| # | Polity | Coded Value | Tags | Year(s) | Edit | Desc |
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Old English poems. The heroic poem Beowulf is believed to be dated from the seventh or eighth century, though some scholars now suggest it may be from a slightly later period.
[1]
[1]: (Yorke 1990: 22) York, Barbara. 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203447307. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/YXTNCWJN |
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“Although the ancient people of the Southwest didn’t have a written language, they had effective ways to communicate.”
[1]
[1]: (“Chaco Culture - Communication”) “Chaco Culture” NPS Museum Collections, accessed May 8, 2023, https://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/chcu/index6.html. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NMRVDA5I |
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"The Indus civilization flourished for around five hundred to seven hundred years, and in the early second millennium it disintegrated. This collapse was marked by the disappearance of the features that had distinguished the Indus civilization from its predecessors: writing, city dwelling, some kind of central control, international trade, occupational specialization, and widely distributed standardized artifacts. [...] Writing was no longer used, though occasionally signs were scratched as graffiti on pottery."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2008, 91-92) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Civilization. Oxford; Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio. |
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"According to the Sanguo zhi [Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms], because Kebineng’s lands were near the Chinese border, many Chinese people (Zhongguo ren 中國人) fled the warlord depredations of late Han and Three Kingdoms China to join Kebineng, teaching the Xianbei how to make Chinese-style arms and armor, and even introducing some literacy."
[1]
[1]: (Holcombe 2013, 7-8) |
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Possehl states that there was no writing before the urban phase in the Indus valley.
[1]
While seals have been found in Mehrgarh III layers, these show no evidence of script or writing.
[2]
[1]: Gregory L. Possehl. The Indus Civilization. A Contemporary Perspective. Walnut Creek, Altamira, 2002, p. 51. [2]: , C. A. (in press) Chapter 11, Case Study: Mehrgarh. In, Barker, G and Goucher, C (eds.) Cambridge World History, Volume 2: A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE - 500 CE. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’
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Detailed documentation of life in the Valley of Oaxaca were written only after the Spanish conquest in the 1520s.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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Written records were introduced by colonial authorities and missions.
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’
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Languages spoken in Rwanda were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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The following quote characterises the people of Tanganyika (the broader region of which Buhaya formed part) as "pre-literate" in the early 19th century. "We do not know what inland Tanganyikans believed in the early nineteenth century. They were pre-literate, and the religions of pre-literate peoples not only leave little historical evidence but are characteristically eclectic, mutable, and unsystematic."
[1]
[1]: (Iliffe 1979: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SB2AJMVC/collection. |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’
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"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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Languages spoken in Rwanda were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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Languages spoken in this polity were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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The following quote characterises the people of Tanganyika (the broader region of which Karagwe formed part) as "pre-literate" in the early 19th century. "We do not know what inland Tanganyikans believed in the early nineteenth century. They were pre-literate, and the religions of pre-literate peoples not only leave little historical evidence but are characteristically eclectic, mutable, and unsystematic."
[1]
[1]: (Iliffe 1979: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SB2AJMVC/collection. |
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"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words."
[1]
[1]: (Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection. |
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"None of the native peoples developed a system of writing comparable to that of the Mayas, and much less would the Spaniards encounter a native empire such as that of either the Aztecs or Incas. By 1500 A.D., the most advanced of the indigenous peoples were two Chibcha groups: the Taironas and the Muiscas."
[1]
[1]: (Hudson 2010, 5) |
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None of the native peoples developed a system of writing comparable to that of the Mayas, and much less would the Spaniards encounter a native empire such as that of either the Aztecs or Incas. By 1500 A.D., the most advanced of the indigenous peoples were two Chibcha groups: the Taironas and the Muiscas."
[1]
[1]: (Hudson 2010, 5) |
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“The question as to the manner in which a record of the age of these children was kept by a people who had no writing, poses itself here.”
[1]
[1]: HERSKOVITS, M. J. (1932). POPULATION STATISTICS IN THE KINGDOM OF DAHOMEY. Human Biology, 4(2), 252–261: 258. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8T74FM7D/collection |
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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The earliest phonetic hieroglyphic writing was found in the tomb J at the Abytos Cemetary U - on the pottery vessels and small bone/ivory labels
[1]
. They are dated to Naqada IIIA. But it should be noticed that already in Naqada I, signs similar to hieroglyphs have been found, especially on the pottery vessels (pot marks). However "none of these signs hints at the existence of phonograms, phonetic complements or detenninatives" and "the absence of an important component of the hieroglyphic writing system does not allow us to designate these signs as "hieroglyphic writing""
[2]
. It can be rather treated as an abstract symbolic system
[3]
[1]: Köhler, E. C. "Theories of State Formation". [in:] Wendrich, W. [ed.]. Egyptian Archaeology. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing. pg: 41. [2]: Kahl, J. "Hieroglyphic Writing During the Fourth Millennium BC: an Analysis of Systems". Archeo-NiI 11 (2001); 122, 124. [3]: Meza, A. 2012. ANCIENT EGYPT BEFORE WRITING: From Markings to Hieroglyphs. Bloomington: Xlibris Corporation. pg: 25. |
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The earliest phonetic hieroglyphic writing was found in the tomb J at the Abytos Cemetary U - on the pottery vessels and small bone/ivory labels
[1]
. They are dated to Naqada IIIA. But it should be noticed that already in Naqada I, signs similar to hieroglyphs have been found, especially on the pottery vessels (pot marks). However "none of these signs hints at the existence of phonograms, phonetic complements or detenninatives" and "the absence of an important component of the hieroglyphic writing system does not allow us to designate these signs as "hieroglyphic writing""
[2]
. It can be rather treated as an abstract symbolic system
[3]
[1]: Köhler, E. C. "Theories of State Formation". [in:] Wendrich, W. [ed.]. Egyptian Archaeology. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing. pg: 41. [2]: Kahl, J. "Hieroglyphic Writing During the Fourth Millennium BC: an Analysis of Systems". Archeo-NiI 11 (2001); 122, 124. [3]: Meza, A. 2012. ANCIENT EGYPT BEFORE WRITING: From Markings to Hieroglyphs. Bloomington: Xlibris Corporation. pg: 25. |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’.
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ lists no mnemonic devices or nonwritten records or ’True writing, no writing’
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“Since the end of the 15th century, a great deal of material about Benin has been supplied by sailors, traders, etc., returning to Europe. However, information on the Edo people before this date is very difficult to obtain, as there was no written record and the oral record is at best rather fragmentary.”
[1]
“The theme of this study presses the sources for the reconstruction of Benin military history to its limits because written documents scarcely exist, except for the reports and accounts of European visitors.”
[2]
[1]: Bondarenko, Dmitri M., and Peter M. Roese. ‘Benin Prehistory: The Origin and Settling down of the Edo’. Anthropos 94, no. 4/6 (1999): 542–52: 542. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Y4V3D623/collection [2]: Osadolor, O. B. (2001). The Military System of Benin Kingdom, c.1440–1897. University of Hamburg, Germany: 27–28. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/N4RZF5H5/collection |
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).”
[1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ lists no mnemonic devices or nonwritten records or ’True writing, no writing’ We need to ascertain what Shira means by ’secular literature’.
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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Inferred from the fact that fiction is not mentioned by sources among the many, many literary achievements of Rashtrakuta intellectuals.
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The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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The following quote characterises the people of Tanganyika (the broader region of which the Fipa formed part) as "pre-literate" in the early 19th century. "We do not know what inland Tanganyikans believed in the early nineteenth century. They were pre-literate, and the religions of pre-literate peoples not only leave little historical evidence but are characteristically eclectic, mutable, and unsystematic."
[1]
[1]: (Iliffe 1979: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SB2AJMVC/collection. |
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Languages spoken in Rwanda were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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"Documentary sources also become very scarce."
[1]
[1]: (Beaulieu 2017, 7Beaulieu, Paul-Alain. 2017. A History of Babylon, 2200 BC - AD 75. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/5T3ZBRQT. |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase occurred 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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"Notably, none of these documents is a poem, a hymn, a collection of sayings, a mythological narration, a chronicle, a manual, or indeed any other sort of literary or technical composition."
[1]
[1]: (Robin 2015: 92) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In Arabs and Empires before Islam, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www-oxfordscholarship-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654529.001.0001/acprof-9780199654529-chapter-3. |
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No references found in the consulted literature to a written form of Nri that doesn’t use the Latin alphabet. “If these are the problems to be faced in languages that have written form hundreds of years ago one cannot imagine what problems there are in dealing with languages whose written forms are yet to be established.”
[1]
[1]: Onwuejeogwu, M. A. (1975). Some Fundamental Problems in the Application of Lexicostatistics in the Study of African Languages. Paideuma, 21, 6–17: 10. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/IISK3KCM/collection |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase occurred 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase occurred 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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There are lack of evidences suggesting that the writing system has been already invented.
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No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “Another question arising from the incidence of credit in both the local economy and the overseas trade is the nature of the indigenous system of recordkeeping. In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”). Several later accounts allude to other mechanical devices for keeping financial (and fiscal) records in Dahomey.”
[1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase occurred 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
"Similarly, official poet laureates were unknown, but poetry composition and recitation was a major virtue of courtly life and manners (Morris 1964)."
[2]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. [2]: (Steinhart 1978: 143) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. |
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Languages spoken in Rwanda were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
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Certainly absent.
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"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words."
[1]
Languages spoken in this polity were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[2]
[1]: (Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection. [2]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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"Notably, none of these documents is a poem, a hymn, a collection of sayings, a mythological narration, a chronicle, a manual, or indeed any other sort of literary or technical composition."
[1]
[1]: (Robin 2015: 92) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In Arabs and Empires before Islam, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZMFH42PE. |
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"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[1]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[2]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[3]
[1]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [3]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
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Glyphs dating to this period have been deciphered as either calendrical dates or the names of prisoners. Sources do not suggest that evidence for other types of writing has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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|
"Notably, none of these documents is a poem, a hymn, a collection of sayings, a mythological narration, a chronicle, a manual, or indeed any other sort of literary or technical composition."
[1]
[1]: (Robin 2015: 92) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In Arabs and Empires before Islam, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www-oxfordscholarship-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654529.001.0001/acprof-9780199654529-chapter-3. |
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Christianity had a major impact on Icelandic literary tradition: ’By the end of the 10th century, the Norwegians were forced by their king, Olaf I Tryggvason, to accept Christianity. The king also sent missionaries to Iceland who, according to 12th-century sources, were highly successful in converting the Icelanders. In 999 or 1000 the Althing made a peaceful decision that all Icelanders should become Christians. In spite of this decision, the godar retained their political role, and many of them probably built their own churches. Some were ordained, and as a group they seem to have closely controlled the organization of the new religion. Two bishoprics were established, one at Skálholt in 1056 and the other at Hólar in 1106. Literate Christian culture also transformed lay life. Codification of the law was begun in 1117-18. Later the Icelanders began to write sagas, which were to reach their pinnacle of literary achievement in the next century.’
[1]
The received written records associated with the saga literature do not predate the introduction of Christianity: ’According to most authors writing was introduced to Iceland when the country was Christianized in the year 1000. In the two centuries that followed, writing was used for many purposes: religious works, a grammar, a law book and a short history. Most of the family sagas were written in the thirteenth century. The saga with which I am concerned, Eyrbyggja saga (ÍF 4), is commonly believed to have been written between 1230-1250 (Schach & Hollander 1959:xx). I shall deal only with a part of this saga, which I have called the Þórgunna story (ÍF 4, ch. 49-55). I consider the Þórgunna story a myth. Anthropologists believe that myths contain hidden messages in symbolic forms. According to Malinowski (1926) myths are social charters. Lévi-Strauss (1963) argues that myths have a binary structure and that their oppositions explore contradictions in social and other relations.’
[2]
’The Poetic Edda, a collection of verses compiled by an Icelander in the last half of the thirteenth century, offers another view into the worldview of the period by indicating what its compiler(s) found valuable. Scribal errors suggest it was not written from memory or dictation, but copied from at least two manuscripts. Paleographic evidence suggests that these two source manuscripts are not older than the beginning of the thirteenth century and must have been written by different scribes. Nothing is known of its provenance or compilation or composition. Linguistic evidence suggests the verses do not predate the ninth century (Hollander 1962).’
[3]
’Icelanders began writing sagas about 230 years after the first “official” settler arrived around 874. Icelanders were widely traveled and could not have avoided contact with writing. Writing was independently invented several times to keep records of time, people, wealth, the business of all states, and then to record religious and “historical” documents, also the business of states. [Page 106] Nonstate peoples, on the margins of states, appropriate writing when they need to write.’
[4]
However, fiction is difficult to define in this context: ’Before the twelfth century fiction was only present as oral tradition. From the twelfth century and especially the thirteenth century written fictional literature was present. However, it is difficult to distinguish fiction from unreliable history. King Sverrir of Norway (ca. 1200) enjoyed what he called lygisögur (lie sagas) even if others may have been less sceptical. Example: Hrómundar saga Gripssonar. In Sturlu þáttur (part of Sturlunga saga) we learn of an Icelandic lord at the Norwegian court (in 1263) entertaining by telling the story of Huld the giantess. These were sagas later classified as fornaldarsögur (legendary sagas) although it is unclear whether these were actual written texts (Huldar saga probably was although it no longer exists). An abundance of such stories were certainly committed to writing later on. No doubt many of these were entirely made up although some preserve legendary material. There were also chivalric romances, imported, translated and, at least eventually, created in Iceland. It is uncertain how much of this material was present before 1262. Poetry was also abundant and can be found for example in the two Eddas and incorporated into many sagas.’
[5]
The codebook may be in need of modifications as it is difficult to distinguish fiction from other genres in non-modern settings.
[1]: http://www.britannica.com/place/Iceland/Government-and-society#toc10088 [2]: Odner, Knut 1992. “Þógunna’S Testament: A Myth For Moral Contemplation And Social Apathy”, 125 [3]: Durrenberger, E. Paul 1992. “Dynamics Of Medieval Iceland: Political Economy And Literature”, 93 [4]: Durrenberger, E. Paul 1992. “Dynamics Of Medieval Iceland: Political Economy And Literature”, 105 [5]: Árni Daniel Júlíusson and Axel Kristissen 2017, pers. comm. to E. Brandl and D. Mullins |
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The first written records in the Valley of Oaxaca are from the Rosario phase (700-500 BCE).
[1]
[2]
Written records are therefore coded as absent for this period.
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. [2]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London. |
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The first written records in the Valley of Oaxaca are from the Rosario phase (700-500 BCE).
[1]
[2]
Written records are therefore coded as absent for this period.
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. [2]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London. |
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The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
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|
"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[1]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[2]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[3]
[1]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [3]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
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|
"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[1]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[2]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[3]
[1]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [3]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
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|
"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[1]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[2]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[3]
[1]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [3]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
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Scholars use oral tradition to help reconstruct life in the Segou kingdom.
[1]
The polity may not have used written documents but there were written documents in the semi-autonomous, Islamic ’marka’ towns, populated by Soninke and other Mande-speakers.
[1]: (Monroe and Ogundiran 2012) J Cameron Monroe. Akinwumi Ogundiran. Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa. J Cameron Monroe. Akinwumi Ogundiran. eds. 2012. Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa: Archaeological Perspectives.Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. |
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c500 CE and after: "It may be assumed that by then some of the Juan-juan already lived a settled life and practised agriculture. The original sources repeatedly mention that their khagans obtained ‘seed millet’ from China (some 10,000 shi each time). This shows that the Juan-juan society and state had gradually developed from nomadic herding to a settled agricultural way of life, from yurts to the building of houses and monumental architecture, from the nomadic district to towns. They had invented their own system of writing and developed their own local culture and Buddhist learning flourished."
[1]
[1]: (Kyzlasov 1996, 317) |
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c500 CE and after: "It may be assumed that by then some of the Juan-juan already lived a settled life and practised agriculture. The original sources repeatedly mention that their khagans obtained ‘seed millet’ from China (some 10,000 shi each time). This shows that the Juan-juan society and state had gradually developed from nomadic herding to a settled agricultural way of life, from yurts to the building of houses and monumental architecture, from the nomadic district to towns. They had invented their own system of writing and developed their own local culture and Buddhist learning flourished."
[1]
[1]: (Kyzlasov 1996, 317) |
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"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[1]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[2]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[3]
[1]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [3]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
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Glyphs dating to this period have been deciphered as either calendrical dates or the names of prisoners. Sources do not suggest that evidence for other types of writing has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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Glyphs dating to this period have been deciphered as either calendrical dates or the names of prisoners. Sources do not suggest that evidence for other types of writing has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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|
Glyphs dating to this period have been deciphered as either calendrical dates or the names of prisoners. Sources do not suggest that evidence for other types of writing has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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|
Glyphs dating to this period have been deciphered as either calendrical dates or the names of prisoners. Sources do not suggest that evidence for other types of writing has been found.
[1]
[2]
[1]: Spencer, C. S. and E. M. Redmond (2004). "Primary state formation in Mesoamerica." Annual Review of Anthropology: 173-199, p179 [2]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London, p130 |
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Genealogical registers of noble ancestry (including important marriages, and sometimes important life events of individuals) were recorded in stone during this period. Also carved glyphs denoting calendrical dates. Sources do not suggest that evidence for other types of writing has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
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Religious dramas and their derivations dominate the popular literature.
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Al-Mansur secluded himself within his palace, even concealing himself behind a curtain when giving an audience. To placate religious leaders and maintain his standing as a sharif, he hosted large official ceremonies on the feast of Muhammad’s birthday. These would include the recitation of poetry in honor of the prophet - and the sultan- along with generous gift-giving by the sultan. Al-Mansur was famous for his love of poetry and books. Though Marrakech was a Berber city, the Sa’adians welcomed Arab poetry and scholarship."
[1]
[1]: (Ring et al 1996, 471) |
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"The Khitan now began to loot the capital thoroughly. It was decided to take back to Manchuria the entire body of Chin officials. This proved impossible, but in the third month of 947 they began shipping off to the Supreme Capital the personnel of the main ministries, the palace women, eunuchs, diviners, and artisans in their thousands; books, maps; astronomical charts, instruments, and astronomers; musical treatises and ceremonial musical instruments; the imperial carriages and ritual impedimenta; the weapons and armor from the arsenals; and even the copies of the Confucian classics engraved on stone slabs."
[1]
[1]: (Twitchett, D.C. and K. Tietze. 1994. The Liao. In Franke, H. and D.C. Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China Volume 6: Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368 pp. 43-153. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. P. 73-74) |
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c500 CE and after: "It may be assumed that by then some of the Juan-juan already lived a settled life and practised agriculture. The original sources repeatedly mention that their khagans obtained ‘seed millet’ from China (some 10,000 shi each time). This shows that the Juan-juan society and state had gradually developed from nomadic herding to a settled agricultural way of life, from yurts to the building of houses and monumental architecture, from the nomadic district to towns. They had invented their own system of writing and developed their own local culture and Buddhist learning flourished."
[1]
[1]: (Kyzlasov 1996, 317) |
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Folklore; fairytales; sagas; plays; operas; comedy; poetry; satire. “The purely intellectual contribution of the Austrian Enlightenment was limited. German classicism in literature and philosophy was a powerful stimulating force but its impact headed almost exclusively from outside. Romanticism, on the other hand, in particular in its historical proclivities, in a country deeply conscious of its traditions, developed there into a more original movement with wider social and political implications… Hence we face the cultivation of folklore, sagas, fairy tales, history of the Middle Ages, in other words everything that is dear to the romantic spirit.”
[1]
“Typically Austrian, in different ways, were also two contemporary playwrights of high rank, both actors by profession. Ferdinand Raimund (1790-1836), a comedian with romantic-sentimental tendencies, a keen sense of humor, and poetic gifts, wanted to become a classical tragedian. He did not fully succeed because of his limited education. His outstanding achievements as popular, poetical playwright meant little to him. Johann Nestroy (1801-1862), the other comedy writer and actor, was less sentimental and poetic in his inclinations but he was a superlative student of the human character, a social critic, and an outstanding satirist. The antiintellectualism of the pre-March era lent itself particularly well to satire… tendencies, possessed only modest poetic gifts but he introduced the social drama into Austrian literature. Outstanding was the melancholic lyric and writer of grand epics, Nikolaus Lenau (1802-1850), who came from Hungary but developed into a master of the German language. Of all great Austrian poets he was the only true, radical revolutionary. The most outstanding prose writer of the time was Adalbert Stifter (1805-1868). None before him and none after him brought nature to life the way he did. Like Grillparzer’s plays, Stifter’s prose transcends the Austro-German orbit. One of his two novels, Witiko, deals with Czech history in the high Middle Ages.”
[2]
“In the early eighteenth century the operas and orchestral pieces of the Austrian (Styrian) composer, J. J. Fux, were performed in Prague, among them an opera in celebration of the coronation of Charles VI as king of Bohemia in 1723. A regular Italian opera stagione existed in Prague as early as 1734, but German operas were offered as well.”
[3]
[1]: (Kann 1974: 368) Kann, Robert A. 1974. A History of the Habsburg Empire 1526-1918. Los Angeles: University of California Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/RP3JD4UV [2]: (Kann 1974: 375) Kann, Robert A. 1974. A History of the Habsburg Empire 1526-1918. Los Angeles: University of California Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/RP3JD4UV [3]: (Kann 1974: 387) Kann, Robert A. 1974. A History of the Habsburg Empire 1526-1918. Los Angeles: University of California Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/RP3JD4UV |
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Present in Ramesside Period Egypt and there were libraries in temples.
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example: Don Quixote; Lazarillo de Tormes
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Christianity had a major impact on Icelandic literary tradition: ’By the end of the 10th century, the Norwegians were forced by their king, Olaf I Tryggvason, to accept Christianity. The king also sent missionaries to Iceland who, according to 12th-century sources, were highly successful in converting the Icelanders. In 999 or 1000 the Althing made a peaceful decision that all Icelanders should become Christians. In spite of this decision, the godar retained their political role, and many of them probably built their own churches. Some were ordained, and as a group they seem to have closely controlled the organization of the new religion. Two bishoprics were established, one at Skálholt in 1056 and the other at Hólar in 1106. Literate Christian culture also transformed lay life. Codification of the law was begun in 1117-18. Later the Icelanders began to write sagas, which were to reach their pinnacle of literary achievement in the next century.’
[1]
The received written records associated with the saga literature do not predate the introduction of Christianity: ’According to most authors writing was introduced to Iceland when the country was Christianized in the year 1000. In the two centuries that followed, writing was used for many purposes: religious works, a grammar, a law book and a short history. Most of the family sagas were written in the thirteenth century. The saga with which I am concerned, Eyrbyggja saga (ÍF 4), is commonly believed to have been written between 1230-1250 (Schach & Hollander 1959:xx). I shall deal only with a part of this saga, which I have called the Þórgunna story (ÍF 4, ch. 49-55). I consider the Þórgunna story a myth. Anthropologists believe that myths contain hidden messages in symbolic forms. According to Malinowski (1926) myths are social charters. Lévi-Strauss (1963) argues that myths have a binary structure and that their oppositions explore contradictions in social and other relations.’
[2]
’The Poetic Edda, a collection of verses compiled by an Icelander in the last half of the thirteenth century, offers another view into the worldview of the period by indicating what its compiler(s) found valuable. Scribal errors suggest it was not written from memory or dictation, but copied from at least two manuscripts. Paleographic evidence suggests that these two source manuscripts are not older than the beginning of the thirteenth century and must have been written by different scribes. Nothing is known of its provenance or compilation or composition. Linguistic evidence suggests the verses do not predate the ninth century (Hollander 1962).’
[3]
’Icelanders began writing sagas about 230 years after the first “official” settler arrived around 874. Icelanders were widely traveled and could not have avoided contact with writing. Writing was independently invented several times to keep records of time, people, wealth, the business of all states, and then to record religious and “historical” documents, also the business of states. [Page 106] Nonstate peoples, on the margins of states, appropriate writing when they need to write.’
[4]
However, fiction is difficult to define in this context: ’Before the twelfth century fiction was only present as oral tradition. From the twelfth century and especially the thirteenth century written fictional literature was present. However, it is difficult to distinguish fiction from unreliable history. King Sverrir of Norway (ca. 1200) enjoyed what he called lygisögur (lie sagas) even if others may have been less sceptical. Example: Hrómundar saga Gripssonar. In Sturlu þáttur (part of Sturlunga saga) we learn of an Icelandic lord at the Norwegian court (in 1263) entertaining by telling the story of Huld the giantess. These were sagas later classified as fornaldarsögur (legendary sagas) although it is unclear whether these were actual written texts (Huldar saga probably was although it no longer exists). An abundance of such stories were certainly committed to writing later on. No doubt many of these were entirely made up although some preserve legendary material. There were also chivalric romances, imported, translated and, at least eventually, created in Iceland. It is uncertain how much of this material was present before 1262. Poetry was also abundant and can be found for example in the two Eddas and incorporated into many sagas.’
[5]
The codebook may be in need of modifications as it is difficult to distinguish fiction from other genres in non-modern settings.
[1]: http://www.britannica.com/place/Iceland/Government-and-society#toc10088 [2]: Odner, Knut 1992. “Þógunna’S Testament: A Myth For Moral Contemplation And Social Apathy”, 125 [3]: Durrenberger, E. Paul 1992. “Dynamics Of Medieval Iceland: Political Economy And Literature”, 93 [4]: Durrenberger, E. Paul 1992. “Dynamics Of Medieval Iceland: Political Economy And Literature”, 105 [5]: Árni Daniel Júlíusson and Axel Kristissen 2017, pers. comm. to E. Brandl and D. Mullins |
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Moliere (1622-1673 CE). Voltaire (1694-1778 CE).
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Highly literate elite.
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Highly literate elite.
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The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
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Apollonius of Rhodes and Callimachus of Cyrene (both 3rd century BCE) in "creative writing."
[1]
There was a rich fictional writing, including many novels, many written in Greek (give examples). There was also a corpus of Egyptian literature. A famous example of these Egyptian stories is the cycle of stories about Setne (son of Rameses II).
[1]: (Lloyd 2000, 400) |
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Poetry.
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Alexander Sumarokov, a playwright and poet, is often considered the father of Russian classical literature.
[1]
Mikhail Lomonosov [2] and Gavrila Derzhavin [3] were also prominent poets [1]: “Александр Петрович Сумароков.” Accessed December 19, 2023. https://rvb.ru/18vek/sumarokov/. Zotero link: WSVQBZEM [2]: “Научное Наследие — Электронная Библиотека ГНПБУ.” Accessed December 18, 2023. http://elib.gnpbu.ru/sections/0100/lomonosov/. Zotero link: 43PKCEWE [3]: “Lib.Ru/Классика: Державин Гавриил Романович. Стихотворения.” Accessed December 19, 2023. http://az.lib.ru/d/derzhawin_g_r/text_0010.shtml. Zotero link: TRJXDZPA |
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These works were mostly editions of classical authors, although there were also some new poems and fables. DB: can you provide examples?
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Rabelais, La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel.
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Ramayana and Mahabarata epics.
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Ramayana and Mahabarata epics.
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Not mentioned in the coding, but can we assumed from the breadth of other types of literature.
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Poems.
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Rumi (c.1207-1273 CE): "Common name of the hugely popular poet Jalaluddin (Jalal al-Din) Muhammad Balkhi, from Balkh, Afghanistan."
[1]
[1]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. |
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present for preceding Hepthalites. literate class under Roman and Indian influence.
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Religious dramas and their derivations dominate the popular literature.
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Religious dramas and their derivations dominate the popular literature.
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Poetry.
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Poetry.
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Literate Muslims likely to have had poetry.
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Fictional literature comprised legends and romances: ’But whatever advantages the union with Norway might bring, it produced no new era of development. Intellectual life continuted to flourish, and numerous literary works were written, but but a distinct decline in the quality of literary production becomes noticeable, especially towards the close of the thirteenth century. The old vigor and originality was dwindling, as the growing Christian medieval-time spirit, which was only strengthened throught a closer relation with Norway, was fostering a love for legends and chivalric romances which encouraged copying and translation rather than creative production and original scholarship.’
[1]
’[...] a turning from history writing and more serious prose literature to romantic tales and religious productions of various sorts, occurred already in the thirteenth century. With the beginning of the fourteenth much of the earlier originality and creative imagination had faded out of literary production. [...] The writers devoted their chief attention to translation and copying, or to the compilation of large collections of earlier productions. But love of reading and diligence in literary pursuits were probably never greater than at this time. Iceland continued to be the center of literary life in the North.’
[2]
Medieval Icelanders composed narrative poetry in oral and written form: ’After the disappearance of the scaldic drápur about 1300 a new kind of narrative poems, the rímur, began to appear in the fourteenth century. Alliteration and scaldic figures of speech were still used; but the rímur were written in rhymed verse, clearly an imitation of Latin hymns and religious songs. These poems are really ballads, based for the most part on mythological sagas and romantic foreign traditions, though a few also deal with persons from Norwegian and Icelandic history. The rímur were recited for the entertainment of the people in the home; but they were also sung, and were then usually accompanied by dance. As a form of entertainment the rímur became very popular and continued to flourish even into modern times.’
[3]
The distinction between historiography and fictional literature may not always be clear-cut: ’To the literary production of the fourteenth century belong especially a number of romantic tales, the "Lygisögur", based on heroic German tradition and on epic romances of continental Europe. According to their contents they fall into two groups, the "Fornsögur Nordrlanda", dealing with traditions of the North, and the "Fornsögur Sudrlanda", based on the rhymed romances of the continent. Stories about saints, and religious rhymes and poems, were also written. This literary work was done chiefly by clerics whose names are not known. But now and then also a known writer appears. One of the most prominent among these is Hauk Erlendsson, the author of the "Hauksbók", a great collection which contains, besides Hauks own version of the "Landnámabók", the "Kristnisaga", the "Saga of Eirik the Red", the "Völsungasaga", and many other works. [...] Another great collection produced by diligent copyists is the "Flateyjarbók", compiled in 1387-1395 by the priests Jon Thordsson and Magnus Thorhallsson from older sources now partly lost.’
[4]
[1]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 208p [2]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 254p [3]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 256 [4]: Gjerset, Knut [1925]. "History of Iceland", 255p |
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Greek intellectual world.
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"Literary and artistic activities under the Ghurids likewise followed on from those of the Ghaznavids. The sultans were generous patrons of the Persian literary traditions of Khorasan, and latterly fulfilled a valuable role as transmitters of this heritage to the newly conquered lands of northern India, laying the foundations for the essentially Persian culture which was to prevail in Muslim India until the 19th century."
[1]
[1]: (Bosworth 2012) Bosworth, Edmund C. 2012. GHURIDS. Encyclopaedia Iranica. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ghurids |
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"The ’archival library’ in the palace of Ai Khanoum"
[1]
would have contained all sorts of literature. "In the library, archaeologists have found remnants of texts by Sophocles imported from Greece."
[2]
[1]: (Staikos 2004) Staikos, K. 2004. The History of the Library in Western Civilization: From Minos to Cleopatra. Hes & de Graaf Publishers. [2]: (www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/afgh02-06enl.html) |
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Fables and stories translated from India included the Book of Sindbad, Seventy Tales of the Parrot and Kalilag u Dimnag and Bilauhar u Budasaf (which concerned the Buddha). Vis u Ramin (a Parthian origin tale) and Vamiq u Adhra (a Greek story) were translated into Pahlavi in this period.
[1]
[1]: Iskender-Mochiri, I ed. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf ; Daryaee, T. 2009, Sasanian Persia, pp. 27-37 |
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Poetical works, dramas and a play called Mrichchhakatika by Sudraka
[1]
"Kanishka II ... [convened] the Buddhist synod in Kashmir, a decisive turning-point in the life of the Buddhist schools. According to tradition, this synod of the Sarvastivada school compiled the Jnanaprasthanam and entrusted Asvaghosa, the famous poet, with providing for the correct language form of the commentary written by Katyayana. Essentially, his charge was to rewrite the Buddhist works in Sanskrit."
[2]
[1]: Avari, Burjor. India: the ancient past: a history of the Indian sub-continent from c. 7000 BC to AD 1200. 2007, pp. 128-137 [2]: (Harmatta et al. 1994, 316) Harmatta, J. Puri, B. N. Lelekov, L. Humayun, S. Sircar, D. C. Religions in the Kushan Empire. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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"Secular Latin plays were produced in the 12th century alongside religious and liturgical drama."
[1]
"By the late 12th century, plays were being written in French, though a few nonliturgical Latin plays were also performed."
[2]
Miracle plays, written for the Guild of Parisian Goldsmiths, 14th Century. Passion plays common in 15th century France.
[3]
[1]: (Bates 1995, 1716 CE) [2]: (Knight 1995, 1714 CE) [3]: (Knight 1995, 1714-1715 CE) |
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Yuan Kang, Eastern Han scholar, wrote Yue jue shu "a private history of the Spring and Autumn period ... often considered to be a precursor of fiction writing."
[1]
The imperial court produced poetic writing.
[2]
Not all writing composed within or presented to court. "Zhang Heng composed his famous "Fu on the Two Metropolises" as a private individual, and there is no evidence that he presented it to the court."
[3]
[1]: (Ying Hu 2000, 225) [2]: (Knechtges 2010, 118) Knechtges, David R. in Chang, Kang-i Sun. Ownen, Stephen. 2010. The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume 1. Cambridge University Press. [3]: (Knechtges 2010, 119) Knechtges, David R. in Chang, Kang-i Sun. Ownen, Stephen. 2010. The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume 1. Cambridge University Press. |
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inferred continuity with earlier phases of this polity
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e.g. Ausonius (4th c CE)
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Shu Xi (263-302 CE) "several collections of fabulous tales."
[1]
Zhu Yi (d.312 CE) "is usually regarded as the inventor of the general anthology."
[2]
"The major genres of Western Jin literature are the poem, the fu, and various types of prose: the letter, expository essay, memorial, dirge, grave inscription, and lament, just to mention the more common ones."
[3]
[1]: (Knechtges 2010, 183) Knechtges, David R. in Chang, Kang-i Sun. Ownen, Stephen. 2010. The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume 1. Cambridge University Press. [2]: (Knechtges 2010, 184) Knechtges, David R. in Chang, Kang-i Sun. Ownen, Stephen. 2010. The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume 1. Cambridge University Press. [3]: (Knechtges 2010, 184-185) Knechtges, David R. in Chang, Kang-i Sun. Ownen, Stephen. 2010. The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume 1. Cambridge University Press. |
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Inferred from the fact that immediately preceding polities produced poetry
[1]
. However, Spring and Autumn polities wrote on perishable materials such as silk
[2]
, which means that texts are less likely to be preserved
Money [1]: (Keay 2009, 54) [2]: (Cook and Major 1999, viii) Cook, Constance A. Major, John S. eds. 1999. Defining Chu: Image and Reality in Ancient China. University of Hawai’i Press. Honolulu. |
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Fengshen Yanyi/ The Investiture of the Gods, The Apotheosis of Heroes (封神演義); 1592CE: Journey to the West (西遊記): written by Wu Cheng’en(吳承恩). It is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature; [1522 - 1566 CE]: Water Margin(水滸傳): Written in vernacular Chinese by Shi Nai’an (施耐庵) It is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature; Jin Ping Mei/ The Plum in the Golden Vase/ The Golden Lotus(金瓶梅): a Chinese naturalistic novel composed in vernacular Chinese during the late Ming Dynasty. It is written by Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng(蘭陵笑笑生), whose identity was unknown.
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e.g. Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢), Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (聊齋志異), The Scholars (儒林外史)
Money |
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"the 1707 edition of complete T’ang poetry includes 48,900 poems by 2,200 writers"
[1]
Li Po (701-762 CE) or Li T’ai-po "is often considered the most versatile of all the Chinese poets."
[1]
Tu Fu (12-770 CE). "Tu Fu had a deep understanding and awareness of the human suffering that surrounded him."
[2]
Wang Wei (701-761 CE) "who has been called by Waley the most classical of Chinese poets. ... equally famous as a painter, calligrapher and musician."
[2]
"The T’ang period also saw the appearance of a new form of literary creation - the short story. This originated already in the 6th century but the best examples date from the the middle of the 8th century and provide a vivid picture of T’ang society."
[3]
[1]: (Rodzinski 1979, 135) [2]: (Rodzinski 1979, 136) [3]: (Rodzinski 1979, 137) |
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"the 1707 edition of complete T’ang poetry includes 48,900 poems by 2,200 writers"
[1]
Tu Fu (12-770 CE). "Tu Fu had a deep understanding and awareness of the human suffering that surrounded him."
[2]
"The most famous poet of the latter period was Po Chu-i (772-846), regarded as a disciple of Tu Fu. ... his best-known work, the one which made him famous, is "The Ever-lasting Remorse" which dealt with the fate of Yang Kuei-fei."
[2]
Liu Tsung-yuan (773-819) who wrote "the famous parable The Snake Catchers, an ironical depiction of the ravaging of the peasants by the tax collectors."
[3]
"The T’ang period also saw the appearance of a new form of literary creation - the short story. This originated already in the 6th century but the best examples date from the the middle of the 8th century and provide a vivid picture of T’ang society."
[3]
[1]: (Rodzinski 1979, 135) [2]: (Rodzinski 1979, 136) [3]: (Rodzinski 1979, 137) |
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In poetry, new strophic forms muwashshah and and zaja (from Spain). List of poets: Ibn Sana al-Mulk (1150-1211 CE) who was also a judge; court poet Baha al-Din Zuhayr (1186-1258 CE); Arab mystic Umar b. al-Farid (1182-1235 CE); al-Busiri (1211-1295 CE) author of "Mantle Ode."
[1]
[1]: (Oliver 1977, 38) |
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"On the contrary, the assertion of continuity with older tradition is combined with the exercise of considerable invention and originality both in materials and iconography, producing some of the most remarkable sculpture in the entire pharaonic corpus. For other spheres of cultural activity there is sometimes an unnerving lacuna in extant material—there are, for example, no literary texts securely dated to this period. For all that, close analysis of such evidence as we do possess confirms that Egyptian society and civilization as a whole were characterized by the same traits as the visual arts. We routinely encounter features with which the student of earlier periods will be completely familiar."
[1]
[1]: (Lloyd 2000, 383) |
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Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor.
[1]
Story of Sinuhe.
[1]
Prophecies, moral tales and hymns.
[2]
Biographies, wisdom literature, stories such as "The Eloquent Peasant."
[3]
"Loyalist instruction of Kaires", "Teaching of a Man for his Son", "The Teaching of Ptahhotep", "Teaching of King Khety" (also known as "Satire of the Trades"), "Words of Nerferti", "Teaching of King Amenemhet", "Words of Khakheperreseneb", "Hymn to the Innundation", "Tale of the Eloquent Peasant", "The Tale of King Cheops’ Court", Cairo Mythological Tale, "Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor", "Dialogue of a Man with his Soul", "Dialogue of Ipuwer and the Lord of All" (philosophical, on the nature of good and evil), "Tale of Neferkaremd Sasenet", "Tale of the Herdsman", "Teaching for Kagemni", "Teaching of Hardedef", "Pleasures of Fishing and Fowling", "Account of the Sporting King."
[4]
Concept of Ma’at central to Egyptian society important throughout "Tale of the Eloquent Peasant."
[5]
[1]: (Stearns 2001, 30) [2]: (Wawro 2008, 42 ) [4]: (Enmarch 2010, 663-676) [5]: (Van Blerk 2006) |
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Love poems and tales.
[1]
There was "renewed interest in the classical writers of the Old and Middle kingdoms, especially the ’teachings’ or ’instructions’ of old sages such as Ptahhotep and Kagemni, and descriptions of chaos such as those of Neferti and Ipuwer. It was perhaps because Ramessid scribes felt that these earlier works could not be equalled, let alone surpassed, that contemporary literature, such as love poetry and folk tales and mythical stores that sprang from an oral tradition, was written not in classical Egyptian but in the modern language first introduced in inscriptions by Akhenaten."
[2]
"Prohibitions". Miscellanies used in Ramesside scribal education. Satirical letter of P.Anastasi I. Laus ubis (lyrical form), hymns and prayers. Love songs. "The Antef Song". "Songs from the Orchard". Tales: "Taking of Joppa", "Apophis and Seqenenre", "Doomed Prince", "Two Brothers", "Truth and Falsehood", "Head and Trunk", "Khonsuembheb and the Ghost", "Horus and Seth."
[3]
[1]: (Lichtheim 2006, viii) [2]: (Van Dijk 2000, 287) [3]: (Moers 2010, 689) |
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Love poems and tales.
[1]
JGM: on the absence of philosophy, often noted, I would hesitate about. Or do we mean here "non-religious"? Clearly there was a well thought out Philosophy/Theology, preserved in temple texts still for many temples unpublished. See for example: R.B. Finnestad, Image of the world and symbol of the creator. Harrassowitz, 1985. The scribe Kenhirkhepshef, who worked at Deir el Medina during the reign of Rameses II, had a large library with papyri on medical texts, religious spells, hymns, letters, poetry, household hints, dream interpretations.
[2]
"Prohibitions". Miscellanies used in Ramesside scribal education. Satirical letter of P.Anastasi I. Laus ubis (lyrical form), hymns and prayers. Love songs. "The Antef Song". "Songs from the Orchard". Tales: "Taking of Joppa", "Apophis and Seqenenre", "Doomed Prince", "Two Brothers", "Truth and Falsehood", "Head and Trunk", "Khonsuembheb and the Ghost", "Horus and Seth."
[3]
[1]: (Lichtheim 2006, viii) [2]: (Booth 2011, 301) [3]: (Moers 2010, 689) |
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Apollonius of Rhodes and Callimachus of Cyrene (both 3rd century BCE) in "creative writing."
[1]
There was a rich fictional writing, including many novels, many written in Greek (give examples). There was also a corpus of Egyptian literature. A famous example of these Egyptian stories is the cycle of stories about Setne (son of Rameses II).
[1]: (Lloyd 2000, 400) |
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"Aksumite rulers who often spoke and read in Greek, put great store in written documents and in libraries to keep them".
[1]
"The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, around 50 CE, "describes the ruler of the region, King Zoscales, as ’well versed in Hellenic sciences’. This would naturally require fluency in Greek, the lingua-franca of the ancient economy."
[2]
No data on written documents but it is likely that they existed, especially in Greek along the parts of the coast engaged in trade with the Greek-speaking world, if not also further inland at the capital Aksum in Ge’ez - or its precursor language - with documents relating to the local religion and the state.
[1]: (Murray 2009) Stuart A P Murray. 2009. The Library: An Illustrated History. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. [2]: (Glazier and Peacock 2016) Darren Glazier. David Peacock. Historical background and previous investigations. David Peacock. Lucy Blue. eds. 2016. The Ancient Red Sea Port of Adulis, Eritrea: Results of the Eritro-British Expedition, 2004-5. Oxbow Books. Oxford. |
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Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597-1654 CE), founding member French Academy. François de La Mothe Le Vayer (1588-1672 CE), founding member French Academy.
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"Secular Latin plays were produced in the 12th century alongside religious and liturgical drama."
[1]
"By the late 12th century, plays were being written in French, though a few nonliturgical Latin plays were also performed."
[2]
Miracle plays, written for the Guild of Parisian Goldsmiths, 14th Century.
[3]
[1]: (Bates 1995, 1716 CE) [2]: (Knight 1995, 1714 CE) [3]: (Knight 1995, 1714-1715 CE) |
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Waltharius, poem, late 9th/early 10th century.
[1]
"Medieval theater originated in the 10th century in the Latin liturgical drama that was associated with the Easter rites of the church."
[2]
Intellectuals at Aix-La-Chapelle
[3]
: Alcuin (early phase); Theodulf of Orleans (early phase); Einhart (early phase); Paul the Deacon (early phase); Paulinus of Aquileia (early phase)
[1]: (Nicolle 1995, 29) [2]: (Knight 1995, 1714 CE) [3]: (Chazelle 1995, 31) |
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At a bare minimum, the Wisdom of Sirach contains several poems.
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Under Firuz Shah Tughlaq Sanskrit epics were translated.
[1]
Amir Khusrau - Persian poet.
[2]
[1]: (Ahmed 2011, 105) Ahmed, Farooqui Salma. 2011. A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century. Pearson Education India. [2]: (Ahmed 2011, 107) Ahmed, Farooqui Salma. 2011. A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century. Pearson Education India. |
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"More by good luck than by design and by prominence, a few other texts have come down from the period between the empires. There are, to be sure, such texts of the Śuṅga/Kāṇva and the early Kushana periods, including the older parts of Arthaśāstra (which has additions up to the first century CE), early medicine (Caraka, Suśruta), some early astronomical texts (Yavanajātaka of Sphujidhvaja, ed. Pingree 1978, Paulīṣa, Romaka, etc.), the Bhāratīya Nāṭyaṣāstra (in part, first century CE), and some early Sanskrit poetry such as Aśvaghoṣa’s Buddhacarita and Saundarānanda, Bhāsa’s dramas, etc."
[1]
[1]: (Witzel 2006, 482) Michael Witzel. 2006. ’Brahmanical Reactions to Foreign Influences and to Social and Religious Change’ in Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE, edited by Patrick Olivelle. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
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Gupta-Vakataka period: "The literary products of the age were numerous and varied, and some of the great masterpieces of Sanskrit literature like the Sakuntala, the Raghuvamsa and the Mrichohhakatika were composed in our period."
[1]
[1]: (Majumbar and Altekar 1946, 6-7) Majumdar, Ramesh Chandra. Altekar, Anant Sadashiv. 1986. Vakataka - Gupta Age Circa 200-550 A.D. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. |
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Abbasid writers produced a large number of Belles-Lettres during the period. Topics ranged from fables and legends to poetry on topics as wide ranging as hunting poems called the tardiyyat to politics. Also, they Abbasids oversaw the translation of fiction works from earlier Greek and Persian sources.
[1]
"this was the greatest period of growth for the Arabic language and literature, as well as for the development of Islamic histories based on the romance of Bedouin lore."
[2]
[1]: Ashtiany, Julia, ed. Abbasid Belles Lettres. Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press, 1990. [2]: (Pickard 2013, 432) Pickard, J. 2013. Behind the Myths: The Foundations of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. AuthorHouse. |
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|
Poets, including many female poets.
[1]
Poets included "almost any contemporary Arabic speaker with any claim to literacy and social competence."
[2]
[1]: (Bray 2015, xiv) Toorawa, Shawkat M ed. 2015. Consorts of the Caliphs: Women and the Court of Baghdad. NYU Press. [2]: (Bray 2015, xxiv) Toorawa, Shawkat M ed. 2015. Consorts of the Caliphs: Women and the Court of Baghdad. NYU Press. |
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|
"Akkadian kings ... encouraged the development of prose narrative to memoralize their accomplishments."
[1]
"A later poem about an Akkadian campaign refers to statues errected in honor of fallen soldiers."
[2]
Enheduanna - poetess.
[1]: (Foster 2016, 166) Foster, Benjamin R. 2016. The Age of Agade. Inventing Empire In Ancient Mesopotamia. Routledge. London. [2]: (Foster 2016, 168) Foster, Benjamin R. 2016. The Age of Agade. Inventing Empire In Ancient Mesopotamia. Routledge. London. |
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|
"A growing body of literature, composed now in Akkadian instead of Sumerian, accumulated through the later second and first millennia. These included new versions of earlier stories, such as Ishtar in the Netherworld, and new stories, such as Enuma elish and The Story of Erra, as well as new compositions in old and new genres of religious literature and other branches of literary composition such as disputations, fables, and love poems, and the time-honored Sumerian lexical texts, now translated and greatly expanded and developed. Epic poems about historical monarchs began to appear, including fictive “autobiographies.” On the practical side, there was a growing body of “scientific” literature: compilations of omen and divination observations, treatments for illnesses, recipes and other treatises, as well as mathematical tables and exercises."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 291) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
"A growing body of literature, composed now in Akkadian instead of Sumerian, accumulated through the later second and first millennia. These included new versions of earlier stories, such as Ishtar in the Netherworld, and new stories, such as Enuma elish and The Story of Erra, as well as new compositions in old and new genres of religious literature and other branches of literary composition such as disputations, fables, and love poems, and the time-honored Sumerian lexical texts, now translated and greatly expanded and developed. Epic poems about historical monarchs began to appear, including fictive “autobiographies.” On the practical side, there was a growing body of “scientific” literature: compilations of omen and divination observations, treatments for illnesses, recipes and other treatises, as well as mathematical tables and exercises."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 291) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
"A growing body of literature, composed now in Akkadian instead of Sumerian, accumulated through the later second and first millennia. These included new versions of earlier stories, such as Ishtar in the Netherworld, and new stories, such as Enuma elish and The Story of Erra, as well as new compositions in old and new genres of religious literature and other branches of literary composition such as disputations, fables, and love poems, and the time-honored Sumerian lexical texts, now translated and greatly expanded and developed. Epic poems about historical monarchs began to appear, including fictive “autobiographies.” On the practical side, there was a growing body of “scientific” literature: compilations of omen and divination observations, treatments for illnesses, recipes and other treatises, as well as mathematical tables and exercises."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 291) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
"The bulk of Sumerian texts, composed from late ED onward, survive as copies made in the OB period, the peak of Mesopotamian literary creativity, found particularly in private houses in Nippur and Ur. These included school exercises in mathematics and writing, accounts of school life, hymns and lamentations, mythological and historical poems, law codes, disputation poems, love songs and lullabies, proverbs and riddles, formal letters, and incantations."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 290) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
Present due to the presence of fictional literature in the regions they conquered. For the Persian tradition only the code would appear to be absent,. The possibly that some oral works were occasionally written down or imported and read by the scribal class cannot be excluded but ancient Mesopotamian royalty was often not literate. The Achaemenid period "witnessed major developments in art, philosophy, literature, historiography, religion, exploration, economics, and science, and those developments provided the direct background for the further changes, along similar lines, that made the Hellenistic period so important in history."
[1]
"The interest in oral literature in pre-Islamic Iran meant that, apart from state or commerical records and documents and, on rare occasions, religious works, nothing was written down until the Sasanian period. Secular oral literature was preserved orally by gosan (poet-ministrels) or khunyagar (story-tellers)."
[2]
"Epic stories, frequently in verse, remained an oral form until the Sasanian period".
[3]
inferred present due to presence of fictional literature in regions they conquered. for Persian tradition only code would appear to be inferred absent at this time.
[1]: T. Cuyler Young, Jr. Achaemenid Society and Culture http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/achaemenid_society_culture.php#sthash.wxVBVuth.dpuf [2]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 82) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [3]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 83) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf |
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|
There were poets at court, including ’Adud al-Daula.
[1]
Buyids paid "handsome sums to Shi’ite poets and littérateurs."
[2]
[1]: Busse, H. 1975. Iran under the Būyids. In Frye, R. N. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Iran. Volume 4. The period from the Arab Invasion to the Saljuq’s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p.286 [2]: (Crone 2005, 221) Crone, Patricia. 2005. Medieval Islamic Political Thought. Edinburgh University Press. |
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|
"philosophy flourished in Hellenistic Babylonia, and Greek metaphysicians, astronomers, naturalists, historians, geographers, and physicians worked there."
[1]
- Hellenistic Susa likely had the same ’high culture’ to a lesser degree
[1]: (Neusner 2008, 8-9) Neusner, Jacob. 2008. A History of the Jews in Babylonia. 1. The Parthian Period. Wipf & Stock. Eugene. |
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|
"Medieval and early modern Venice was also one of the great cultural capitals of Europe. It was home to scores of artists, musicians, and writers of international stature."
[1]
[1]: (Martin and Romano 2000, 1) John Martin. Dennis Romano. Reconsidering Venice. John Martin. Dennis Romano. eds. 2000. Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State 1297-1797. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore. |
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|
Kojiki contained poetry. "To all appearances, writing as such, in the form of Chinese Classics, was introduced into Japan early in the fifth century as part of the great cultural influx from Paekche."
[1]
perhaps with Buddhism from 552 CE? The first university (Daigaku-ryō) was founded at the end of the 7th century CE
[2]
[1]: (Frellesvig 2010, 11) [2]: Brown, Delmer M. 1993. The Cambridge History of Japan Volume 1: Ancient Japan. Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press.p.212-213. |
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|
"the Arsacid rulers consciously promoted the creation of a cultural unity within their core-territories. This is best reflected in the foundation and promotion of a mythical history for Iran, possibly based on an Avestan model, and the revival of what was seen as profoundly local in nature, including literature and orthography, best marked by a return to Aramaic alphabet as the main means of communication."
[1]
"The Hellenistic commercial aristocracy of the city [Seleucia] supported cultural endeavors, as patrons of literature, art, and academies."
[2]
"No literature remains from the Arsacids themselves. Greek served as their official language; Greek drama was cultivated at their court ..."
[3]
Scholars assume that most Parthian literature was oral
[4]
Mary Boyce comments, "No Parthian literature survives from the Parthian period in its original form. The only work of any length which exist in the Parthian language were composed under Sasanian rule.”
[4]
"The interest in oral literature in pre-Islamic Iran meant that, apart from state or commerical records and documents and, on rare occasions, religious works, nothing was written down until the Sasanian period. Secular oral literature was preserved orally by gosan (poet-ministrels) or khunyagar (story-tellers)."
[5]
"Epic stories, frequently in verse, remained an oral form until the Sasanian period".
[6]
inferred present on the basis of the presence of e.g. Greek communities but for Persian tradition only it would be inferred absent.
[1]: Rezakhani, Khodadad. 2016. Arsacid Society and Culture. Accessed 06.09.2016: https://iranologie.com/the-history-page/the-arsacid-empire/arsacid-society-and-culture/ [2]: (Neusner 2008, 8) Neusner, Jacob. 2008. A History of the Jews in Babylonia. 1. The Parthian Period. Wipf & Stock. Eugene. [3]: (Neusner 2008, 18) Neusner, Jacob. 2008. A History of the Jews in Babylonia. 1. The Parthian Period. Wipf & Stock. Eugene. [4]: Boyce, Mary, ‘Parthian Writings and Literature’, in The Cambridge history of Iran: the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Part 2, ed. by Ehsan Yar-Shater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), III, 1151 [5]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 82) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [6]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 83) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf |
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|
"the Arsacid rulers consciously promoted the creation of a cultural unity within their core-territories. This is best reflected in the foundation and promotion of a mythical history for Iran, possibly based on an Avestan model, and the revival of what was seen as profoundly local in nature, including literature and orthography, best marked by a return to Aramaic alphabet as the main means of communication."
[1]
"The Hellenistic commercial aristocracy of the city [Seleucia] supported cultural endeavors, as patrons of literature, art, and academies."
[2]
"No literature remains from the Arsacids themselves. Greek served as their official language; Greek drama was cultivated at their court ..."
[3]
Scholars assume that most Parthian literature was oral
[4]
Mary Boyce comments, "No Parthian literature survives from the Parthian period in its original form. The only work of any length which exist in the Parthian language were composed under Sasanian rule.”
[4]
"The interest in oral literature in pre-Islamic Iran meant that, apart from state or commerical records and documents and, on rare occasions, religious works, nothing was written down until the Sasanian period. Secular oral literature was preserved orally by gosan (poet-ministrels) or khunyagar (story-tellers)."
[5]
"Epic stories, frequently in verse, remained an oral form until the Sasanian period".
[6]
inferred present on the basis of the presence of e.g. Greek communities but for Persian tradition only it would be inferred absent.
[1]: Rezakhani, Khodadad. 2016. Arsacid Society and Culture. Accessed 06.09.2016: https://iranologie.com/the-history-page/the-arsacid-empire/arsacid-society-and-culture/ [2]: (Neusner 2008, 8) Neusner, Jacob. 2008. A History of the Jews in Babylonia. 1. The Parthian Period. Wipf & Stock. Eugene. [3]: (Neusner 2008, 18) Neusner, Jacob. 2008. A History of the Jews in Babylonia. 1. The Parthian Period. Wipf & Stock. Eugene. [4]: Boyce, Mary, ‘Parthian Writings and Literature’, in The Cambridge history of Iran: the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Part 2, ed. by Ehsan Yar-Shater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), III, 1151 [5]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 82) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [6]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 83) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf |
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|
Tahmasp and Abbas I funded poets. Nimatallahi Vahshi (d.1583-4 CE), Sayyid Ali b. Khvaja Mir Ahmad ("Muhtasham" d.1587-1588 CE or 1592 CE), Urfi Shirazi (1556-c1591 CE), Sharaf Jahan (d.1560), satirist Hayrat (d.1553 CE), Damiri (d.c1578 CE), Abdi Bek Shirazi (d.1580 CE).
[1]
[1]: (Newman 2009) Newman, Andrew J. 2009. Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire. I.B. Tauris. New York. |
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|
"The interest in oral literature in pre-Islamic Iran meant that, apart from state or commerical records and documents and, on rare occasions, religious works, nothing was written down until the Sasanian period. Secular oral literature was preserved orally by gosan (poet-ministrels) or khunyagar (story-tellers)."
[1]
Religious and secular writings but secular writings "written within the framework of Zoroastrian religious beliefs".
[1]
"Epic stories, frequently in verse, remained an oral form until the Sasanian period and some were used in the compilation of the Khwaday-namag [Book of Lords] ... in Pahlavi."
[2]
must have been written fiction of Greek works or derived from Greek works, even if only read by Greeks themselves, in the cities, which may still have had Greek communities. on the basis of Persian tradition only though the code would appear to be inferred absent at this time.
[1]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 82) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [2]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 83) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf |
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|
One of the world’s oldest extant novels was written in Japan c.1000 in the Heian period. Genji monogatari (Tale of Genji) written by a noblewoman lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu. ‘While aristocratic literature retained its importance throughout the medieval and early modern periods, it was also supplanted in many ways by literature that reflected the sensibilities of a much broader segment of Japanese society. Warriors, Buddhists, merchants, masterless samurai, and geisha were among those who became the subjects of this literature and those whose interests this literature sometimes expressed.’
[1]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.249. |
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|
Religious and secular writings but secular writings "written within the framework of Zoroastrian religious beliefs".
[1]
"Towards the end of the Sasanian period, especially during the reign of Khusrau I (531-579) and later, increasing attention was paid to the task of collecting legends." An Iranian collection of tales "The Thousand Tales" was translated into Arabic and influenced The Thousand and One Nights. Fables and stories translated from India, included Book of Sindbad, Seventy Tales of the Parrot, Kalilag u Dimnag and Bilauhar u Budasaf (which concerned the Buddha). Vis u Ramin a Parthian origin tale and Vamiq u Adhra, a Greek story, were translated into Pahlavi in this period.
[2]
[3]
"Epic stories, frequently in verse, remained an oral form until the Sasanian period and some were used in the compilation of the Khwaday-namag [Book of Lords] ... in Pahlavi."
[4]
[1]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 82) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [2]: (Tafazzoli and Khromov 1996, 83) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [3]: (Daryaee 2009, 27-37) Daryaee, Touraj. 2009. Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. I.B. Tauris. London. [4]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 83) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf |
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|
Awhad al-Din Anvari (1126-1189 CE): "Poet and boon companion of Sultan Sanjar at Merv."
[1]
Ahmad Yasawi (1093-1166 CE): "Sufi mystic and poet from Isfijab, now Sayram, in southern Kazakhstan. His Turkic quatrains carried a message of private prayer and contemplation of God to large numbers of heretofore unconverted Turkic nomads."
[1]
There are many prose stories from this period.
[2]
The Saljuqs adopted the model of court patronage of their predecessors. "By so doing, they played a significant role in the diffusion of the Persian literary language and of the culture expressed by it, and this in turn led to a reappraisal and partial rejection of the dominance of Arabic as the lingua franca of educated society in the Middle East."
[2]
Omar Khayyam (1048-1131 CE) author of the Rubaiyat.
[1]
[1]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. [2]: Daniela Meneghini ’SALJUQS v. SALJUQID LITERATURE’ http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/saljuqs-v |
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|
The Mirabilia, a 12th-/13th-century collection of legends and myths surrounding the most important buildings of the city and their history, can be considered fiction.
|
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Dante Alghieri (1265-1321 CE, born Florence, died at Bologna) poet, Divine Comedy. Dante’s family had loyalties to the Guelphs, a political alliance that supported the Papacy. (wikpedia).
JFR: Dante was exiled from Florence following the early 14th-c. schisms within the Guelf party, and he himself was a staunch monarchist, who wrote approvingly of Henry VII, the last of the German emperors to launch an Italian campaign to reclaim the peninsula for the Empire. |
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|
Slightly later than this period but close enough to suggest presence (noting the intellectual culture and Greek cultural inheritance of the Roman polity): 240 BCE Latin translation of a Greek play. Satires of Lucilius, tragedies of Pacuvias (220-131 BCE). Greek inspired work, Ennius "Annales", Plautus’s comedies, poetry and drame of Naevius (270-200).
[1]
[1]: (Stearns 2001) |
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|
Lucretius Carus (94-55 BCE) "De Rerum Natura".
[1]
Albius Tibullus (born 53 BCE), poet wrote Elegies. Sextus Propertius (born in Umbria c58-49 BCE), elegiac poet. Publius Vergilius Maro (born near Mantua 70 BCE), poet, wrote Eclogues (published before 39 BCE), Georgics, Aeneid (begun 29 BCE, published 17 BCE). Quintus Horatius Flaccus (born at Venusia 65 BCE) a humourist, wrote Satires (published c34-29 BCE), Odes (published 23-14 BCE), Epodes (poem, published c30 BCE).
[2]
Catullus, poet (born c84 BCE, Cisapine Gaul).
[1]: (Stearns 2001) [2]: (Allcroft and Haydon 1902, 235) |
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|
Albius Tibullus (born 53 BCE), poet wrote Elegies. Sextus Propertius (born in Umbria c58-49 BCE), elegiac poet. Publius Vergilius Maro (born near Mantua 70 BCE), poet, wrote Eclogues (published before 39 BCE), Georgics, Aeneid (begun 29 BCE, published 17 BCE). Quintus Horatius Flaccus (born at Venusia 65 BCE) a humourist, wrote Satires (published c34-29 BCE), Odes (published 23-14 BCE), Epodes (poem, published c30 BCE), Epistles (published c20 BCE), De Arte Poetica (essay publised c13 BCE). Publius Ovidius Naso (born at Sulmo, 43 BCE) poet of elegiac verse, Amores (9 BCE), Heroides, Ars Amandi (2 BCE), Remedia Amoris (1 CE), Fasti, Metamorphoses, Tristia, Epistles from Pontus, and other works.
[1]
Junius Juvenais, satirist, (born Acquinum, died 130 CE)
[2]
Seneca (born Cordova, 4 CE) also wrote some widely read tragedies and dialogues. Lucan, poet (born 39 CE, Cordova). Apuleius, Latin prose writer (born c125 CE, a Numidian Berber, from Madaurus). Martial, Latin epigram (38 CE, Bilbilis). Petronius (c27 CE, Massalia) wrote satirical novel Satyricon.
More: Oxford Latin Dictionary. "Dinner table conversation." [1]: (Allcroft and Haydon 1902, 211-224) [2]: (Allcroft and Haydon 1902, 235) |
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|
"Medieval and early modern Venice was also one of the great cultural capitals of Europe. It was home to scores of artists, musicians, and writers of international stature."
[1]
[1]: (Martin and Romano 2000, 1) John Martin. Dennis Romano. Reconsidering Venice. John Martin. Dennis Romano. eds. 2000. Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State 1297-1797. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore. |
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|
One of the world’s oldest extant novels was written in Japan c.1000 in the Heian period. Genji monogatari (Tale of Genji) written by a noblewoman lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu. ‘While aristocratic literature retained its importance throughout the medieval and early modern periods, it was also supplanted in many ways by literature that reflected the sensibilities of a much broader segment of Japanese society. Warriors, Buddhists, merchants, masterless samurai, and geisha were among those who became the subjects of this literature and those whose interests this literature sometimes expressed.’
[1]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.249. |
||||||
|
One of the world’s oldest extant novels was written in Japan c.1000 in the Heian period. Genji monogatari (Tale of Genji) written by a noblewoman lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu. ‘While aristocratic literature retained its importance throughout the medieval and early modern periods, it was also supplanted in many ways by literature that reflected the sensibilities of a much broader segment of Japanese society. Warriors, Buddhists, merchants, masterless samurai, and geisha were among those who became the subjects of this literature and those whose interests this literature sometimes expressed.’
[1]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.249. |
||||||
|
"To all appearances, writing as such, in the form of Chinese Classics, was introduced into Japan early in the fifth century as part of the great cultural influx from Paekche."
[1]
Code removed as there is no evidence to infer presence, as opposed to religious/practical texts.
[1]: (Frellesvig 2010, 11) |
||||||
|
One of the world’s oldest extant novels was written in Japan c.1000 in the Heian period. Genji monogatari (Tale of Genji) written by a noblewoman lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu. ‘While aristocratic literature retained its importance throughout the medieval and early modern periods, it was also supplanted in many ways by literature that reflected the sensibilities of a much broader segment of Japanese society. Warriors, Buddhists, merchants, masterless samurai, and geisha were among those who became the subjects of this literature and those whose interests this literature sometimes expressed.’
[1]
‘In similar fashion, the transition from the medieval to the early modern was accompanied by the gradual emergence of urban centers that were home to newly important social classes, such as merchants and other commoners. The social context of urban culture—in particular, the cities of Edo, Osaka, and Kyoto—was central to the development of early modern literary sensibilities and tastes. Warrior literature was not replaced, but early modern literature is notable for its articulation of the interests and concerns of merchants, artisans, and other nonelite members of early modern society.... Because of the contact with the Dutch, the Dutch language became the medium through which new Western scientific and medical knowledge were disseminated. Translations of Dutch scientific and medical books into Japanese led to the advancement of Japanese scientific thinking and opened up whole new ways to think about the natural world, including anatomy, astronomy, and geography.’
[2]
Money [1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.249. [2]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.253. |
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|
Abu Mansur Ali Asadi: "Eleventh-century poet from Tus ... Working at a court in Azerbaijan, Asadi versified The Epic of Garshasp (Garshaspnameh), which ranks second only to Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh among Persian epic poems."
[1]
[1]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. |
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Religious dramas and their derivations dominate the popular literature.
|
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Given the scarce records of the Indo-Greeks no proof has been found to indicate indigenous literary works.
[1]
However, this was a literature society. The Bactrian Greek city of Ai Khanoum is much better preserved than the Indo-Greek capital Sirkup and may serve some indication of what was there. Ai Khanoum had an impressive administrative center, gymnasium, theater, and Greek statuary.
[2]
The presence of a theatre would suggest specialist entertainers and writers.
[1]: Sherwin-White, Susan M. From Samarkhand to Sardis: a new approach to the Seleucid empire. Vol. 13. University of California Pr, 1993. [2]: Docherty, Paddy. "The Khyber Pass: A History of Empire and Invasion: A History of Invasion and Empire. 2007." Publisher: Faber and Faber. pp. 64-65 |
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"A new popular literature, which flourished as the city began to prosper in the 1820s, reflected new values. Heroes included ordinary people, not just the princes and gods that dominated Ayutthayan works. They were not so constricted by birth and fate, but had the ability to make their own lives. Romantic love was portrayed as more personal, and less constrained by family, tradition, and status."
[1]
[1]: (Baker and Phongpaichit 2009, p. 36) |
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Traditional lore.
[1]
Caliphs supported poets, writers and scholars but output lower compared to works from Syria, Iraq and Spain during this period.
[2]
"Poets were employed by the state to fill the role of modern-day public relations agents."
[3]
[1]: (Raymond 2000, 47) [2]: (Oliver 1977, 21) [3]: (Qutbuddin 2011, 39) Qutbuddin, Tahera. Fatimids. Ramsamy, Edward. ed. 2011. Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Volume 2. Africa. Sage. Los Angeles. |
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Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
c6th century: "The disappearance of the novel and the decline of the old Roman comedy were dictated by the taste of the people."
[2]
Seventh century: George of Pisidia (Greek panegyric).
[3]
Casia "first Byzantine poetess (religious poetry, aphorisms, maxims, epigrams).
[3]
The Bibliotheca (literary criticism) and dictionary.
[3]
[1]: (Johannes Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Haussig 1971, 125) Haussig, H W. trans Hussey, J M. 1971. History of Byzantine Civilization. Thames and Hudson. [3]: (Haussig 1971, Chronological Table) Haussig, H W.trans Hussey, J M. 1971. History of Byzantine Civilization. Thames and Hudson. |
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Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
Tenth century: "Dictionary of the Suda. Works on imperial traditions. New hagiographical collection (Symeon Metaphrastes)."
[2]
[1]: (Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Haussig 1971, Chronological Table) Haussig, H W.trans Hussey, J M. 1971. History of Byzantine Civilization. Thames and Hudson. |
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Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
Twelfth century: "Theodore Prodromus, representative of Byzantine satirists. Composes in vernacular and in the literary language."
[2]
Porikologos.
[2]
1204 CE "First sagas of epic poetry in the vernacular: Digenis Akritas (first redaction of this epic), Bellhandros and Chrysantzas, Callimachus and Chrysorrhoe."
[2]
[1]: (Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Haussig 1971, Chronological Table) Haussig, H W.trans Hussey, J M. 1971. History of Byzantine Civilization. Thames and Hudson. |
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Poetry. From the Aegean region, which includes Greek cities of Lydia on the coast of Western Asia Minor: "By the 6th century BC, writing was widespread there and, thanks to the later reverence for Greek culture, huge amounts survive in transmission beyond that on archaeologically durable media. In addition to poetry, dedications, laws, mathematics and philosophy ... historians"
[1]
[1]: (Broodbank 2015, 536) Broodbank, Cyprian. 2015. The Making of the Middle Sea. Thames & Hudson. London. |
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Literate society: "The first Ottoman college was established in Iznik in 1331, when scholars were invited from Iran and Egypt to augment Muslim instruction in the new territories."
[1]
The Ottomans integrated the traditions of classical Arabic and Persian literature - but original own works start mostly in the later period.
[2]
[1]: (Lapidus 2012, 440) [2]: Personal communication. Johannes Preiser-Kapeller. 2016. Institute for Medieval Research. Division of Byzantine Research. Austrian Academy of Sciences. |
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16th Century considered the Golden Age for Ottoman literature.
[1]
Poetry: Baki (d. 1600 CE). Panegyrist and satirist: Nef’i (d. 1636 CE).
[2]
Efendi (d. 1644 CE).
[2]
[1]: (Agoston and Masters 2009, 338) Gabor Agoston and Bruce Masters. 2009. Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Facts On File, Inc. [2]: (Lapidus 2012, 445) |
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Abolqasem Ferdowsi (c.934-1020 CE): "Author from Tus in Khurasan (now Iran) who toiled for thirty years - happily under the patronage of the Samanids of Bukhara and unhappily under the patronage of Mahmud of Ghazni - to produce the Persian epic Shahnameh."
[1]
Rabia Balkhi: "A tenth-century poetess and friend of Rudaki from Balkh".
[1]
[1]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. |
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"A fragment of the epic of Rustam, probably translated from Middle Persian, has been found near Dunhuang.27 Among the Manichaean writings, tales and fables, including some from the Indian Panchatantra and the Greek fables of Aesop, have been discovered. There are also non-Manichaean fairy-tales."
[1]
[1]: (Marshak 1996, 257) |
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Kamoliddin Bihzad (1450-1537 CE): "Herat-based Timurid artist who was supported by the official and poet Navai."
[1]
Nizam al-Din Alisher Harawi (1441-1501 CE) or Navai: "poet who singlehandedly elevated his native Turkic language, Chaghatay, to the same high level as Persian."
[1]
Nuradin Jami (1414-1492 CE): "Leader of the Naqshbandiyya Sufi order in Timurid Herat, poet, and author of complex mystical allegories".
[1]
Ulugh Beg wrote poetry.
[2]
[1]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. [2]: (Khan 2003, 35) Khan, A. 2003. A Historical Atlas of Uzbekistan. The Rosen Publishing Group. |
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"Fictional" literature may have been present, given the fact that this was a literate culture. Expert confirmation needed.
|
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This is based on the codes for the Rasulids as ’Sultan ’Amir also appears to have been emulating the high period of Rasulid power a hundred years earlier’
[1]
. The sultans were "munificent patrons of Arabic literature, with not a few of the sultans themselves proficient authors."
[2]
[1]: Porter, Venetia Ann (1992) The history and monuments of the Tahirid dynasty of the Yemen 858-923/1454-1517, Durham theses, Durham University, p. 4 Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5867/ [2]: (Bosworth 2014) Clifford Edmund Bosworth. 2014. The New Islamic Dynasties. Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh. |
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"In the field of religion and culture, the nineteenth century is said to have witnessed the golden age of Islam in the Futa Jalon. It was the century of great scholars and the growth of Islamic culture. All the disciplines of the Quran were known and taught: translation, the hadiths, law, apologetics, the ancillary sciences such as grammar, rhetoric, literature, astronomy, local works in Pular and Arabic, and mysticism. Nineteenth-century European visitors were highly impressed by the extent of the Islamization, which was visible in the large number of mosques and schools at all levels, the degree of scholarship, the richness of the libraries, and the widespread practice of Islamic worship. All this seems to have been facilitated by the use of the local language, Pular, as a medium of teaching and popularization of Islamic rules and doctrine."
[1]
[1]: (Barry 2005: 539) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/SU25S5BX/items/6TXWGHAX/item-list |
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Literary and poetic works inferred from the following quotes. “Sinhala, along with Tamil, is among the first local languages (deśabhāsā) used for literature in southern Asia, with significant examples of poetry and criticism surviving from at least the seventh century.”
[1]
“The ninth century poetic handbook, Siyabaslakara (Poetic of one’s own language) urgers “clever poets” to be on the lookout for unintentional vulgarity in poor turns of expression on the grounds that they might come to be perceived as acceptable.”
[2]
“The most notable work was that of Kumāradāsa (a scion of the Sinhalese royal family but not a king), who composed the Jānakīharaṇa in the seventh century AD. Its theme was the Rāmāyaṇa.”
[3]
“The earliest known Sinhalese work was the Siyabaslakara, a work on rhetoric, a Sinhalese version of the well-known Sanskrit text on poetic, the Kāyādarśa. Its author was probably Sena IV (954–6). There were also exegetical works and glossaries, but none of them had any literary pretentions. Some of the inscriptions of the first and second centuries BC appear in verse. Much more interesting as examples of a lively and sensitive folk poetry are the verse written on the gallery wall at Sīgiri by visitors to the place in the eighth and ninth centuries, of which 700 stanzas have been deciphered.”
[4]
[1]: (Hallisey 2003, 690) Hallisey, Charles. 2003. ‘Works and Persons in Sinhala Literary Literature.’ Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. Edited by Sheldon Pollock. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/838278KW/collection [2]: (Hallisey 2003, 691) Hallisey, Charles. 2003. ‘Works and Persons in Sinhala Literary Literature.’ Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. Edited by Sheldon Pollock. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/838278KW/collection [3]: (De Silva, 1981, 59) De Silva, K.M. 1981. A History of Sri Lanka. London: C. Hurst & Company, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/4R6DQVHZ/collection [4]: (De Silva 1981, 3) De Silva, K.M. 1981. A History of Sri Lanka. London: C. Hurst & Company, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/4R6DQVHZ/collection |
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“There were also two prose works by a thirteenth century author, Gurulugomi, the Amāvatura and the Dharmapradīpikāva, of which the former was more noteworthy; and two poems (of the late twelfth and early thirteenth century), the Sasadāvata and the Muvadevadāta, both based on Jātaka stories, and both greatly influenced by the Sanskrit works of Kālidāsa and Kumāradāsa.”
[1]
[1]: (De Silva 1981, 74) De Silva, K.M. 1981. A History of Sri Lanka. London: C. Hurst & Company, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/4R6DQVHZ/collection |
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“Hadeya was then apparently well known to the Ethiopian body politic. This is suggested by Ethiopia’s medieval epic the Kebra Nagast, or Glory of Kings, which though written at Aksum in the far north of the empire, makes reference to the province.”
[1]
[1]: (Pankhurst 1997, 78) Pankhurst, Richard. 1997. The Ethiopian Borderlands: Essays in Regional History from Ancient Times to the End of the 18th Century. Lawrenceville, New Jersey: The Red Sea Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/F5TE8HH5/collection |
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-
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Poetry: “Nana Asma’u is a well-known Fulani poet from the Sokoto Caliphate who wrote in the 19th century.”
[1]
“The shaikh’s brother, ’Abdullahi dan Fodio, had opted out earlier (ca. 1806) in disgust at what was happening and headed toward Mecca, only to be persuaded in Kano to turn back.8 Once back, he set up his own community at Gwandu, where many of the poets and Sufis joined him as he set about composing long works of scholarship and versifying them for easier memorization.”
[2]
[1]: Falola, Toyin, and Ann Genova. Historical Dictionary of Nigeria. The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2009: 212. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SJAIVKDW/collection [2]: Last, Murray. “Contradictions in Creating a Jihadi Capital: Sokoto in the Nineteenth Century and Its Legacy.” African Studies Review, vol. 56, no. 2, 2013, pp. 1–20: 9. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5RUPN5VI/collection |
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“In his Maratha Rule in the Carnatic, C.K. Srinivasan lists the various famous writers who enriched literature and philosophy with their works. There was an enormous literary output in Sanskrit, Telugu and Tamil, and it embraced every form of composition: epics, drama, romantic pieces, burlesques, treatise on medicine, astrology and music.
[1]
[1]: (Appasamy 1980, 11) Appasamy, Jaya. 1980. Thanjavur Painting of the Maratha Period. Vol. 1. New Delhi. Abhinav Publications. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/35BU75NG/collection |
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“The rule of the nayaka in Thanjavur came to an end in the second half of the seventeenth century. Vijayaraghava Nayak (1634-73), son of Raghunatha Nayak, was the last ruler of the nayaka dynasty. On the whole, this period shaped the country both economically and culturally since most of these Hindu (Vaishnava) rulers had cultural, literary, and scientific interests and were comparatively tolerant and open in religious matters.”
[1]
[1]: (Lieban 2018, 54) Lieban, Heike. 2018. Cultural Encounters in India: The Local Co-workers of Tranquebar Mission, 18th to 19th Centuries. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/32CRNR7U/collection |
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Ballets; plays; operas. “Because both the king and queen had a passion for music, orchestral and vocal performances and multi-media spectacles occupied an important place in court entertainments. Domenico Scarlatti, the son of Alessandro Scarlatti, had served as the queen’s music tutor in Portugal and came to the Spanish court with his royal patroness. He spent the rest of his life serving the royal couple and composing hundreds of compositions for them. The queen also patronized Father Antonio Soler, a notable Spanish composer who studied with Scarlatti. To organize the elaborate spectacles and outings that defined the life at court, the royal couple hired Carlo Broschi, the famous castrato singer better known as Farinelli. As the court traveled from palace to palace on a regular annual round, taking advantage of the seasonal attractions in each venue, Farinelli made sure that they had sufficient amusements to distract them from the tedium of daily life and political responsibilities.”(Philips and Philips 2010: 181-182) Philips, William D. and Carla Rahn Philips. 2010. A Concise History of Spain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/ZT84ZFTP
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“Writers of novels in nineteenth-century Mexico, beginning, not coincidentally, with the formation of the nation itself, took as some of their main subject matter the description of local customs, seeing in them both the epitome of what was original and particularly Mexican as well as the raw material out of which suitable national beings might be molded.”
[1]
[1]: (French 2011: 14) French, William E. 2011. “Living the Vida Local: Contours of Everyday Life,” in A Companion to Mexican History and Culture, ed. William H. Beezley (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. 13–33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NZBCRB8Z |
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Romantic literature was popular during this period, as were the Arthurian tales written by Geoffrey of Monmouth. French literature was also popular.
[1]
[1]: (Prestwich 2005: 53, 557) Prestwich, Michael. 2005. Plantagenet England 1225-1360. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XTBKFDCI |
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Poetry; music; songs; nursery rhymes. “From their journeys in Italy, France, the lands of Austria and Germany, as well as Poland, the ruler along with his courtiers, lords and religious, brought ideas which they wished to put into effect in their seats. This was manifest in the life of the royal court, in the construction of castles and their furnishings, in literature, music and the visual arts… The court, the Church and the towns ensured a range of translations of well known literary works into Czech; also, university students created nursery rhymes and songs.”
[1]
“It is certainly true that the first signs of the courtly type of knight and its acceptance within the sovereign ideal appeared in Bohemia at the time of the last Přemyslids in association with poetry written in German. Much has been written about Minnesangers at the courts of Wenceslas I, Přemysl Otakar II and Wenceslas II, a topic, to which I will return in the chapter dealing with the ancient tradition. Given the origin of those Minnesangers, it is no surprise that they regarded generosity as a fundamental trait of Bohemian kings. The poets themselves were materially dependent on that generosity.”
[2]
[1]: (Pánek and Oldřich 2009: 148-149) Pánek, Jaroslav and Oldřich, Tůma. 2009. A History of the Czech Lands. University of Chicago Press. 2009. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/4NAX9KBJ [2]: (Antonin 2017: 225) Antonín, Robert. 2017. The Ideal Ruler in Medieval Bohemia, trans. Sean Mark Miller, East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450. Leiden; Boston: Brill. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/G2S9M8F6 |
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Poetry and verse was written by scholars such as Paul the Deacon.
[1]
Panegyrics “such as the Carmen de Synodo Ticinesi of c.690, the Laudes Mediolanensis Civitatis (c.740) and the Laudes Veronensis or Veronae Rythmica Descriptio (c.795-800)”.
[2]
[1]: Peters 2003: xii. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/X4ETPHA7 [2]: Christie 1998: 150. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/975BEGKF |
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Anti-Catholic literature such as Maria Monk’s Awful Discourses of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal (1834). Literature now considered as ‘American Classics’ such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (). Less than 500 American-written titles were published in 1834, but by 1862 almost 4,000 were published, with romance, adventure and horror novels becoming increasingly popular. Poems, children’s stories, plays.
[1]
[1]: Volo and Volo 2004: 31-32, 204, 211-216. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/SIB5XSW97. |
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Anti-Catholic literature such as Maria Monk’s Awful Discourses of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal (1834). Literature now considered as ‘American Classics’ such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (). Less than 500 American-written titles were published in 1834, but by 1862 almost 4,000 were published, with romance, adventure and horror novels becoming increasingly popular. Poems, children’s stories, plays.
[1]
[1]: Volo and Volo 2004: 31-32, 204, 211-216. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/SIB5XSW97. |
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Poetry; folksongs; utopian novels; plays. ““Ordinary people sang carols in church – indeed, the Reformation encouraged lay participation – and folk songs and printed ballads in taverns and out-of-doors. The ability of ordinary people to read and sing from ballad sheets reminds us that literacy was rising in late Tudor and early Stuart England. With the increasing number of endowed parish schools, and the printing press, much popular culture was transmitted through cheap, easy-to-read chapbooks and almanacs.”
[1]
“In poetry, the English language made possible the works of Sidney noted above, Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1609), Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590), the epic poems of Michael Drayton (1563–1631), and, later, the metaphysical poetry of John Donne (1572–1632) and George Herbert (1593–1633), and the cavalier lyrics of Sir John Suckling (1608/9–41?) and Abraham Cowley (1618–67).”
[2]
“The art form for which the Elizabethan and Jacobean age is best known is, arguably, the theater. The first plays in the English language were medieval mystery and mummers’ plays and pageants, mounted on religious feast days in communities large and small all over England and Wales. These were suppressed at the Reformation, but successive Protestant regimes sponsored anti-Catholic plays of their own. These and other short, secular interludes were performed in private houses by strolling bands of players. By the time of Elizabeth’s accession, fullfledged five-act plays were being mounted by young men at the universities and Inns of Court, especially during the Christmas holidays. The greatest of these university wits was Christopher Marlowe (1563/4–93), who wrote Dr. Faustus, Tamburlaine, and the History of Edward II.”
[3]
[1]: (Bucholz et al 2013: 207) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U [2]: (Bucholz et al 2013: 209) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U [3]: (Bucholz et al 2013: 208) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U |
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Old English poems. The heroic poem Beowulf is believed to be dated from the seventh or eighth century, though some scholars now suggest it may be from a slightly later period and was certainly written down during this polity period.
[1]
the Junius Manuscript, Exeter Book and Vercelli Book were all written in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
[2]
[1]: Yorke 1990: 22 [2]: Higham and Ryan 2013:252 |
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The Soviet Union produced a rich array of literature throughout its history.
Examples: Mikhail Bulgakov’s "The Master and Margarita": A satire of Soviet life. [1] Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s "Roadside Picnic": A science fiction novel that inspired the film "Stalker" by Andrei Tarkovsky. [2] [1]: Bulgakov, Mikhail, Richard Pevear, and Larissa Volokhonsky. The Master and Margarita. Penguin classics. London: Penguin Classics : [distributor] Penguin Books Ltd, 2007. Zotero link: UAPHZEUU [2]: Arkadiĭ Natanovich Strugat︠s︡kiĭ, Boris Natanovich Strugat︠s︡kiĭ, and Olena Bormashenko, Roadside Picnic, [New] ed. /., SF masterworks (London: Gollancz, 2012). Zotero link: GQUEL8CF |
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Poetry; theatre; musicals; opera. “In addition to the symbolism of its imagery, art propagandized in another way, demonstrating the ruler’s wealth and power—but also his cultivation. In Renaissance ideals, the prince was supposed not only to collect and sponsor art, but even to practice it, to develop a taste and facility with painting, music, poetry. Maximilian subscribed to all these ideas, and particularly in his last decade he set about elaborating a cultural legacy that would do him and his family honor.”
[1]
“Karl had several Italian court poets, the most famous of which was Pietro Metastasio. Johann Joseph Fux was Karl’s court composer and helped stage the extravagant musical performances Karl enjoyed.”
[2]
“Hence Joseph throughout his rule promoted German art, such as the German national theater in Vienna, as part of his desire to inculcate a unified and unifying public culture in German. A famous example is that Mozart’s opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail was written at Joseph’s behest, thereby giving rise to what has been called one of the first German operas.”
[3]
[1]: (Curtis 2013: 69) Curtis, Benjamin. 2013. The Habsburgs: The History of a Dynasty. London; New York: Bloomsbury. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TRKUBP92 [2]: (Curtis 2013: 213) Curtis, Benjamin. 2013. The Habsburgs: The History of a Dynasty. London; New York: Bloomsbury. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TRKUBP92 [3]: (Curtis 2013: 238) Curtis, Benjamin. 2013. The Habsburgs: The History of a Dynasty. London; New York: Bloomsbury. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TRKUBP92 |
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Poetry – Persian and Arabic in court especially - was incredibly popular during this period, and the large number of poets and writers were considered important to the culture of the time, and many were court dignitaries.
[1]
The celebrated poet, Rashid al-Din Muhammad ’Umari, also wrote guides as well as poetry, such as “"Art of Rhetoric", the Hada’iq al-sihr fi daqďiq al֊shťr, or "Magic Gardens of the Niceties of Poetry", written because Muhammad b. ťUmar Raduyani’s Tarjuman al-Baldgha, "Guide to Eloquence" (composed between 481/1088 and 507/1114) had become out of date.”
[2]
[1]: Boyle 1968: 550, 560. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/CFW8EE6Q [2]: Boyle 1968: 561. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/CFW8EE6Q |
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Plays were written and performed, notably when a group of Greek actors performed for Tigranes the Great.
[1]
The king Artavasdes II composed Greek tragedies and orations.
[2]
[1]: “Artaxiad Dynasty,” https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/IVLMP6Q8 [2]: Hovannisian 2004: 57. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/8B4DBDFU |
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Mongolian poetry was written on birchbark.
[1]
Romantic and philosophical poetry was especially popular.
[2]
[1]: Atwood 2004: 206. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/SJXN6MZD. [2]: Khakimov and Favereau 2017: 507, 510. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/QL8H3FN8 |
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Prose and verse regarding Persian history began to emerge under the Saffarids.
[1]
In the reign of Yaʿqub, poets wrote panegyrics about his successes.
[2]
[1]: Yarshater 1983: 477. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/X7EBQRHC [2]: ”Saffarids.” https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZU3IU97Q. |
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Poetry, novels, plays.
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[2]
[1]: (Marshall 2006: 18, 523) Marshall, P. J. ed. 2006. The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume II The Eighteenth Century. Vol. 2, 5 vols. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HGG2PPQQ [2]: (Canny 1998: 100) Canny, Nicholas. ed. 1998. The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume I The Origins of Empire, vol. 1, 5 vols. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/RTDR3NCN |
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Poetry, novels, plays.
[1]
[2]
[1]: (Marshall 2006: 18, 523) Marshall, P. J. ed. 2006. The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume II The Eighteenth Century. Vol. 2, 5 vols. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HGG2PPQQ [2]: (Canny 1998: 100. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/RTDR3NCN |
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literate elite.
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Records from the early Funan period are scarce. ’The earliest extant Sanskrit texts, from Cambodia’s Funan period, are undated records from the 5th century: undated Khmer inscriptions appear about a century later. Dated inscriptions in Sanskrit and Old Khmer start from the early 7th century. The Pre-Angkorian Sanskrit texts were generally short ‘literary gestures’ (ibid., 219), but by the Angkorian period, they used very sophisticated poetry, employing polished orthography and grammar, as in India. These display knowledge of Indian intellectual and political thought and of literature including the metrics of poetry (Majumdar 1953: xvii-iii; Bhattacharya 1991: 2-4; Pollock 1996: 218-220; Dagens 2003: 217).’
[1]
[1]: (Lustig 2009, p. 107) |
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Records from the early Funan period are scarce. ’The earliest extant Sanskrit texts, from Cambodia’s Funan period, are undated records from the 5th century: undated Khmer inscriptions appear about a century later. Dated inscriptions in Sanskrit and Old Khmer start from the early 7th century. The Pre-Angkorian Sanskrit texts were generally short ‘literary gestures’ (ibid., 219), but by the Angkorian period, they used very sophisticated poetry, employing polished orthography and grammar, as in India. These display knowledge of Indian intellectual and political thought and of literature including the metrics of poetry (Majumdar 1953: xvii-iii; Bhattacharya 1991: 2-4; Pollock 1996: 218-220; Dagens 2003: 217).’
[1]
[1]: (Lustig 2009, p. 107) |
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Records from the early Funan period are scarce. ’The earliest extant Sanskrit texts, from Cambodia’s Funan period, are undated records from the 5th century: undated Khmer inscriptions appear about a century later. Dated inscriptions in Sanskrit and Old Khmer start from the early 7th century. The Pre-Angkorian Sanskrit texts were generally short ‘literary gestures’ (ibid., 219), but by the Angkorian period, they used very sophisticated poetry, employing polished orthography and grammar, as in India. These display knowledge of Indian intellectual and political thought and of literature including the metrics of poetry (Majumdar 1953: xvii-iii; Bhattacharya 1991: 2-4; Pollock 1996: 218-220; Dagens 2003: 217).’
[1]
[1]: (Lustig 2009, 107) |
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No information found in sources so far.
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Unknown. The Shang wrote on perishable materials, such as bamboo and silk.
[1]
[1]: (The Shang Dynasty, 1600 to 1050 BCE. Spice Digest, Fall 2007. http://iis-db.stanford.edu/docs/117/ShangDynasty.pdf) |
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Unknown. "normally it is only after writing comes to be used for display that archaeology begins to find traces of it. Because administrative documents were almost certainly written on perishable materials like bamboo and papyrus, we will probably never find them."
[1]
[1]: (Wang 2014, 179) Wang, Haicheng. 2014. Writing and the Ancient State: Early China in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge University Press. |
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Literacy very low. Were there any readers of literature?
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Literacy very low. Were there any readers of literature?
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Literacy very low. Were there any readers of literature?
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The following quote suggests that this era has left behind few written texts. "Historical information on those emerging years of the empire is dim and has to be carefully extracted from the accounts of Arab writers (Levtzion and Hopkins 1981), the scanty internal evidence in the Kanem-Borno king lists (Lange 1977), and the few fragments of internal scripts that have been recorded by the German traveler Heinrich Barth (1857-59; Lange 1987) and the British colonial officer Richmond Palmer (1967; 1970)."
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[1]: (Gronenborn 2002: 103) |
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"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
"Similarly, official poet laureates were unknown, but poetry composition and recitation was a major virtue of courtly life and manners (Morris 1964)."
[2]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. [2]: (Steinhart 1978: 143) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. |
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