle of civilization, flourishing for more than 5,000 years. The Sumerians were the first to live in this valley before others joined them. They were farmers. The soil of this valley was so fertile that crops were cultivated three times a year and it attracted people from far and near, who settled to farm.  LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT IN SUMERIA (6,000-2,500 B.C) According to scholars, Sumerians were the first to settle in southern Mesopotamia between the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates, sometimes called the ‘fertile crescent’ which flows from the ‘Persian Gulf’ to the ‘Dead Sea’. The Sumerians were known to be agrarians; they farmed to earn a living. They developed many novel ideas for agriculture by building canals and ditches. They used wheeled plows drawn by oxen, grew barley and wheat, and domesticated sheep and cattle. National Geographic Society (1984) reveals that their astronomers invented a prototype clock called the ‘Sun dial’ with which they used to reckon time. They were credited with dividing the day into twenty-four hours. Imeremba (2000) reported that in order to understand themselves, the Sumerians invented the writing language called “CUNEIFORM,” which means “wedge-shaped.” this style of writing lasted for many thousand years over large areas and could be used by only those who had an extended education through years of several efforts of practice. It is recorded that the Sumerians had great cities like Nippur, Kish and Ur as early as 4000 BC. Each city has a Tower-Temple which is an exalted position next to the king’s palace and there were lots of conflict between these cities. Every city in Sumeria, had gods & goddesses: their central life was in the Shrine/Temples. This means that, the three (3) cardinal aspects of the society was in the temples : (i) Education (ii) Religion (iii) Government. Their school system was called “Temple School”. By this arrangement, the priests, who were the custodians of these temples, were to govern, perform the religious rites and educate the citizenry. To keep and maintain accurate record in the three areas (religion, education & government), and for proper accountability to the gods and the people, the priest needed to record routine activities in the temples. Since there were no writing materials, they used the following to write: Tree back , Clay, tablets, Prism, Walls and rocks. To secure these, they carved out a place in these temples and stored them.  LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT IN BABYLON (2,500-1,100 B.C) According to Imeremba, (2000), the Babylonians had a library located at Borsipa, this library contents have served as the major sources of our knowledge of Babylonian life. They also built schools with fired mud. The main subject taught was writing, the pupils learnt to write on pieces of clay with a red pen or stylus. The practice was to keep a lump of clay by the school gate so that each pupil can collect a pile and flattened it and to scribble the wedge-shape writing. At the end of the exercise, the clay was crumpled up and thrown back to the lump. Their expertise knowledge in building towering temples was a legacy from the Sumerians. It was believed that the ‘tower of Babel of the bible was indeed ‘Tower of Babylon’. All that was invented by Sumerians were still in used at this period including their method of writing and later, they were conquered by the Assyrians civilization.  LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT IN ANCIENT EGYPT (4000BC) The Egyptians invented from their farms, a better writing material called “PAPYRUS”. This papyrus reed is a plant that originally grew wild and was carefully cultivated. Each of their city state has its own gods & goddess, they were idle worshippers, as such, their central life was in the temple. They had Temple and private libraries. The Egyptians started these recordings by the means of picture writting called Hieroglyphics. It is gotten from two words, (i) hiero - sacred (ii) Glyphics – carving/writing – therefore, hieroglyphics means “sacred carving”. One of the popular Egyptian libraries was found at Thebes, which was established by King Ramses II, called Ramesium library, it had 20,000 collections and beard in the entrance the inscription “a place of healing for the soul”. The house of papyrus was found in the ‘Temple of shi (god of intelligence) at Edfu. Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt in AD 1800, his soldiers dug and discovered a large stone called Rosetta. The stone is a book that contained writings in three languages. It is currently in the British Museum. Another important library in Egypt was the Alexandria library.  THE ALEXANDRIA LIBRARY: Alexandria today is the chief seaport in Egyptian province founded by Alexander the Great in 315 B.C which Greece captured during the reign of Alexander the Great. It was named after Alexander the Great. When Alexander died, his fortunes were shared among his loyalist – Alexandra was given to the first Ptolemy called Sotor. The Alexandria library nourished for several hundreds of years and has tremendously influenced on the cultural development of the Hellenic world. Historians opined that the Alexandria library was burnt by fire from the ships that berth at the seaport. Another story had it that it was destroyed during the Julius Caesar’s attack. THE MEDIEVAL ERA  The medieval era also known as middle era, was the period after the collapse of Rome to the Renaissance in the 15th century. This collapse was due to the combined attack by the Italians, Hungarians, and other Arabic world which defeated Rome. The Medieval ages were times of war and conflicts between cities and kings. Germans fled to Rome and later the Romans fled to Egypt to escape destruction as the pagans advanced. This period is divided into two: (i) Upper medieval era called The Dark Ages (5 – 11 century) (ii) Lower medieval era (11 – 14 century). This period is called dark ages because nothing is known about it. This age turn out to be a formative stage in which the traditions of Barbarians who conquered Rome, that of the Christians and the traditions of the Romans were pieced together into a new civilization. It was a time characterized by: Insecurity to life and properties, No peace, No appetite to read or learn, Church took over education and governance. Between the 7th – 10th centuries, the Monasteries were the centers of learning. In Europe, they restored, maintained and raise the standard of civilization by preserving elementary education and scholarship, spreading the useful arts and maintaining libraries. (Udo-Ayanwu, (2016). PRINTING WITH MOVEABLE TYPES: The first man to produce moveable types was Johann Gutenberg, from Mainz in Germany in 1454 while William Caxton introduced it in USA in 1474/1476. Before this time, printing was first done in china with woods by a Chinese alchemist, named Pi-Sheng. Most of the materials produced at this time were religious books. The first book produced by chinese, was “Diamond Sutra” a 42 lines Bible. Books dated before 1501 is called INCUNABULA (Amadi, et al..2009).  The Production and establishment of printing with moveable type paved way for development and growth of modern libraries and librarianship through the production and re-production of books and other information resource.  LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT IN AMERICA America, which was colonized by Britain, was formerly a place for resettling the excess population from Britain, which was caused by increased intake of slaves. The plantation farming culminated in the upsurge of slaves in the West Indices. By this arrangement, the population of Britain stretched its bound. Therefore, to reduce it to a manageable size, miscreants, criminals and other unwanted persons were sent to a place which Christopher Columbus called “America”.  Among the possessions which the early settlers brought to America were books, which varied in subjects as well as in number. The books were to satisfy their quest for reading and for education. The first school there, begun in 1683, taught reading, writing and accounts. More advanced training on classical language, history, literature, was offered at the Friends Public School, which operated in Philadelphia as the William Penn Charter School. Benjamin Franklin formed a club known as the Junta, which was the embryo of the American Philosophical Society.  His Endeavour led, too, to the founding of public academy that later become the University of Pennsylvania. He established a Subscription Library which he called “the mother of all north American subscription libraries” (American Library Association, 1993 & Embassy of the United States of America).