| # | Polity | Coded Value | Tags | Year(s) | Edit | Desc |
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“It seems that Buddhism was introduced around the beginning of the 17th century and there was nearly no evidence of Buddhism in Oirat before that time. Therefore, Oirat Buddhism was written from the first half of the 17th century.”
[1]
[1]: (Dorj 2020: 30) Dorj, Lkhagvasuren. 2020. “History and Contemporary Situation of Oirat Buddhist Monasteries in Western Mongolia”. Doctoral Dissertation, Budapest: Eötvös Loránd University. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/AH2RCMNY |
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With the departure of the Romans, written records went out of use and would not re-emerge until the seventh century.
[1]
The church created many of the earlier documents such as ‘historical’ records of saints and annals. The Venerable Bede created many works including verse and prose on the life and St. Cuthbert, and the Martyrology, a list of saints.
[2]
Under Alfred the Great, religious works in Latin were translated into English, including Pope Gregory’s two works, Pastoral Care, on the duties of a bishop, and Dialogues, about the tales of St. Benedict.
[3]
[1]: (Hills 1990: 47) Hills, Catherine. ‘Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England’, History Today, 1 October 1990, https://www.proquest.com/docview/1299029206/abstract/974AE2C925154DEBPQ/1. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9P2MJSYJ/ [2]: (Yorke 1990: 20, 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 [3]: (Roberts et al 2014: 29) Roberts, Clayton, Roberts, F. David, and Bisson, Douglas. 2014. ‘Anglo-Saxon England: 450–1066’, in A History of England, Volume 1, 6th ed. Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/P2IHD9U3 |
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During the plague year of 1358 an Islamic-Turkic religious work was produced called, The Clear Path to Heaven.
[1]
However, there seems to have been a disruption of literary works in the Turkic languages following the Black Death. After 1360 there appear to be no literary or religious works written in the Golden Horde language until the fifteenth century in Central Asia.
[2]
.
[1]
[1]: Khakimov and Favereau 2017: 684. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/QL8H3FN8 [2]: Schamiloglu 2017: 337. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/YI8W94QB |
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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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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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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ lists no mnemonic devices or nonwritten records or ’True writing, no writing’
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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 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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“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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Sources do not describe anything like "religious literature" besides the texts produced by Christian missionaries.
[1]
[2]
[1]: Che-lin, Wu, Chen Kuo-chün, and Lien-en Tsao 1942. “Studies Of Miao-I Societies In Kweichow”, 15 [2]: Diamond, Norma 1993. “Ethnicity And The State: The Hua Miao Of Southwest China”, 68 |
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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 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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“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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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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There are lack of evidences suggesting that the writing system has been already invented.
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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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Inferred from the fact that sacred texts had not been written down. "The earliest parts of the Rig-Veda, the oldest of the Vedas, may have been composed as early as, or even earlier than, 1700 BCE, but was written down only after 500 BC. For forty generations and more it was handed down by word of mouth by bards and poets, who chanted the sacred hymn and the ritual prayers."
[1]
[1]: Avari, B. (2007) India: The Ancient Past: A history of the India sub-continent from c. 7,000 BC to AD 1200. Routledge: London and New York. p76 |
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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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"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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"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]
Based on the literature consulted, it remains unclear whether literacy spread from Buganda to Nkore at this time.
[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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"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]
We are inferring presence for the kingdom of Nkore due to likely spread of literacy from the Buganda polity.
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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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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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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"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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Islamic texts. "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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"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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absent/present/unknown Christianity was introduced in 1000ce: ’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]
Hagiographic and other kinds of religious literature were present: ’Christianity is closely associated with religious literature and some of it must have been present in Iceland after the conversion although imported.’
[2]
’One of the remarkable legacies of early Iceland is its wealth of literary production. Icelandic literary production encompassed continental chivalrous, hagiographic, and historical traditions, in addition to the autochthonous development of the saga. Among other topics, Icelandic sagas depict events from the early years of Icelandic society, the colonization of Greenland and the discovery of North America, and the civil wars that characterized the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Iceland. The medieval manuscripts also preserve an artistic tradition in illumination. The literary levels achieved in Iceland, to some degree, developed from strong oral traditions of poetry and narrative. Much of the material culture of early Iceland has not been preserved but a strong tradition in artistic woodcarving is evident.’
[3]
’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.’
[4]
[1]: http://www.britannica.com/place/Iceland/Government-and-society#toc10088 [2]: Árni Daniel Júlíusson and Axel Kristissen 2017, pers. comm. to E. Brandl and D. Mullins [3]: Bolender, Douglas James and Beierle, John: eHRAF Cultural Summary for Early Icelanders [4]: Odner, Knut 1992. “Þógunna’S Testament: A Myth For Moral Contemplation And Social Apathy”, 125 |
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The Sibyl of Cumae reportedly offered nine books of prophecies to the Roman Kingdom monarch Tarquin. Three books were purchased and kept in the Temple of Jupiter.
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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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“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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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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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 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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This religious literature is in addition to the sacred texts. For example, providing commentary on the sacred texts. Include prophecies here.
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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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Islamic texts. "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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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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Koran. "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. The Bambara were not Muslims.
[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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"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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"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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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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Koran. "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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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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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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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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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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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’ Given the role of missionary schools in the spread of literacy, some religious literature may have been present. Expert feedback on schooling and literacy is needed.
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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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"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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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 first recent script for the Sakha language was developed by 19th century Russian missionaries: ’The Yakut speak Yakut, a Northeast Turkic language of the Altaic Language Family. It is one of the most divergent of the Turkic languages, closely related to Dolgan (a mixture of Evenk and Yakut sometimes described as a Yakut dialect). The Yakut, over 90 percent of whom speak Yakut as their mother tongue, call their language "Sakha-tyla." Their current written language, developed in the 1930s, is a modified Cyrillic script. Before this, they had several written forms, including a Latin script developed in the 1920s and a Cyrillic script introduced by missionaries in the nineteenth century. Yakut lore includes legends of a written language lost after they traveled north to the Lena valley.’
[1]
It therefore seems likely that Biblical texts and Christian literature were spread first among the Sakha, although this remains to be confirmed. We have selected 1800 as a potential date of transition.
[1]: Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam and Skoggard, Ian: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Yakut |
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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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"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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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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"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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"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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Christian missionaries translated parts of the Bible into Iroquois languages and published religious newspapers: ’At the time, those Whites having business with Indians needed interpreters, and the missionaries and teachers in the mission schools were no exception. Nevertheless, with the help of interpreters, a few of them did translate hymns and parts of the Bible into Seneca. This work of translation was greatly expanded by the most noted missionary to the Senecas, Asher Wright. His translations included those of the four Gospels into Seneca. He also established a press to publish materials such as a newspaper, The Mental Elevator, in both Seneca and English (Pilling1888:175-178). Wright went to the Buffalo Creek reservationas a missionary in 1831 and spent the next 15 years there. When this reservation was sold, he and his wife moved to Cattaraugus where Wright died.’
[1]
We have assumed 1831 as a provisional date of transition.
[1]: Abler, Thomas S., and Elisabeth Tooker 1978. “Seneca”, 510 |
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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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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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[1]
Topics of texts included: commentaries on Avesta; philosophy and debate; apocalyptic; didactic; geographical and epic; legal; cultural and dictionaries.
[2]
The Original Creation "subject-matter ranges from cosmology, astronomy and eschatology to lists of rivers, mountains and plants."
[3]
Religious Judgments by Manuchihr. Answered 92 questions on Zoroastrian belief.
[4]
"Sometime around 518, a Buddhist mission came to the north of India from China, searching for scriptures to collect and preserve. According to their own records, they managed to leave India with 170 volumes."
[5]
Bozorghmer (531-578 CE): "Native of Merv and the best-known Central Asian thinker of the pre-Islamic era. A Zoroastrian dualist, Bozorghmer propounded ideas on ethics that influenced thinkers deep into the Muslim age. He also served as vizier and invented the game of backgammon."
[6]
[1]: Litvinsky B.A.,Guang-da Zhang , and Shabani Samghabadi R. (eds)History of Civilizations of Central Asia p. 143 [2]: (Daryaee 2009, 108) [3]: Iskender-Mochiri, I ed. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf ; Daryaee, T. 2009, Sasanian Persia, p.87 [4]: Iskender-Mochiri, I ed. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf ; Daryaee, T. 2009, Sasanian Persia, p. 87 [5]: (Bauer 2010, 182) Bauer, S W. 2010. The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade. W. W. Norton & Company. [6]: (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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Certainly absent.
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ lists no mnemonic devices or nonwritten records or ’True writing, no writing’ The Christian missionaries published religious newspapers: ‘Most of the writings before 1940 had religious intonation though secular form of literature began in 1924. Before this, there were only two journals in Garo language-one was the A’chikni Ripeng or “Friend of the Garos”, a powerful organ of the American Baptist Mission started in 1879. Since the journal was meant for propagation of plans and policies of the American Baptist Mission, articles dealing with one’s freedom of thought and expression were not accepted and published in it. The other journal, which was brought out in October, 1912 by three local leaders, namely Jobang D. Marak, Modhunath G. Momin and Alexander Macdonald Bassamoit, was Phringphrang or “Morning Star”. This journal, which was supposed to be secular in nature, was not very much different from the A’chikni Ripeng as most of the articles there, were connected with religion. The journal had its last publication in December, 1914 after which there were no more secular journals.’
[1]
[1]: Shira, Lindrid D. 1995. “Renaissance In Garo Literature”, 176 |
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Buddhist, Hindu and Jain texts, including commentaries.
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Buddhist, Jain and Hindu texts, including commentaries.
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Buddhist, Jain and Hindu texts, including commentaries.
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"Whatever their genesis, sanction for this accretion and fusion of cults was provided by the Puranas and the epics as they were recast, expanded and written down during and after the Guptas."
[1]
[1]: (Keay 2010, 148) Keay, John. 2010. India: A History. New Updated Edition. London: HarperPress. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/HSHAKZ3X. |
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Gupta-Vakataka period: "Philosophy was mostly critical in our period, but it was remarkably creative as well in the case of the Mahayana school of Buddhism. The most original, the most daring and the most far-reaching contributions of this school to the progress of Indian philosophy were made by its thinkers who flourished 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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The closest proximity to theology is the Arabic Kalam. The complexities of this are beyond a single entry, but Islamic writers wrote synopses of Islamic theological thought in volumes called Aqidat. Abu Hanifah’s testiment is one of the best known, being the work of Abu Ja’far Ahmad al-Tawawi dating from 933 CE.
[1]
Muhammad al-Bukhari (810-870 CE): "Bukhara-born compiler and editor of An Abridged Collection of Authentic Hadiths with Connected Chains [of Transmission] Regarding Matters Pertaining to the Prophet, His Practices, and His Times, the most revered book in Islam after the Quran."
[2]
[1]: Young, M. J. L., John Derek Latham, and Robert Bertram Serjeant, eds. Religion, learning and science in the’abbasid period pp. 14-15 [2]: (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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With the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258 CE "the culture, science and learning for which Baghdad had been known for centuries simply disappeared in a period of a week."
[1]
[1]: (DeVries 2014, 209) DeVries, Kelly in Morton, N. John, S. eds. 2014. Crusading and Warfare in the Middle Ages: Realities and Representations. Essays in Honour of John France. Ashgate Publishing Ltd. |
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There is a large amount of religious literature from the Old Babylonian period, mostly relating to the new king of the gods Marduk, it includes hymns, prayers and incantations. One of the most famous texts in the Enuma Elish which, in its epilogue, describes the ascension of Marduk to supreme god.
[1]
[1]: Oshima, T. 2007. The Babylonian God Marduk. In Leick, G. (ed.) The Babylonian World. London: Routledge. p.82 |
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Theologians present in society.
[1]
Buyids paid "handsome sums to Shi’ite poets and littérateurs."
[2]
"al-Daula financed considerable scientific, medical, and Islamic religious research."
[3]
[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.287 [2]: (Crone 2005, 221) Crone, Patricia. 2005. Medieval Islamic Political Thought. Edinburgh University Press. [3]: (Ring, Watson and Schellinger 2014, 644) Ring, Trudy. Watson, Noelle. Schellinger, Paul. 2014. Middle East and Africa: International Dictionary of Historic Places. Routledge. |
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|
After the official conversion of the court to Islam there was "a specific Il-khanid interest in patronizing works [illustrated manuscripts] that deal with different religions of the past and present, emphasizing the prominence of Islam above all the others and in particular of Shiʿite Islam"
[1]
[1]: Stefano Carboni, ’IL-KHANIDS iii. Book Illustration’ http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/il-khanids-iii-book-illustration |
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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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|
"Considering this severe lack of detailed evidence, a ‘sense’ of this phase can be partly gathered from pseudo-historical and religious/literary texts. These texts not only refer to, but also partly originated in this period."
[1]
[1]: (Liverani 2014, 469) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7DRZQS5Q/q/liverani. |
||||||
|
"Considering this severe lack of detailed evidence, a ‘sense’ of this phase can be partly gathered from pseudo-historical and religious/literary texts. These texts not only refer to, but also partly originated in this period."
[1]
[1]: (Liverani 2014, 469) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7DRZQS5Q/q/liverani. |
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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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|
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]
[1]: T. Cuyler Young, Jr. Achaemenid Society and Culture http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/achaemenid_society_culture.php#sthash.wxVBVuth.dpuf |
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|
"Uzun Hasan patronised religious structures, encouraged religious endowments and students, including Tajik sayyids, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632), and patronised the arts and sciences".
[1]
"theologian and philosopher Jalal al-Din Davani (d. 1503)".
[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 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 was from 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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|
Temple dedications to gods.
[1]
Mortuary prayers and invocations
[2]
[1]: Carter, E. and Stolpher, M.W. 1984. Elam: Surveys of Political History and Archaeology. Near Eastern Studies. Volume 25. Berkley: University of California Press. p.38 [2]: Potts, D.T. 2012. The Elamites. In Daryaee, T. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 48 |
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|
Temple dedications to gods.
[1]
Mortuary prayers and invocations
[2]
[1]: Carter, E. and Stolpher, M.W. 1984. Elam: Surveys of Political History and Archaeology. Near Eastern Studies. Volume 25. Berkley: University of California Press. p.38 [2]: Potts, D.T. 2012. The Elamites. In Daryaee, T. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 48 |
||||||
|
Temple dedications to gods.
[1]
Mortuary prayers and invocations
[2]
[1]: Carter, E. and Stolpher, M.W. 1984. Elam: Surveys of Political History and Archaeology. Near Eastern Studies. Volume 25. Berkley: University of California Press. p.38 [2]: Potts, D.T. 2012. The Elamites. In Daryaee, T. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 48 |
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|
Zoroastrianism?
|
||||||
|
"During the Safavids dynasty (1500-1722), many Islamic schools were funded to teach religious law as a higher education discipline. Schools had their own campuses with libraries and student residences. The Advanced Law School ... was established in 1919."
[1]
[1]: (Maranlou 2016, 144-145) Sahar Maranlou. Modernization Prospects For Legal Education In Iran. Mutaz M Qafisheh. Stephen A Rosenbaum. eds. 2016. Experimental Legal Education in a Globalized World: The Middle East and Beyond. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Newcastle upon Tyne. |
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|
e.g. Persian theological works
[1]
"most Shi‘i clerics of the day, whether resident in Iran or abroad, composed their scholarly works in Arabic."
[2]
[1]: Rudi Matthee ‘SAFAVID DYNASTY’http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/safavids [2]: (Newman 2009) Newman, Andrew J. 2009. Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire. I.B. Tauris. New York. |
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|
"Iranians were familiar with Greek philosophy from the Achaemenid period. This acquaintance was deepened in Sasanian times, leading to the influence of Greek philosophy on Zoroastrian religious works."
[1]
"Translations of, and commentaries upon, the Avesta ... in Middle Persia (also known as Pahlavi), as well as books written on the basis of oral traditions of Avestan material".
[2]
Zoroastrian priestly writing: "Middle Persian texts." Commentaries on Avesta. Philosophy and debate. Apocalyptic. Didactic. Geographical and epic. Legal. Cultural. Dictionaries.
[3]
Zoroastrian scriptures kept in the Avestra.
[4]
[1]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 90) 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, 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]: (Daryaee 2009, 108) Daryaee, Touraj. 2009. Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. I.B. Tauris. London. [4]: (Lapidus 2012, 16) Lapidus, I M. 2012. Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. |
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|
“Ligdan Khan built a new capital in Chahar known as Chaghan Baishin (White House) and he encouraged the building of monasteries and the translation of Tibetan canonical literature into Mongolian.»
[1]
although Ligdan Khan was in practice not controlling the Khalkhas, we can infer similar behaviour in what was officially still part of the Mongol state ?
[1]: (Ishjamts 2003, 216) |
||||||
|
"Iranians were familiar with Greek philosophy from the Achaemenid period. This acquaintance was deepened in Sasanian times, leading to the influence of Greek philosophy on Zoroastrian religious works."
[1]
"Translations of, and commentaries upon, the Avesta ... in Middle Persia (also known as Pahlavi), as well as books written on the basis of oral traditions of Avestan material".
[2]
Zoroastrian priestly writing: "Middle Persian texts." Commentaries on Avesta. Philosophy and debate. Apocalyptic. Didactic. Geographical and epic. Legal. Cultural. Dictionaries.
[3]
The Original Creation "subject-matter ranges from cosmology, astronomy and eschatology to lists of rivers, mountains and plants."
[4]
Religious Judgements by Manuchihr. Answered 92 questions on Zoroastrian belief.
[4]
[1]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 90) 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, 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]: (Daryaee 2009, 108) Daryaee, Touraj. 2009. Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. I.B. Tauris. London. [4]: (Tafazzoli and Khromov 1996, 87) 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 |
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|
Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058-1111 CE): A Sufist who "integrated his views on faith into the mainstream of Islam, eventually influencing Christianity as well."
[1]
Ḥasan Ghaznavi wrote theology in Arabic and Persian.
[2]
" Nasir Khusraw (1004-1088) epitomized the challenge that the Ismailis presented to Sunni orthodoxy in the Seljuk period."
[1]
[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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|
absent/present/unknown Christianity was introduced in 1000ce: ’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]
Hagiographic and other kinds of religious literature were present: ’Christianity is closely associated with religious literature and some of it must have been present in Iceland after the conversion although imported.’
[2]
’One of the remarkable legacies of early Iceland is its wealth of literary production. Icelandic literary production encompassed continental chivalrous, hagiographic, and historical traditions, in addition to the autochthonous development of the saga. Among other topics, Icelandic sagas depict events from the early years of Icelandic society, the colonization of Greenland and the discovery of North America, and the civil wars that characterized the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Iceland. The medieval manuscripts also preserve an artistic tradition in illumination. The literary levels achieved in Iceland, to some degree, developed from strong oral traditions of poetry and narrative. Much of the material culture of early Iceland has not been preserved but a strong tradition in artistic woodcarving is evident.’
[3]
’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.’
[4]
[1]: http://www.britannica.com/place/Iceland/Government-and-society#toc10088 [2]: Árni Daniel Júlíusson and Axel Kristissen 2017, pers. comm. to E. Brandl and D. Mullins [3]: Bolender, Douglas James and Beierle, John: eHRAF Cultural Summary for Early Icelanders [4]: Odner, Knut 1992. “Þógunna’S Testament: A Myth For Moral Contemplation And Social Apathy”, 125 |
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|
absent/present/unknown Christianity was introduced in 1000ce: ’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]
Hagiographic and other kinds of religious literature were present: ’Christianity is closely associated with religious literature and some of it must have been present in Iceland after the conversion although imported.’
[2]
’One of the remarkable legacies of early Iceland is its wealth of literary production. Icelandic literary production encompassed continental chivalrous, hagiographic, and historical traditions, in addition to the autochthonous development of the saga. Among other topics, Icelandic sagas depict events from the early years of Icelandic society, the colonization of Greenland and the discovery of North America, and the civil wars that characterized the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Iceland. The medieval manuscripts also preserve an artistic tradition in illumination. The literary levels achieved in Iceland, to some degree, developed from strong oral traditions of poetry and narrative. Much of the material culture of early Iceland has not been preserved but a strong tradition in artistic woodcarving is evident.’
[3]
’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.’
[4]
[1]: http://www.britannica.com/place/Iceland/Government-and-society#toc10088 [2]: Árni Daniel Júlíusson and Axel Kristissen 2017, pers. comm. to E. Brandl and D. Mullins [3]: Bolender, Douglas James and Beierle, John: eHRAF Cultural Summary for Early Icelanders [4]: Odner, Knut 1992. “Þógunna’S Testament: A Myth For Moral Contemplation And Social Apathy”, 125 |
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|
Arnold of Brescia wrote against the Church’s ownership of property, and was involved in Commune of Rome. Joachim of Fiore (c. 1135-1202 CE)
[1]
Innocent III wrote "On the Mysteries of the Mass" which was very popular in the later Middle Ages and as a cardinal wrote "On the Misery of the Human Condition" in 1196 CE.
[2]
[1]: (Madigan 2015, xx) [2]: (Madigan 2015, 288) |
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|
Saints’ lives, spiritual guides, collections of various papal writings, and monastic rules are examples of this genre.
|
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|
E.g. The Sibyl of Cumae reportedly offered nine books of prophecies to the Roman Kingdom monarch Tarquin. Three books were purchased and kept in the Temple of Jupiter. According to Tacitus (Tacitus 6.12) after the temple was destroyed in a fire in the 1st century BCE efforts were made to reconstruct their contents.
|
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|
E.g. The Sibyl of Cumae reportedly offered nine books of prophecies to the Roman Kingdom monarch Tarquin. Three books were purchased and kept in the Temple of Jupiter. According to Tacitus (Tacitus 6.12) after the temple was destroyed in a fire in the 1st century BCE efforts were made to reconstruct their contents.
|
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|
The Sibyl of Cumae reportedly offered nine books of prophecies to the Roman Kingdom monarch Tarquin. Three books were purchased and kept in the Temple of Jupiter.
|
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|
"The fourth and fifth centuries represent the golden age of what is termed ’patristic’ literature, works written by the great Fathers of the Church, men who, released from persecution during the reign of Constantine, now often took on the public role of statesman as well as that of bishop."
[1]
"Augustine (354-430), bishop of Hippo Regius in North Africa from 395 to his death. He wrote his most influential work, the City of God, during 413-426 under the immediate impact of the Visigothic sack of Rome."
[2]
[1]: (Cameron 1993, 13-14) Cameron, Averil. 1993. The Later Roman Empire. AD 284-430. Harvard University Press. Cambridge. [2]: (Maenchen-Helfen 1973, 478) Maenchen-Helfen, Otto. 1973. The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture. University of California Press. |
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|
’Whether the Khmer states were few or many, they were sophisticated and cosmopolitan; their masters could afford to live in style, and their wise men could plumb the secrets of Sanskrit religious texts.’
[1]
’During the first five hundred years or so of the current era, India provided Cambodia with a writing system, a pantheon, meters for poetry, a language (Sanskrit) to write it in, a vocabulary of social hierarchies (not the same as a caste system), Buddhism, the idea of universal kingship, and new ways a looking at politics, sociology, architecture, iconography, astronomy, and aesthetics.’
[2]
[1]: (Mabbett and Chandler 1995, 85) [2]: (Chandler 2008, 17) |
||||||
|
’With more than eighty extant works attributed to him, Genshin was one of the most prolific monks of the Heian period, his writing covering such diverse topics as Tendai doctrine, Hlnayana philosophy, logic, esoteric ritual, and Pure Land teachings.’
[1]
’The men of Murakami’s time felt tradtional rituals to be in danger of slipping out of use, and thus his court gloried in the production of manuals of ceremonies and court procedures. A handbook of annual ceremonies was written by the Fujiwara regent Morosuke, and Morosuke’s successor Saneyori (900-70) was looked upon by later times as the founder of a school of yusoku kojitsu, the study of customs and precedents.’
[2]
[1]: Shively, Donald H. and McCullough, William H. 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan Volume 2: Heian Japan. Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press.p.510 [2]: Shively, Donald H. and McCullough, William H. 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan Volume 2: Heian Japan. Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press.p.359 |
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|
[1]
the following refers events just before the start of the Kamakura period but such texts would certanly have been available in the Kamakura periods itself. ’Under Eiku, Honen studied the Buddhist scriptures and doctrinal treatises. For a time he concentrated on the Vinaya, containing the rules of conduct for Buddhist clergy, and he began to reflect on what it meant to be a priest. He also read the Ojoyoshu by Genshin (942-1017), which exposed him to the Pure Land teachings that the Tendai school had integrated into its religious system. In addition, Honen traveled to Nara and received instruction in the doctrines of Hosso and the other philosophies of Nara Buddhism.
[2]
[1]: Yamamura, Kozo (ed). 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 3. Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press [sixth edition].p.577 [2]: Yamamura, Kozo (ed). 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 3. Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press [sixth edition]. p.547 |
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|
‘Inouye Kaoru observed that Doji, a Buddhist priest who went to China in 702 and returned in 718, brought back a copy of the recent translation that the compilers of the Nihon shoki had seen.« Historians are therefore in general agreement that the Nihon shoki item concerning the introduction of Buddhism contains additions and embellishments made by later editors. And yet it cannot be denied that King Songmyong of Paekche actually sent Buddhist images and texts to the Yamato king around the middle of the sixth century and that this was an important event in the early history of Japanese Buddhism.’
[1]
[1]: Brown, Delmer M. 1993. The Cambridge History of Japan Volume 1: Ancient Japan. Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press.p.372 |
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|
’This means that the sources available to us consist mainly of those that were inscribed on stone. The stone inscriptions were normally composed as records of endowments to temples, and they were overwhelmingly skewed to the affairs of religious institutions.’
[1]
’For several hundred years, Sanskrit was used in inscriptions that supposedly addressed the gods. Khmer, on the other hand, was the predominant language of Cambodian men and women, those who were protected by the gods and descended, as gods did not, from their ancestors and the highly localised nak ta.’
[2]
’This section also includes a discussion of the Riemker, which is the Khmer version of the great Indian epic, the Ramayana, and how they differ. He identifies indigenous additions and changes and notes similarities between later versions of the Riemker and scenes depicted on the bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat.’
[3]
[1]: (Mabbett and Chandler 1995, p.125) [2]: (Chandler 2008, p. 27) [3]: (Rooney 2004, p. 161) |
||||||
|
’This means that the sources available to us consist mainly of those that were inscribed on stone. The stone inscriptions were normally composed as records of endowments to temples, and they were overwhelmingly skewed to the affairs of religious institutions.’
[1]
’For several hundred years, Sanskrit was used in inscriptions that supposedly addressed the gods. Khmer, on the other hand, was the predominant language of Cambodian men and women, those who were protected by the gods and descended, as gods did not, from their ancestors and the highly localised nak ta.’
[2]
’This section also includes a discussion of the Riemker, which is the Khmer version of the great Indian epic, the Ramayana, and how they differ. He identifies indigenous additions and changes and notes similarities between later versions of the Riemker and scenes depicted on the bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat.’
[3]
[1]: (Mabbett and Chandler 1995, p.125) [2]: (Chandler 2008, p. 27) [3]: (Rooney 2004, p. 161) |
||||||
|
’This means that the sources available to us consist mainly of those that were inscribed on stone. The stone inscriptions were normally composed as records of endowments to temples, and they were overwhelmingly skewed to the affairs of religious institutions.’
[1]
’For several hundred years, Sanskrit was used in inscriptions that supposedly addressed the gods. Khmer, on the other hand, was the predominant language of Cambodian men and women, those who were protected by the gods and descended, as gods did not, from their ancestors and the highly localised nak ta.’
[2]
’This section also includes a discussion of the Riemker, which is the Khmer version of the great Indian epic, the Ramayana, and how they differ. He identifies indigenous additions and changes and notes similarities between later versions of the Riemker and scenes depicted on the bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat.’
[3]
[1]: (Mabbett and Chandler 1995, p.125) [2]: (Chandler 2008, p. 27) [3]: (Rooney 2004, p. 161) |
||||||
|
’This means that the sources available to us consist mainly of those that were inscribed on stone. The stone inscriptions were normally composed as records of endowments to temples, and they were overwhelmingly skewed to the affairs of religious institutions.’
[1]
’For several hundred years, Sanskrit was used in inscriptions that supposedly addressed the gods. Khmer, on the other hand, was the predominant language of Cambodian men and women, those who were protected by the gods and descended, as gods did not, from their ancestors and the highly localised nak ta.’
[2]
’This section also includes a discussion of the Riemker, which is the Khmer version of the great Indian epic, the Ramayana, and how they differ. He identifies indigenous additions and changes and notes similarities between later versions of the Riemker and scenes depicted on the bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat.’
[3]
[1]: (Mabbett and Chandler 1995, p.125) [2]: (Chandler 2008, p. 27) [3]: (Rooney 2004, p. 161) |
||||||
|
’During the first five hundred years or so of the current era, India provided Cambodia with a writing system, a pantheon, meters for poetry, a language (Sanskrit) to write it in, a vocabulary of social hierarchies (not the same as a caste system), Buddhism, the idea of universal kingship, and new ways a looking at politics, sociology, architecture, iconography, astronomy, and aesthetics.’
[1]
’It was also a reputable center of Bud- dhist scholarship during the latter part of the fifth and early sixth centuries.’
[2]
’All that remains, apart from all-important inscriptions on stone or metal, are those texts that were regularly recopied. These were mainly religious texts, the copying of which generated spiritual merit, various technical treatises on such subjects as agriculture, astrology and law, and court chronicles. In few of these, even the last, can be found any references, however, to political or even economic relations with China.’
[3]
’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).’
[4]
[1]: (Chandler 2008, p. 17) [2]: (Ooi 2004, p. 11) [3]: (Stuart-Fox 2003, p. 35) [4]: (Lustig 2009, p. 107) |
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|
’During the first five hundred years or so of the current era, India provided Cambodia with a writing system, a pantheon, meters for poetry, a language (Sanskrit) to write it in, a vocabulary of social hierarchies (not the same as a caste system), Buddhism, the idea of universal kingship, and new ways a looking at politics, sociology, architecture, iconography, astronomy, and aesthetics.’
[1]
’It was also a reputable center of Bud- dhist scholarship during the latter part of the fifth and early sixth centuries.’
[2]
’All that remains, apart from all-important inscriptions on stone or metal, are those texts that were regularly recopied. These were mainly religious texts, the copying of which generated spiritual merit, various technical treatises on such subjects as agriculture, astrology and law, and court chronicles. In few of these, even the last, can be found any references, however, to political or even economic relations with China.’
[3]
[1]: (Chandler 2008, p. 17) [2]: (Ooi 2004, p. 11) [3]: (Stuart-Fox 2003, p. 35) |
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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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|
"Large numbers of Buddhist translations are mentioned, but the only surviving historical works from before the loss of indepen- dence are Zaya Pandita’s hagiography Sarayin gerel (Light of the moon), written in Zungharia around 1690, and Emchi (Physician) Ghabang-Sharab’s Dörbön Oyirodiyintöüke (History of the four Oirats), written in Kalmykia in 1737."
[1]
[1]: (Atwood 2004, 422-423) |
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|
"The city of Ghana consists of two towns situated on a plain. One of those towns, which is inhabited by Muslims is large and possesses twelve mosques... There are salaried imams and muezzin, as well as jurists and scholars."
[1]
Today they are Muslims and have scholars, lawyers, and Koran readers and have become pre-eminent in these fields. Some of their chief leaders have come to al-Andalus... They have traveled to Makka ... and returned to their land to spend large sums on the Holy War."
[2]
[1]: (Al-Bakri 1068 CE in Levtzion and Spaulding 2003, 15) [2]: (Al-Zuhri c1130-1155 CE in Levtzion and Spaulding 2003, 25) |
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The Ottomans integrated the traditions of classical Arabic and Persian literature - but original own works start mostly in the later period.
[1]
[1]: Personal communication. Johannes Preiser-Kapeller. 2016. Institute for Medieval Research. Division of Byzantine Research. Austrian Academy of Sciences. |
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The first recent script for the Sakha language was developed by 19th century Russian missionaries: ’The Yakut speak Yakut, a Northeast Turkic language of the Altaic Language Family. It is one of the most divergent of the Turkic languages, closely related to Dolgan (a mixture of Evenk and Yakut sometimes described as a Yakut dialect). The Yakut, over 90 percent of whom speak Yakut as their mother tongue, call their language "Sakha-tyla." Their current written language, developed in the 1930s, is a modified Cyrillic script. Before this, they had several written forms, including a Latin script developed in the 1920s and a Cyrillic script introduced by missionaries in the nineteenth century. Yakut lore includes legends of a written language lost after they traveled north to the Lena valley.’
[1]
It therefore seems likely that Biblical texts and Christian literature were spread first among the Sakha, although this remains to be confirmed. We have selected 1800 as a potential date of transition.
[1]: Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam and Skoggard, Ian: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Yakut |
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Inferred from the fact that, a few years after the collapse of Ayutthaya, when its successor polity, Rattanakosin, was founded, "[a]ll surviving manuscripts were sought out and compiled into recensions of laws, histories, religious texts, and manuals on the practice of every aspect of government"
[1]
.
[1]: (Baker and Phongpaichit 2009, p. 27) |
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Works on the laws of every religion. Works relating to the supernatural.
[1]
[2]
"In the ninth century Ismailism appeared in the form of a secret revolutionary organization, proselytizing intensely and sending its da’i (propagandists) into every part of the Muslim world."
[2]
[1]: (Raymond 2000, 47) [2]: (Raymond 2000, 34) |
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For the most part, “Hittite” mythological narratives belong to either the Hattian or Hurrian traditions, but some compositions of Hittite origin are also identifiable.
[1]
There were also prayers.
[2]
[1]: Collins B.J.(2007) The Hittites and Their World, (Society of Biblical literature archaeology and Biblical studies; no. 7), Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, pp. 147 [2]: Collins B.J.(2007) The Hittites and Their World, (Society of Biblical literature archaeology and Biblical studies; no. 7), Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, pp. 153 |
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Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
John Damascenus, Theodore of Studion, Photius.
[2]
"The outstanding theologians of the Byzantine period, John of Damascus and Anastasius of Sinai, lived and worked under Arab rule." They "provided some of the leaders of the monastic movement." However, there was also Maximus, "secretary to the advisory council of the Emperor Heraclius" who came from Constantinople.
[3]
Major controversy of this period was the use of religious iconography: iconophiles versus iconoclasts.
[1]: (Johannes Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Tanner, Previte-Orton, Brooke 1923, 766) Tanner, J, Previte-Orton, C, Brooke, Z eds. (1923) Charles Diehl, The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume IV, The Eastern Roman Empire 171-1453 [4] [3]: (Haussig 1971, 210-211) Haussig, H W.trans Hussey, J M. 1971. History of Byzantine Civilization. Thames and Hudson. |
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|
Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
Psellus.
[2]
"The outstanding theologians of the Byzantine period, John of Damascus and Anastasius of Sinai, lived and worked under Arab rule." They "provided some of the leaders of the monastic movement."
[3]
[1]: (Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Tanner, Previte-Orton, Brooke 1923, 766) Tanner, J, Previte-Orton, C, Brooke, Z eds. (1923) Charles Diehl, The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume IV, The Eastern Roman Empire 171-1453 [4] [3]: (Haussig 1971, 210-211) Haussig, H W.trans Hussey, J M. 1971. History of Byzantine Civilization. Thames and Hudson. |
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|
Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
Euthymius Zigabenus, Nicolas of Methone, Nicetas Acominatas.
[2]
[1]: (Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Tanner, Previte-Orton, Brooke 1923, 766) Tanner, J, Previte-Orton, C, Brooke, Z eds. (1923) Charles Diehl, The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume IV, The Eastern Roman Empire 171-1453 [4] |
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|
For the most part, “Hittite” mythological narratives belong to either the Hattian or Hurrian traditions, but some compositions of Hittite origin are also identifiable.
[1]
"During the period of the primacy of Hattusa, the Hittites are best known from their royal library and archives excavated at that site, written in the Cuneiform script on clay tablets, a script and medium borrowed from Mesopotamia. These archives, comprising many thousands of tablets, contain every kind of royal chancellery document: annals; edicts, treaties and laws; verdicts, protocols and administrative texts; letters; and a large number of religious texts, rituals and festivals."
[2]
There were also prayers.
[3]
[1]: Collins B.J.(2007) The Hittites and Their World, (Society of Biblical literature archaeology and Biblical studies; no. 7), Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, pp. 147 [2]: (Hawkins 2000, 2) John David Hawkins. 2000. Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions. Volume I. Inscriptions of the Iron Age. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin. [3]: Collins B.J.(2007) The Hittites and Their World, (Society of Biblical literature archaeology and Biblical studies; no. 7), Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, pp. 153 |
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|
For the most part, “Hittite” mythological narratives belong to either the Hattian or Hurrian traditions, but some compositions of Hittite origin are also identifiable.
[1]
There were also prayers.
[2]
[1]: Collins B.J.(2007) The Hittites and Their World, (Society of Biblical literature archaeology and Biblical studies; no. 7), Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, pp. 147 [2]: Collins B.J.(2007) The Hittites and Their World, (Society of Biblical literature archaeology and Biblical studies; no. 7), Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, pp. 153 |
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|
Futuwwa literature which “speaks almost wholly of initiation rites and theoretical moral and religious considerations”
[1]
[1]: Cahen, Claude. The Formation of Turkey: The Seljukid Sultanate of Rūm: Eleventh to Fourteenth Century. Translated by P. M. Holt. A History of the Near East. Harlow, England: Longman, 2001, p.118. |
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|
Christian missionaries translated parts of the Bible into Iroquois languages and published religious newspapers: ’At the time, those Whites having business with Indians needed interpreters, and the missionaries and teachers in the mission schools were no exception. Nevertheless, with the help of interpreters, a few of them did translate hymns and parts of the Bible into Seneca. This work of translation was greatly expanded by the most noted missionary to the Senecas, Asher Wright. His translations included those of the four Gospels into Seneca. He also established a press to publish materials such as a newspaper, The Mental Elevator, in both Seneca and English (Pilling1888:175-178). Wright went to the Buffalo Creek reservationas a missionary in 1831 and spent the next 15 years there. When this reservation was sold, he and his wife moved to Cattaraugus where Wright died.’
[1]
We have assumed 1831 as a provisional date of transition.
[1]: Abler, Thomas S., and Elisabeth Tooker 1978. “Seneca”, 510 |
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|
"Bahaudin al-Din Naqshband Bukhari (1318-1389 CE): "Founder of a major Sufi order who helped bring about a reunion between Sufism, traditionalist Islam, and the state."
[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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|
Muhammad Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (853-944 CE): "influential defender of literalist and traditionalist Islam from Samarkand, author of many combative “Refutations” of rationalism and other errors."
[1]
Abu Hasan Ahmad Ibn al-Rawandi (820-911 CE): "Prolific thinker from Afghanistan who abandoned Judaism and Islam to become a thorough-going atheist and champion of unfettered reason."
[1]
Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865-925 CE): "From Rayy near modern Tehran, but educated in Merv by Central Asian teachers ... was a thoroughgoing skeptic in religion."
[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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|
Nuradin Jami (1414-1492 CE): "Leader of the Naqshbandiyya Sufi order in Timurid Herat, poet, and author of complex mystical allegories".
[1]
"Bahaudin al-Din Naqshband Bukhari (1318-1389 CE): "Founder of a major Sufi order who helped bring about a reunion between Sufism, traditionalist Islam, and the state."
[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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|
"In the second half of the 1st millennium B.C., beside the monumental script of the inscriptions, another, ’cursive’ (or ’miniscule,’ abbreviated below as minusc.), script of everyday documents such as private letters, contracts, and magic texts developed. Discovered in 1973, this script was difficult to decipher. Only thirty minuscule documents have been published, out of an estimated number of several thousand. Almost all published miniscule texts are Sab. and date from the 2nd-3rd centuries C.C., most of them coming from the city of Nashshan in the Wadi Madhab."
[1]
[1]
[1]: (Kaye 2007, 168) L E Kogan. A V Korotayev. Epigraphic South Arabian Morphology. Alan S Kaye ed. 2007. Morphologies of Asia and Africa. Volume 1. Eisenbrauns. Winona Lake. |
||||||
|
"In the second half of the 1st millennium B.C., beside the monumental script of the inscriptions, another, ’cursive’ (or ’miniscule,’ abbreviated below as minusc.), script of everyday documents such as private letters, contracts, and magic texts developed. Discovered in 1973, this script was difficult to decipher. Only thirty minuscule documents have been published, out of an estimated number of several thousand. Almost all published miniscule texts are Sab. and date from the 2nd-3rd centuries C.C., most of them coming from the city of Nashshan in the Wadi Madhab."
[1]
[1]
[1]: (Kaye 2007, 168) L E Kogan. A V Korotayev. Epigraphic South Arabian Morphology. Alan S Kaye ed. 2007. Morphologies of Asia and Africa. Volume 1. Eisenbrauns. Winona Lake. |
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|
Scholars of Islamic law referred to biographical literature and legal manuals: ’For many centuries now, Ibb has supported an active community of Shafiʿi scholars. Despite their seemingly remote mountain valley location, town jurists were far from parochial. In terms of texts studied, theirs was not an unconventional local version of the shariʽa, Beginning with Ibn Samura and continuing to the present century, biographical histories provide views of the changing scholarly community in Ibb. A recently published work (Zabara 1979) devoted to noted individuals of the just-completed (fourteenth) Hegira century contains an entry on a distinguished Ibb scholar and prominent political figure who lived from 1876 to 1922, some seven and a half centuries after Faqih al-Nahi. Like al-Nahi, ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Haddad was an adherent of the Shafiʿi school of shariʽa jurisprudence. Both men were connected to the school through their relations with particular teachers and specific texts. In al-Haddad’s case the teacher was his father, and the key text was a celebrated old manual known as Al-Minhaj. [...] Ibb scholars such as ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Haddad and, in the next generation, men such as his nephew and son-in-law, Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Haddad, whom I knew in the 1970s as an old man and a practicing court judge, commenced their higher studies with two standard Shafiʿi texts, the just-mentioned Al-Minhaj by Muhyi al-Din al-Nawawi, a Syrian who died in A.D. 1277,10 and a still more radically concise manual, known as Al-Mukhtasar (“the abridgment”) or simply as the matn, the “text,” of Abu Shuja, a resident of Basra active in the twelfth century.’
[1]
[1]: Messick, Brinkley 2012. "The Calligraphic State", 20 |
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|
’Quranic Readings’ studied. Account from 1472 AD ‘Then after the Qur’an I studied the Quranic readings, individually and collectively, under my maternal uncle ... Then I studied Arabic under my maternal uncle and others. I studied also in particular under him arithmetic, algebra, anatomy, surveying, God’s ordinances and fiqb with the result that I derived benefit from all these disciplines’
[1]
[1]: G. REX SMITH, ‘THE TAHIRID SULTANS OF THE YEMEN (858-923/1454-1517) AND THEIR HISTORIAN IBN AL-DAYBA’, ‘’Journal of Semitic Studies’’, Volume XXIX, Issue 1, 1 March 1984, p. 151 |
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“Literature for much of the Anurādhapura period was Buddhist, written in the Pāli language. The Buddhist scriptures were preserved on the island, first orally and then in writing. The three main monastic orders added their own commentaries, but only some of the Mahāvihāra texts survive. In the later Anurādhapura period, the production of Pāli literature declined and literary works in Sinhala appear.”
[1]
[1]: (Peebles 2006: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/HJG4VBC5/collection. |
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Buddhist and Hindu literature.
|
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|
“Literature for much of the Anurādhapura period was Buddhist, written in the Pāli language. The Buddhist scriptures were preserved on the island, first orally and then in writing. The three main monastic orders added their own commentaries, but only some of the Mahāvihāra texts survive. In the later Anurādhapura period, the production of Pāli literature declined and literary works in Sinhala appear.”
[1]
[1]: (Peebles 2006: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/HJG4VBC5/collection. |
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[1]
Topics of texts included: commentaries on Avesta; philosophy and debate; apocalyptic; didactic; geographical and epic; legal; cultural and dictionaries.
[2]
The Original Creation "subject-matter ranges from cosmology, astronomy and eschatology to lists of rivers, mountains and plants."
[3]
Religious Judgments by Manuchihr. Answered 92 questions on Zoroastrian belief.
[4]
"Sometime around 518, a Buddhist mission came to the north of India from China, searching for scriptures to collect and preserve. According to their own records, they managed to leave India with 170 volumes."
[5]
Bozorghmer (531-578 CE): "Native of Merv and the best-known Central Asian thinker of the pre-Islamic era. A Zoroastrian dualist, Bozorghmer propounded ideas on ethics that influenced thinkers deep into the Muslim age. He also served as vizier and invented the game of backgammon."
[6]
[1]: Litvinsky B.A.,Guang-da Zhang , and Shabani Samghabadi R. (eds)History of Civilizations of Central Asia p. 143 [2]: (Daryaee 2009, 108) [3]: Iskender-Mochiri, I ed. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf ; Daryaee, T. 2009, Sasanian Persia, p.87 [4]: Iskender-Mochiri, I ed. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf ; Daryaee, T. 2009, Sasanian Persia, p. 87 [5]: (Bauer 2010, 182) Bauer, S W. 2010. The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade. W. W. Norton & Company. [6]: (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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"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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“Hence, such sacred books of the Tamils as the Dēvāram preserve, among other things, a kind of regional sacred geography of medieval Tamilnad. That such hymns helped to endow various temples with rich, sacred traditions undoubtedly helped to promote the growth of pilgrimage networks and the development of what might be called ’regional consciousness’ among the Tamils.”
[1]
[1]: (Spencer 1969, 48-49) Spencer, George W. 1969. ‘Religious Networks and Royal Influence in Eleventh Century South India’. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. Vol 12: 1. Pp. 42-56. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/5XDG98BE/collection |
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Buddhist and Hindu texts.
|
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|
Buddhist and Hindu texts. “Just as Pāli was the language of Sinhalese Buddhism, Sanskrit, was the sacred language of the Brāhmans (and Hinduism) and of Mahāyānist scriptures were written in that language.”
[1]
“Literature for much of the Anurādhapura period was Buddhist, written in the Pāli language. The Buddhist scriptures were preserved on the island, first orally and then in writing. The three main monastic orders added their own commentaries, but only some of the Mahāvihāra texts survive. In the later Anurādhapura period, the production of Pāli literature declined and literary works in Sinhala appear.”
[2]
[1]: (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 [2]: (Peebles 2006: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/HJG4VBC5/collection. |
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Buddhist and Hindu texts. Exegetical texts. “Just as Pāli was the language of Sinhalese Buddhism, Sanskrit, was the sacred language of the Brāhmans (and Hinduism) and of Mahāyānist scriptures were written in that language.”
[1]
“The Vesaturudā Sanne, an exegetical work written in the period of the Polonnaruva kingdom, compares people clad in gold-coloured clothes and wearing golden ornaments to kiṇihiri trees in full bloom. It also states that kiṇihiri trees in bloom looked as if they were covered with golden nets.”
[2]
[1]: (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 [2]: (Gunawardana 1990, 61). Gunawardana, R.A.L.H. 1990. ‘The people of the lion: the Sinhala identity and ideology in history and historiography’. Sri Lanka History and the Roots of Conflict. Edited by Jonathan Spencer. London and New York: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/B3GVR8EH/collection |
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Buddhist and Hindu texts. “Literature for much of the Anurādhapura period was Buddhist, written in the Pāli language. The Buddhist scriptures were preserved on the island, first orally and then in writing. The three main monastic orders added their own commentaries, but only some of the Mahāvihāra texts survive. In the later Anurādhapura period, the production of Pāli literature declined and literary works in Sinhala appear.”
[1]
[1]: (Peebles 2006: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/HJG4VBC5/collection. |
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"Theological treatments". "Dutch cosmopolitanism manifested itself not only in global news reports, but also in the enormous number of travel accounts, atlases, theological treatments and other scholarly works that were printed in the Republic from then onwards."
[1]
[1]: (Emmer and Gommans 2020: 80) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/AI9PPN7Q/collection. |
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Russian Orthodox Religious Literature:
Patristic Texts: These are writings by the Church Fathers, which hold significant theological and spiritual value in the Orthodox tradition. They include works by early Christian theologians such as St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great. Hagiographies: Lives of saints, known as hagiographies, were popular in the Russian Orthodox Church. These texts, which detail the lives and miracles of saints, played a vital role in religious education and devotion. Liturgical Texts: These include various service books like the Euchologion (trebnyk), Octoechos, and the Horologion, containing prayers, hymns, and liturgical instructions. Paterikon: A collection of stories and sayings from the Desert Fathers and other monastic figures, the Paterikon was widely read for spiritual edification. [1] [1]: Neil Kent, A Concise History of the Russian Orthodox Church (Washington: Academica Press, 2021). Zotero link: YC6JFSXF |
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"A few inscribed oracle bones have been found in the Zhengzhou city site since the early fieldwork there, raising many debates about context and interpretation. Three bone fragments were found with characters. One of them is a cattle bone found in April 1953 within a disturbed layer. Eleven characters were inscribed in three lines as follows (Henan First Team 1957: Plates 4-5). Fang Hui 方辉 provides the Englishtranslation from the Chinese translation by Chang Yuzhi 常玉芝 (2007): 乙丑贞:及孚.七月. Divination on the day of Yi Chou, we can make captures for sacrifices. . . . 贞:又乇土羊 Divination on one day, use sheep to sacrifice to the god of land at the place called Bo. As already mentioned, many sacrificial pits containing human victims, cattle heads and horns, dogs, and other remains were found at the large Xiaoshuangqiao site. The ceramic jars excavated from these sacrificial pits can be classified into two groups on the basis of their size. About 10 jars show traces of more than 20 characters written in cin- nabar. They mostly indicate single words that can be put into three categories: numbers (such as 二 two, 三 three, 七 seven); human-like symbols and pictographs (one from pit H101 has a human-like symbol near the vessel rim with a clear head, body, arms, and legs); and animal-like symbols. It should be pointed out that although these symbols or words were written on pottery vessels with cinnabar, their shape, strokes, structure, and techniques of expression reveal that they are in the family of oracle-bone inscriptions and inscriptions on bronze artifacts. The characters with smooth lines and beautiful structure are dated earlier than inscriptions on bone and bronze. It appears that these types of words represent a stage in the development of ancient Chinese writing. During the early Shang period, it was already quite developed (Song 2003)."
[1]
[1]: (Yuan 2013, 338-339) |
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For example, the works of Saint Augustine. DB: is ’Josephus Scottus’ another good example?
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Buddhism, Daoism, Taoism.
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In temples.
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Islamic texts. "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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It is very likely that there was religious literature in but it has not been discussed directly in the sources consulted.
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Jain, Buddhist and Hindu canons.
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likely used by government officials
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Buddhist, Jain and Hindu texts, including commentaries.
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Buddhist, Jain and Hindu texts, including commentaries.
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Jain, Buddhist and Hindu canons.
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Commentaries used in teaching.
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Jain, Buddhist and Hindu canons.
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e.g. Biblical literature
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Zoroastrianism?
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"Sogdians used different types of script according to the religion to which they belonged. The Buddhists used a national script of Aramaic origin, with heterograms. This script is also known from secular writings and from what is probably the only Zoroastrian text in it.26 The Manichaeans had their own alphabet and the Christians used Syriac script, but both sometimes wrote in the national Sogdian script."
[1]
[1]: (Marshak 1996, 255) |
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In temples.
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In temples.
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Saints’ lives were probably the most common form of religious litterature.
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Saints’ lives, miracle stories, and Counter-Reformation materials circulated.
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The Sibyl of Cumae reportedly offered nine books of prophecies to the Roman Kingdom monarch Tarquin. Three books were purchased and kept in the Temple of Jupiter.
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Jewish writings - Talmud? Martin Goodman reference. Christian literature. Belief system. James Ribes on Roman religion.
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Paulinus II of Aquileia (born c726 Premariacco). However, outside boundaries of Papal State, within Carolingian Empire. Was a priest and the patriarch of Aquileia.
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e.g. Buddhism
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"Muley Ahmad was a ‘modern’ monarch with an interest in novelties, from whatever source. In both European and Moroccan chronicles, he emerges as a man with an interest in knowledge, intellectually curious and with a well-trained memory. He received an extensive education in Islamic religious and secular sciences, including theology, law, poetry, grammar, lexicography, exegesis, geometry, arithmetics and algebra, and astronomy. "
[1]
[1]: (García-Arenal 2008, 35) |
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Islamic.
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Scholars copied and translated manuscripts, presumably religious ones in addition to narrative literature: ’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]
Bishops also drew up legal codes for the clergy: ’Upon his return to Iceland Bishop Arni, assisted by Bishop Jörund of Hólar, summoned the people of his diocese to a general council at Skálholt, where he proposed several measures of reform, among others that the churches should be made ecclesiastical property under the control of the bishops. As nearly all churches in Iceland were privately owned, this would involve a change in property rights to which the people would not readily consent. [...] the king’s assistance could be invoked. [...] With threats of ban and excommunication he so intimidated the lesser landowners that they suffered to let the smaller churches to pass under ecclesiastical control. But the chieftains who owned the larger churches resolutely resisted. This was especially the case with the churches of Oddi and Hitardal, two of the largest in Iceland. Their owners refused to surrender them; but the bishop caused a decree of transfer to be promulgated at the Althing, threatening the owners with the ban if they resisted. [...] In 1273 King Magnus summonsed a council to meet in Bergen to consider a new code of church laws to be proposed by Archbishop Jon of Nidaros, and to deal with other questions touching the relation between church and state. At this council, Bishop Arni, Hrafn Oddsson and the Icelandic chieftains also appeared. In the trial of their case the king as inclined to favor the chieftains, but the archbishop rendered a decision in Arni’s favor. His victory was so complete that upon his return home he began to prepare a new code of church laws for Iceland, based on principles suggested to him by Archbishop Jon. The code was adopted at the Althing in 1275 with the understanding that it was later to be ratified by the king and the archbishop.’
[2]
Gjerset also mentions legends about saints and religious poetry: ’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.’
[3]
[1]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 208p [2]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 217p [3]: Gjerset, Knut [1925]. "History of Iceland", 255p |
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Temples present.
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Dedications? 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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inferred continuity with earlier phases of this polity
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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"
[1]
[1]: (Bosworth 2012) Bosworth, Edmund C. 2012. GHURIDS. Encyclopaedia Iranica. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ghurids |
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"Kanishka II was, without doubt, a great protector of Buddhism and founded monasteries and built stupas... [he 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."
[1]
Buddhists, Hindi, and Zoroastrian religious texts were present.
[2]
"Most of the literature produced was in the form of religious text and commentraries. These texts were written in Gandhari language and Kharoshthi."
[3]
Ghosaka: "Buddhist theologian and author from Balkh who played an important role in the deliberations at the Fourth Buddhist Council in Kashmir in the first century AD."
[4]
[1]: (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. [2]: Liu, Xinru. "A note on Buddhism and urban culture in Kushan India." Indian Economic & Social History Review 27, no. 3 (1990): 351-358. [3]: (Samad 2011, 97) Samad, Rafi U. 2011. The Grandeur of Gandhara: The Ancient Buddhist Civilization of the Swat, Peshawar, Kabul and Indus Valleys. Algora Publishing. New York [4]: (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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Ghosaka: "Buddhist theologian and author from Balkh who played an important role in the deliberations at the Fourth Buddhist Council in Kashmir in the first century AD."
[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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"In addition to commerce, these Central Asian kingdoms were also centers of Buddhism, and it was from the cities on the Central Asian trade route that Buddhism spread into the Middle Kingdom. Thus it is no accident that it was during the Western Jin that Buddhism began to establish itself as a significant presence, at least in north China."
[1]
Study of Confucian classics: Du Yu (222-284 CE) "Zuo Tradition".
[2]
[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. |
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e.g. The Great Ming Code
[1]
Yonglin Jiang notes the role of the Great Ming Code as ’moral textbook’ for all of society to follow in order to exist harmoniously.
[2]
Ming emperors supported Daoism throughout the dynasty, with Daoist priests being placed in charge of official rituals, and the composition of various hymns and messages to the gods. Daoist and Buddhist scriptures start to emerge by the end of the fifteenth century, and indicate the two main streams of mythology and belief branching out of the dominant Confucian thought.
[3]
[1]: (Jiang, 2011, p.4) [2]: (Jiang, 2011, p.4, 55) [3]: (Adler, 2005) |
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e.g. The Transformations of Wenchang, an influential text for understanding of the god, who had become important enough to be honored in official sacrifices on par with Confucius. According to Woolley, most religious texts of the Chinese tradition are regarded as having been brought into the world through divine intervention at appropriate times in order to enlighten humanity and save it from ill. This highly influential work was reproduced up until the end of the Qing.
[1]
[1]: (Woolley 2016, p. 73) |
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Clear that each Warring State kingdom kept records and produced a great deal of political, philosophical, and religious work; most literature from this period was destroyed in various wars however, and ultimately systematically destroyed by Qin and later Han Empires, though parts of the works produced in this period were adapted or transmitted to later authors.
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"The origin of the character tian, “heaven,” is detectable in the records and decrees of the early Western Zhou."
[1]
Yijing (The Classic of Changes)
[2]
which was a book on divination, according to Shaughnessy possibly late 9th century BCE.
[3]
[1]: (Cua 2013, 726) Cua, Antonio S. 2013. Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy. Routledge [2]: (Keay 2009, 54) [3]: Shaughnessy, Edward. 1983. The composition of the Zhouyi (Ph.D. thesis). Stanford University. |
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On the walls of King Unas’s (2375-2345 BCE) burial chamber: "The Pyramid Texts represent the earliest large religious composition known from ancient Egypt; some of their elements were created well before the reign of Unas and map out the development of Egyptian religious thought from Predynastic times."
[1]
[1]: (Malek 2000, 102) |
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On the walls of King Unas’s (2375-2345 BCE) burial chamber: "The Pyramid Texts represent the earliest large religious composition known from ancient Egypt; some of their elements were created well before the reign of Unas and map out the development of Egyptian religious thought from Predynastic times."
[1]
[1]: (Malek 2000, 102) |
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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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|
On the walls of King Unas’s (2375-2345 BCE) burial chamber: "The Pyramid Texts represent the earliest large religious composition known from ancient Egypt; some of their elements were created well before the reign of Unas and map out the development of Egyptian religious thought from Predynastic times."
[1]
[1]: (Malek 2000, 102) |
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On the walls of King Unas’s (2375-2345 BCE) burial chamber: "The Pyramid Texts represent the earliest large religious composition known from ancient Egypt; some of their elements were created well before the reign of Unas and map out the development of Egyptian religious thought from Predynastic times."
[1]
[1]: (Malek 2000, 102) |
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"Such centres, with their archives, were not destroyed and may even have flourished under the Hyksos, but the Thebans would have been unable to consult them, thus perhaps necessitating the creation of a new compilation of texts needed for the all-important funerary rituals. One of the first collection of spells that we know as the Book of the Dead dates to the 16th Dynasty and comes from a coffin of Queen Mentuhotep, wife of King Djehuty."
[1]
[1]: (Bourriau 2003, 193) |
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“The sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were a golden age in theology and devotional writing as well as politics.”
[1]
[1]: (Maltby 2009, 91) Maltby, William S. 2009. The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/SUSVXWVH |
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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 associated with trade on the coast, if not also in Ge’ez or its precursor language with documents relating to the local religion and the state further inland at the capital Aksum.
[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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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’ Christian missionaries translated the Bible and other religious texts into the native language: ’The Japanese schools did not try to teach reading or writing in the native language, although some Trukese learned these skills from the Western Protestant and Catholic missionaries. Starting even before German rule, the missionaries had translated parts of the Bible and prepared hymns and other religious materials in Trukese, and continued to teach reading and writing in the native tongue to such children as would come to them.’
[1]
[1]: Fischer, John L. 1961. “Japanese Schools For The Natives Of Truk, Caroline Islands”, 85 |
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Manuscript production at Luxeuil and Corbie important to Merovingian culture. However, no "great scholar" equivalent to Bede.
[1]
5th century: religious writings: Caesarius (Bishop of Arles, 503-543 CE) wrote on monastic rules, and authored many sermons.
[2]
; two Gallic chronicles survive from the 5th century
[3]
; Nearly all literature from southern and central regions of Gaul
[4]
[1]: (Wood 1994, 323) [2]: (Wood 1994, 23) [3]: (Wood 1994, 31) [4]: (Wood 1994, 20) |
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’Akan languages started to be written down, mainly in religious publication, by Danish, German and British missionaries during the 17th and 18th centuries.’
[1]
While elites increasingly used couriers for the transmission of written communication (see below), the majority of the population remained illiterate during the period in question. Early native intellectuals were accordingly mostly mission-educated: ’Towards the end of the century the use of written records and communications had made some headway. Europeans like the Frenchman Bonnat were absorbed, albeit briefly, into the system, and Asantes like the Owusu Ansa brothers, mission educated, were fully literate. Written messages were sent: for example, in 1889 Prempe 1 received a written account of the fate of a force dispatched against recalcitrant Ahafo towns. The writer described himself as ‘Chief Miner’, possibly an Elminan. The year before the King received a letter from a Muslim divine, Abu Bakr B. Uthman Kamaghatay, setting out terms for his return to Kumase. Both letters were kept until removed from Kumase by British forces in 1896.’
[2]
[1]: (Ager, Simon 2013; Literacy Database [2]: McLeod, M. D. (Malcolm D.) 1981. “Asante”, 88 |
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Extensive Byzantine (e.g. John Damascenes) and Arabic religious literature.
[1]
[1]: Haussig, H. W. 1971. History of Byzantine Civilization, London, 210-11. For Cretan religious text and writers of the period see Tsougarakis, D. 1987. "Βυζαντινή Κρήτη" in Panagiotakis, N. (ed.), Κρήτη: Ιστορία και Πολιτισμός, Heraklion, 395-404. |
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Pirros and another anonyme author, both from Gortyna, wrote hymns dedicated to the goddess Isis and the god Serapis (beginning of the 2nd century BCE). Ptolemy from Polyrenia (2nd century BCE) also wrote hymns dedicated to Isis. The most famous religious text is the Hymn of Kouretes (or the Hymn to Dictaean Zeus) inscribed on a marble stele during the 2nd century AD and placed in the sanctuary of Dictaean Zeus at Palaikastro.
[1]
[2]
[3]
The poetic style suggest that it was composed by a Cretan poet, anonyme to us, late the 4th - early the 3rd century BCE. The hymn is addressed to Zeus (the Greatest Kouros) upbringing and beseech him to bring peace, fruitful fields and flocks, happiness, good journeys for ships, just government for cities and protection for young citizens. THE HYMN OF KOURETES: Hail! Greatest Kouros, Son of Kronos
master of all gone below ground
return to Dikta for the changing year
at the head of the divine pageant
and rejoice in our happy hymn,
which we blend with harps and pipes
and sing as we stand
round your well-walled altar. ....
for here they took you from Rhea,
babe immortal, the shielded wards
and beat the dance with their feet. ...
of Dawn’s fair light. ...
and the seasons were fruitful
when men served Justice
and prosperous Peace swayed all creatures. ...
and come now to fill our empty jars
come for our fleece and crops
and come to fulfill our fertile desires. ...
and come for our people and cities
come for our sea-faring ships
and come for new citizens and good Law.
[1]: 2000. The Palaikastro Kouros. A Minoan Chryselephantine Statuette and its Aegean Bronze Age Context(BSA Studies 6), 148-62 [2]: Harrison, J. E. 2010. THEMIS. A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, Cambridge, 1-29 [3]: Verbruggen, H. 1981. Le Zeus crètois, Paris. |
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Islamic literature. As Islamic scholars and missionaries were present in the Oyo Empire, and the Qur’an is recorded as being present, we can infer other Islamic texts were also in the Oyo Empire. “There can be no doubt that since the reign of Aole towards the end of the eighteenth century, Islamic influence had been penetrating into Yorubaland from the north. For example, in Old Oyo, the capital of the Old Oyo Empire, the trader, one Alajaeta, who appealed to Aole for protection when his goods were stolen was a Muslim. For, a copy of the Koran was one of the things reported stolen.”
[1]
[1]: Atanda, J. A. ‘The Fall of the Old Ọyọ Empire: A Re-Consideration of its Cause’. Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria vol.5, no.4 (June 1971): 488–489. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/NR9MAEAE/collection |
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The following quote suggests that religious literature was likely present. “Two conditions are indispensably necessary to procure admission into the class of marabouts, an irreproachable character, and an acquaintance with Arabic language. The candidate ought to know several chapters of the Koran by heart, and to combine with these acquirements a knowledge of certain Arabic books, which treat of the history of the world and of arithmetic.”
[1]
[1]: (Mollien 1820, 61) Mollien, Gaspard Theodore. 1820, Travels in the Interior of Africa to the Sources of the Senegal and Gambia Performed by Command of the French Government in 1818. Edited by T.E. Bowdich. London: Henry Colburn and Company. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/W3PWMURF/collection |
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The following quote suggests that Islamic religious literature was likely present. “In their heyday as royal capitals [Kahone (Saloum), Diakhao (Sine), and Lambaye (Baol)] these towns were not predominantly Muslim. Muslims at court would have lived, and built their mosque, in a peripheral neighbourhood, not on the central square.”
[1]
[1]: (Bigon and Ross 2020, 42) Bigon, Liora and Ross, Eric. 2020. Grid Planning in the Urban Design Practices of Senegal. London: Springer. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/MM67I638/collection |
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|
The following quote suggests that Islamic religious literature was likely present. “In their heyday as royal capitals [Kahone (Saloum), Diakhao (Sine), and Lambaye (Baol)] these towns were not predominantly Muslim. Muslims at court would have lived, and built their mosque, in a peripheral neighbourhood, not on the central square.”
[1]
[1]: (Bigon and Ross 2020, 42) Bigon, Liora and Ross, Eric. 2020. Grid Planning in the Urban Design Practices of Senegal. London: Springer. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/MM67I638/collection |
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|
The following quote suggests that Islamic religious literature was likely present. “In their heyday as royal capitals Kahone (Saloum), Diakhao (Sine), and Lambaye (Baol) these towns were not predominantly Muslim. Muslims at court would have lived, and built their mosque, in a peripheral neighbourhood, not on the central square.”
[1]
[1]: (Bigon and Ross 2020, 42) Bigon, Liora and Ross, Eric. 2020. Grid Planning in the Urban Design Practices of Senegal. London: Springer. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/MM67I638/collection |
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The following quote was made by Le Maire in 1682 regarding the Waalo monarchy and Islam and suggests that religious literature was likely present. “’The nobles are more attached to it because they are usually close to one of the Moorish marabouts and thus these scoundrels take full credit for their spirit. They make their Sala, the minor people do not do anything or do it only more of less in a mosque. The king and the nobles have them, they are covered with straw like the other houses.’”
[1]
[1]: (Barry 2012, 39) Barry, Boubacar. 2012. The Kingdom of Waalo: Senegal Before the Conquest. New York: Diasporic Africa Press. Seshat URL:https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/9KV5MEKN/collection |
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Despite the debate on the influence of Islam within the Jolof Empire the following quotes do suggest that religious literature was likely present in the Jolof Empire. “The Wolof developed a class hierarchy, with a nobility which was at least nominally Islamic and, together with Mande and Tukolor elements, began to exert a dominating influence on trade and government of their Serer neighbours.”
[1]
“Although exposed to Islamic influences through Muslim clerics, traders and court advisers, the Djolof Empire, unlike Tekrur resisted Islamization and most leaders and people remained firmly attached to their traditional religious practices.
[2]
[1]: (Fage 2008, 486) Fage, J.D. 2008. ‘Upper and Lower Guinea’ In The Cambridge History of Africa c. 1050 – c. 1600. Edited by Roland Oliver. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/search/Fage/titleCreatorYear/items/9V3CTHZ9/item-list [2]: (Gellar, 2020) Gellar, Sheldon. 2020. Senegal: An African Nation Between Islam and the West. Second Edition. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZCQVA3UX/collection |
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The following quote suggests that religious literature was likely present. “In Mauritania and Senegambia, there was a network of rural schools, at which the Koran and certain important works of technology and law were studied. The more learned marabouts studied at different schools. Some of these schools seem to have played an important revolutionary role. Thus, according to Futa Toro traditions, all the major leaders of the 1776 torodbe revolt studied at Pir Saniokhor in Cayor.”
[1]
[1]: (Klein 1972, 428) Klein, Martin A. 1972. ‘Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution in Senegambia.’ The Journal of Africa History. Vol. 13:3. Pp 419-441. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZJRN8UJ8/collection |
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The following quote suggests that religious literature was likely present. “In Mauritania and Senegambia, there was a network of rural schools, at which the Koran and certain important works of technology and law were studied. The more learned marabouts studied at different schools. Some of these schools seem to have played an important revolutionary role. Thus, according to Futa Toro traditions, all the major leaders of the 1776 torodbe revolt studied at Pir Saniokhor in Cayor.”
[1]
[1]: (Klein 1972, 428) Klein, Martin A. 1972. ‘Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution in Senegambia.’ The Journal of Africa History. Vol. 13:3. Pp 419-441. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZJRN8UJ8/collection |
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Hindu religious literature. “The Pandya kings followed the tenets and traditions of Vedic Dharma; they were worshippers of Shiva and Vishnu. They respected all Devas. Many inscriptions begin with prayers and invocations to Shiva and Vishnu. Many rulers of Pandya dynasty performed Vedic Yajnas such as Rajasuya and Asavamedha.
[1]
[1]: (Kamlesh 2010, 600) Kamlesh, Kapur. 2010. ‘Pandya Dynasty’ In Portraits of a Nation: History of Ancient India. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/3TS5DCT6/collection |
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The following quote suggests that religious literature was likely present. “The popularity and prevalence of the Brahmanical velvi (yajna) the sraddha and pinda to the dead, fasting etc. are well attested to by the Sangam literature.
[1]
[1]: (Agnihotri 1988, 361) Agnihotri, V.K. 1988. Indian History. New Delhi: Allied Publishers Pvt. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/PNX9XBJQ/collection |
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Hindu Religious literature. “It is no exaggeration to say that the temple gathered round itself all that was best in the arts of civilized existence and regulated with the humanness bom of the spirit of Dharma. The rulers of Thanjavur were orthodox Hindus and continued a tradition of liberality towards temples and mathas.”
[1]
[1]: (Appasamy 1980, 9) 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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Hindu religious literature. “The Vedic religion had struck root in the south, which is proved by references to the costly sacrifices performed by the monarchs of the age. Brahmins, devoted to their studies and religious duties, held a high position in society.”
[1]
[1]: (Agnihotri 1988, 360) Agnihotri, V.K. 1988. Indian History. New Delhi: Allied Publishers Pvt. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/PNX9XBJQ/collection |
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The following quote suggests that religious literature was likely circulated within the Carnatic Sultanate.“The most significant aspect of South Indian Islam, however, is that it was predominantly influenced by Sufi mysticism. The Sufis were not as bound by doctrinal formalism as the Sunnis or the Shi’ites but were concerned with an individual, mystic devotionalism which made it easy to adapt to the existing religious environment of South India. Sufi mysticism was characterized on the one hand by centres of learning, poetry, science, and on the other hand by the centrality of the pir or saint. The saint’s devotees assembled at his shrine to partake in the sacred power which abounded in the area, thus falling into the existing tradition of sacred places and the importance of pilgrimage.”
[1]
[1]: (Bugge, 2020) Bugge, Henriette. 2020. Mission and Tamil Society: Social and Religious Change in South India (1840-1900). London: Routledge Curzon. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/9SKWNUF4/collection |
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The following quote, attests to the fact that the rulers of this polity were Hindu, religiously tolerant, and interested in patronising literature, suggests that religious literature was in circulation. “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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The varied sects of Christianity across the US had their own religious texts to suit their beliefs e.g. The Mormon’s Book of Mormon. Sermons and religious essays were printed. There were also anti-Catholic texts printed.
[1]
[1]: Volo and Volo 2004: 20-27, 31. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/SIB5XSW97. |
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“The emphasis of the church on the individual and its concerns about the exclusive loyalties associated with the kin group find an echo in Spanish literature. Echoing Saint Augustine, the sixteenth-century Dominican theologian Pedro de Ledesma justified the church’s basic reluctance to see cousins marry each other: ‘The reason is in order for amity to be extended and propagated to more people’— to foster social harmony and avoid the old perils of the kin feud. ‘The intrinsic aim of marriage,’ wrote the Franciscan moralist Antonio Arbiol in his treatise of 1715, ‘is the conjoining of souls.’ Echoing other theologians, he stressed the sacred nature of the union between a man and a woman, an unbreakable bond whose prime purpose was to strengthen each on the path to eternal life. ‘No one after God must a woman love or esteem more than her husband, nor a husband more than his wife.’”ref>(Casey 2002: 504) Casey, James. 2002. Early Modern Spain: A Social History. New York: Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/2SNTRSWT
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The varied sects of Christianity across the US had their own religious texts to suit their beliefs e.g. The Mormon’s Book of Mormon. Sermons and religious essays were printed. There were also anti-Catholic texts printed.
[1]
[1]: Volo and Volo 2004: 20-27, 31. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/SIB5XSW97. |
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Religious guidance and sermons were often published throughout the period. Most notably Sacheverell’s The Perils of False Brethren (1709). Issac Newton also wrote commentaries on the bible in the seventeenth century.
[1]
The Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, founded in 1698, circulated religious literature to the colonies and for at-home learning.
[2]
[1]: (Bucholz et al 2013: 375) 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: 385) 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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Sermons were printed in some newspapers. There were also anti-Catholic books printed which were banned and burned along with Lutheran texts in 1521.
[1]
[2]
[1]: (Hillgärtner 2021: 70, 143) Hillgärtner, Jan. 2021. ‘Newspapers and Authorities in Seventeenth-Century Germany’, in Print and Power in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800), ed. Nina Lamal, Jamie Cumby, and Helmer J. Helmers. Brill. 134–47, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctv1v7zbf2.11. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/57ZGSTKK [2]: (Curtis 2013: 80) 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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The following quotes suggest that religious literature was likely produced. “In one of the oldest feast houses in Kafa, at Baha, Cardinal Massaja found a tabot with an inscription dedicated to ‘St. George, Our Lady Mary and God’ and signed by ‘Dengel’ (possibly referring to Sarsa Dengel of the sixteenth century).”
[1]
“During his reign Kafa allowed its first Muslim traders, the Abjedo clan, to open stations. This was also the time of the Galla expansion, and the Kafa tell many tales about the great Oromo leader, Shipenao. There is some debate as to whether Shipenao is Ahmad Ibn Ibrahim, more commonly referred to as Gran.”
[2]
This is coded as inferred present for 1531 CE – 1897 CE as various Muslim and Christian groups start moving into the kingdom under the reign of King Madi Gafo (1530 CE – 1565 CE).
[2]
[1]: (Orent 1970, 272) Orent, Amnon. 1970. ‘Refocusing on the History of Kafa Prior to 1897: A Discussion of Political Processes’. African Historical Studies. Vol. 3:2. Pp 263-293. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2A389XGK/collection [2]: (Orent 1970, 269) Orent, Amnon. 1970. ‘Refocusing on the History of Kafa Prior to 1897: A Discussion of Political Processes’. African Historical Studies. Vol. 3:2. Pp 263-293. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2A389XGK/collection |
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The church created many of the earlier documents such as ‘historical’ records of saints and annals. The Venerable Bede created many works including verse and prose on the life and St. Cuthbert, and the Martyrology, a list of saints.
[1]
Under Alfred the Great, religious works in Latin were translated into English, including Pope Gregory’s two works, Pastoral Care, on the duties of a bishop, and Dialogues, about the tales of St. Benedict.
[2]
[1]: (Yorke 1990: 20, 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 [2]: (Roberts et al 2014: 29) Roberts, Clayton, Roberts, F. David, and Bisson, Douglas. 2014. ‘Anglo-Saxon England: 450–1066’, in A History of England, Volume 1, 6th ed. Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/P2IHD9U3 |
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“The eighteenth century saw a veritable explosion of published works of literature, science, history, religion, and philosophy in the territories ruled by the Habsburgs.”
[1]
[1]: (Judson 2016: 29) Judson, Pieter M. 2016. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, USA; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BN5TQZBW |
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Manuals on heresy, such as the al-Milal wa’l-nihal written by scholars al-Shahrastani and Talbis Iblis (The Tricks of Satan) by the author Ibn al-Jauzi were popular. al-Shahrastani also wrote commentaries on the Qua’ran.
[1]
[1]: Boyle 1968: 287. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/CFW8EE6Q |
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“He [Mawlày Ismà’il] bought slaves from their masters, and even reduced to bondage black residents in Morocco who had already been freed. They were all confirmed as the sultan’s slaves. The sultan wanted these slaves to be personally attached to him by religious ties, and made them swear allegiance on al-Bukhàri’s Sahib, a collection of the Prophet’s traditions, hence their name ’abid al-Bukhdri.”
[1]
[1]: (Fage and Oliver 1975: 149) Fage, J. D. and Oliver, Roland Anthony. 1975. eds., The Cambridge History of Africa: Volume 4, from c. 1600 to c. 1790. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/Z6BCU87M |
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Religious guidance and sermons were often published throughout the period. Most notably Sacheverell’s The Perils of False Brethren (1709). Issac Newton also wrote commentaries on the bible in the seventeenth century.
[1]
The Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, founded in 1698, circulated religious literature to the colonies and for at-home learning.
[2]
[3]
Half the books published in the late seventeenth century were philosophical or religious.
[4]
[1]: (Bucholz et al 2013: 375) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chicester, 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: 385) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chicester, 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]: (Marshall 2006: 130) 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 [4]: (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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Russian Orthodox Religious Literature:
Patristic Texts: These are writings by the Church Fathers, which hold significant theological and spiritual value in the Orthodox tradition. They include works by early Christian theologians such as St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great. Hagiographies: Lives of saints, known as hagiographies, were popular in the Russian Orthodox Church. These texts, which detail the lives and miracles of saints, played a vital role in religious education and devotion. Liturgical Texts: These include various service books like the Euchologion (trebnyk), Octoechos, and the Horologion, containing prayers, hymns, and liturgical instructions. Paterikon: A collection of stories and sayings from the Desert Fathers and other monastic figures, the Paterikon was widely read for spiritual edification. [1] [1]: Neil Kent, A Concise History of the Russian Orthodox Church (Washington: Academica Press, 2021). Zotero link: YC6JFSXF |
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“The capital of Sokoto State, with a population of approximately 500,000. It is historically significant for the Hausa and Fulani as the seat of the great Sokoto Caliphate between 1804 and 1903. Today, it is the home of the University of Sokoto, the sultan’s palace, and the Shehu Mosque. Of interest to historians are the Centre for Islamic Studies in Sokoto and the Waziri Junaidu History and Culture Bureau, which house manuscripts from Islamic scholars in Nigeria dating back to at least the 17th 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: 331. 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 the 1450s, the Fulani came to Hausaland from Mali, bringing ’books on divinity and etymology’ (formerly only books on law and the traditions had been known); the end of the century witnessed the arrival of a number of rif (descendants of the Prophet Muhammad ) and the vigorous Muslim cleric, al-Maghîlï.”
[1]
[1]: Niane, D. T., & Unesco (Eds.). (1984). Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century. Heinemann; University of California Press: 272. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ERZKPETN/collection |
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“Over all the centuries, writing on Islamic legal matters especially in fatwas (formal legal opinions) took place in Timbuktu, in Hausaland and in Bornu; and some writing was done, on interpretation of the Qur’an and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.”
[1]
“The Bornu manuscripts discussed in the present article were first described by A. D. H. Bivar in his publication of 1960 ’A dated Kuran from Bornu’ (Bivar 1960). The author gave a short but very informative account of four early quranic manuscripts with interlinear vernacular glosses in Arabic/Ajamic script, which he examined during his travels to northern Nigeria in 1958-59. Among the most remarkable findings of Bivar’s investigation was the discovery of a date in one of the Qurans, and the identification of the vernacular language. Apart from the vernacular glosses, the dated manuscript, which was in the possession of Imam Ibrahim, Imam Juma Maiduguri (the head of the Muslim community of Maiduguri), carried an abridged Arabic commentary, the jami ahkam al-qur’an of al-Qurtubi, and a colophon with the date of completion of this commentary–1 Jumadi II, 1080 ah (26 October, ad 1669) (Bivar 1960: 203). The language of the glosses in all four Qurans was established as Kanembu, one of the dialects of Kanuri–a major Nilo-Saharan language spoken mainly in north-east Nigeria and the main language of ancient Bornu.”
[2]
[1]: HUNWICK, JOHN O. “WEST AFRICA AND THE ARABIC LANGUAGE.” Sudanic Africa, vol. 15, 2004, pp. 133–44: 138. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/26533KM8/collection [2]: Bondarev, Dmitry. “The Language of the Glosses in the Bornu Quranic Manuscripts.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, vol. 69, no. 1, 2006, pp. 113–40: 113. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EK9MA3WU/collection |
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"Marabouts taught the precepts of Islam and the Arabic language; the level of their teaching ranged from that of simple village clergy to scholars who attracted pupils from the whole Senegambian area."
[1]
[1]: (Charles 1977: 19) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/SU25S5BX/items/NRGZDV3Z/collection |
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“Among the numerous texts that throw light on the Vedic Samhitas, the most closely related are the Brahmanas. The Brahmanas are texts attached to the Samhitas- Rig, Sama, Yajur and Atharava Vedas- and provide explanations of these and guidance for the priests in sacrificial rituals.”
[1]
[1]: (Dalal, 2014) Dalal, Roshen. 2014. The Vedas: An Introduction to Hinduism’s Sacred Texts. London: Penguin Books. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/9QEGMD3W/collection |
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The Buddhist text Vinayaviniccaya (Vin-vn) was compiled by Buddhadatta in the 5th Century CE in Tamil Nadu region of Chola in the Pali language. “Much discussed in the general context of South Indian history is the scanty information that Vin-vn was composed during the regin of Acutanikkante Kalambakulanandane, Vin-vn 3179. This is the form of the family name of Acutavikkanta (skr. Acyutavikranta) of Vin-vn-pt and of most manuscripts with the exception of the oldest one which has Kalabbha. Thus, Acuta may belong either to the either to the Kalabhra or to the Kadamba dynasty.”
[1]
[1]: (von Hinüber 1996, 156) von Hinüber, Oskar. 1996. A Handbook of Pali Literature. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/H6ZW8JXP/collection |
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“All these sculptures of manifestations of Siva and other deities are familiar from other periods and regions of India, but what is striking about the Pudu Mandapa is the number of sculptures that can be identified only through knowledge of local myths and literature. By ‘local’ both the Tamil-speaking area generally and specifically the Madurai region are meant. The sculptures of the Padu Mandapa emphasise that knowledge of regional literature as well as the widely known puranic literature is essential in order to identify the subjects of sculpture.”
[1]
“The place-history (Sanskrit sthalapurana, Tamil, talapuranam) is an important genre of Tamil literature as David Shulaman’s study of the Saiva material has demonstrated. Though related to pan-Indian Sanskrit purana literature, Tamil sthalapuranas are distinguished by their emphasis on a particular location, its sacred qualities and the unique character of the deity worshipped there. The strong belief in the concentrated presence of the sacred in particular places is a notable feature of Tamil culture.”
[1]
[1]: (Branfoot 2001, 203) Branfoot, Crispin. 2001. ‘Tirumala Nayaka’s ‘New Hall’ and the European Study of the South Indian Temple. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Vol 11:2. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/FE5VZ76M/collection |
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The below quote suggests that religious literature was likely present. “With a long tradition of trading connections to the Arabian Peninsula, the Somalis were converted to Islam at an early date and remain staunch Muslims (Sunnis, of the Sha’afi School of Law). This is reflected in the traditional practice of tracing descent from illustrious Arab ancestors connected with the family of the Prophet Muhamad.”
[1]
[1]: (Lewis 2008, 1-2) Lewis, Ioan, M. 2008. Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History, Society. New York: Columbia University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7J425GTZ/library |
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Islamic religious texts likely produced, reproduced and/or circulated by literate, high-ranking Muslim minority. "In southern Senegambia, where non-Manding populations predominated, Manding was a prestigious language of the pagan aristocracy and, on the other hand, the language of the Muslim merchant network of Jakhanke. The existence of Manding Ajami in that area was already attested in the first half of the 18th century (Labat 1728; cited by Giesing & Costa-Dias 2007: 63), long before the pagan rule of the ñàncoo elite of the Kaabu was definitely smashed by Muslim Fulbe troops from Fuuta Jalon. In any case, the emergence of Ajami is not related to the establishment of a Muslim political power in this area: the main holders of Islamic writing in the area, the Jakhanke merchants, were for centuries integrated into the social system of the Kaabu confederation and often served as advisers and intermediates for the political elites."
[1]
"A number of terms have been used in this volume to refer to the usage of Arabic script for languages other than Arabic. Crosslinguistically, such writing systems are often termed ‘Arabic literature’, ‘Islamic literature’ or ‘Islamic writings’, and locally they are known by a large number of names, such as Wolofal, or Kiarabu. The term Ajami in particular (or variations, such as Äjam, Ajamiya, etc.), derived from the Arabic word ʿaǧam ‘non-Arab; Persian’, has gained some degree of popularity in academic literature and is also encountered as a self-denomination for these writing systems in some languages, such as Hausa."
[2]
[1]: (Vydrin 2014: 201-202) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E8Z57DNC/collection. [2]: (Mumin and Verstegh 2014: 1) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/PVIK4HGV/collection. |
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The following quote suggests that Islamic religious literature was likely present. “He sent learned Muslims to proselytize and teach in the provinces. Abba Bok’a instituted the collection of the poor tax (zaka), and set aside land (wok’fi) near Jiren, to be used by Muslim merchants (negade) from the north who would settle there, pray at the Jiren mosques for the health of the king and the realm, and teach those who wanted to learn about Islam.”
[1]
[1]: (Lewis 2001, 43) Lewis, Herbert S. 2001. Jimma Abba Jifar, an Oromo Monarchy: Ethiopia, 1830-1932. Lawrenceville, New Jersey: The Red Sea Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/NRZVWSCD/collection |
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The following quote suggests that religious Islamic literature was likely produced within the polity. “Some of the Arabic inscriptions on tombstones collected between the modern towns of Harar and Dire Dawa bear thirteenth-century dates, and show the existence of fairly well-developed Muslim communities in the region of Harar, which probably was an important centre of dispersal for many of the founders of other Muslim settlements further inland.”
[1]
[1]: (Tamrat 2008, 140) Tamrat, Taddesse. 2008. ‘Ethiopia, the Red Sea and the Horn’ In the Cambridge History of Africa: c. 1050 – c.1600 vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp 98-182. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Tamrat/titleCreatorYear/items/A68FCWWI/item-list |
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The Tunni were one of the first costal groups to accept Islam in the region. This acceptance also led to the Tunni costal enclave of Barawa to become a major Islamic religious centre in the region. This suggests the likely production of religious literature. “However they did accept the first Muslim migrants, the Hatimi from Yemen and the Amawi from Sham (Syria), around the 10th century, for both religious and commercial reasons. The town prospered and became one of the major Islamic centers in the Horn, the Barawaani Ulama, attracted students from all over the region. Muslim scholars of the time, such as al-Idrisi, wrote about Barawa as ‘an Arabic ‘Islamic’ island on the Somali coast.’”
[1]
[1]: (Mukhtar 2003, 50) Mukhtar, Mohamed H. 2003. Historical Dictionary of Somalia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/J8WZB6VI/collection |
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The following quote suggests that religious Islamic literature was likely produced within the polity. “The Ajuran established a theocratic Islamic state based on Sharia law with its headquarters at Marka or Merca on the Indian Ocean, and the royal residence at Mungiye, about 75 miles south of Mogadishu. Marka was the home of a number of revered sheikhs, including the Afarta Aw Usman (“the four famous sheikhs named Osman”): Aw Usman Markayale, who is not only venerated in Marka, but also has a mosque named after him with a small underground chamber that, according to popular belief, formed part of a corridor that led directly to the Ka’ba in the holy city of Makkah; Aw Usman Garweyne, whose shrine is on the island of Gendershe, 20 miles north of Marka; Aw Usman Makki of Dhanane; and Aw Usman Bauasan of Jazira. Thus, Marka for the Ajuran is a religious sanctuary, and is called even today “Marka Aw Usman” (Marka, home of Osmans). At the top of the Ajuran hierarchy was the imam, a title used only by Shi‘ite Islamic administrations.”
[1]
[1]: (Mukhtar 2016, Encyclopedia of Empire) Mukhtar, Mohamed H. 2016. ‘Ajuran Sultanate.’ In J. Mackenzie Encyclopedia of Empire. Wiley. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5U3NQRMR/library |
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The following quote suggests that religious literature was likely present. “With a long tradition of trading connections to the Arabian Peninsula, the Somalis were converted to Islam at an early date and remain staunch Muslims (Sunnis, of the Sha afi School of Law).”
[1]
[1]: (Lewis 2008, 1-2) Lewis, Ioan M. 2008. Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History, Society. New York, Columbia University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Understanding%20Somalia/titleCreatorYear/items/7J425GTZ/item-list |
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The following quote suggests that religious literature was likely present. “This traveller found it the most civilized of these states, he wrote: ‘The Galla of Gomma were the first (of these states) to embrace Islam. Both old and young always memorize the Quran which is taught by migrant Muslims who put on the guise of learned men.”
[1]
[1]: (Trimingham 2013, 200) Trimingham, J. Spencer. 2013. Islam in Ethiopia. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/RB7C87QZ/collection |
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Texts such as the Devotio Moderna (New Devotion) encouraging personal religious experiences. Religious reformers and preachers also had their written works published.
[1]
Jan Hus, the reformist martyr whose execution by the Catholic Church led to the Hussite Wars, wrote many books on religious matters: “Hus stayed at the small castle of Kozí Hrádek, near Tábor, from autumn 1412 until the spring of 1414. He then went to Sezimovo Ústí for a short period of time before taking up residence at Krakovec Castle, west of Prague, from mid July until October 1414. During these two years in exile, Hus wrote no fewer than fifteen books, some of them among his most important and influential. Shortly after his departure from Prague, Hus completed his ‘Expositions’ on the faith. These were commentaries on the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, as well as the Lord’s Prayer. These commentaries reflected the perspective of pastoral care and a desire for the education of people in basic Christian teachings. Hus employed a fairly simple but nevertheless effective pedagogical approach to an understanding of the faith. By early 1413 he completed an important book on the problem of simony, or the buying of spiritual power. It amounted to a relentless and scathing attack upon a widespread practice in the later medieval church. In an entirely different vein, Hus produced a classic of spirituality aimed at providing instruction on how to find and follow the path to salvation. The most important of his works from exile was his large book De ecclesia, an exposition on the nature of the church. This was completed by May 1413. The pace of his writing was almost frenetic but much of what Hus put on paper during those two years had been developed in his thought and practice over the previous ten years. He translated and expanded his treatment on the errors of the Mass not long after he completed De ecclesia.”
[2]
“Numerous educated men emerged from the university and many of these were concerned with questions about the fair division of society, the mutual relations of social groups and moral standards. Among these was the educated yeoman Tomáš Štítný, who wrote a range of books in Czech on philosophical and religious issues.”
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“The earliest sources that one could confidently call ‘princely mirrors’ cannot be dated before the second half of the 14th century. The first is in fact associated with Charles IV, or with authors working at his court. Such are the 12 meditations of the Jewish King Zedekiah included in the Moralities (Moralites) of Charles IV. These passages were subsequently (apparently already after Charles’ death) combined with other texts, especially excerpts from the Bible and St Augustine’s De vera et falsa poenitentia (On True and False Penitence).”
[4]
[1]: (Agnew 2004: 40) Agnew, Hugh LeCaine. 2004. The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. California: Hoover Institution Press. http://archive.org/details/czechslandsofboh0000agne. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/6LBQ5ARI [2]: (Fudge 2010: 16) Fudge, Thomas A. 2010. Jan Hus: Religious Reform and Social Revolution in Bohemia. London; New York: I. B. Tauris. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/Z325C95F [3]: (Pánek and Oldřich 2009: 148) 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 [4]: (Antonín 2017: 41) 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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"The precise use of the Islamic calendar and of Arabic script and language are strong evidence of the presence of an Islamic scholarly elite. This literate elite is represented by the faqīh Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥasan, “ qāḍī al-quḍā (lit. “cadi of the cadis”) of Šawah” whose death occurred in 1255. The title “cadi of the cadis” refers to the judge at the head of the judiciary of a state or of a city, and therefore presupposes a sophisticated judicial hierarchy."
[1]
[1]: (Chekroun and Hirsch 2020: 94-95) Seshat url: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/SU25S5BX/items/TA84VGHX/item-list |
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The following quote suggests that religious literature was likely present. “A Muslim community was also indicated by the recovery of 2 undated Arabic inscriptions, one part on an inscription from the Quran 48:31-1, which if complete would read ‘In the name of the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful’ and on the second line, ‘We have given you a glorious victory’, the other only bearing the words ‘on God’”.
[1]
[1]: (Insoll 2017, 209) Insoll, Timothy. 2017. ‘First Footsteps in Archaeology of Harar, Ethiopia’. Journal of Islamic Archaeology. Vol 4:2. Pp 189-215. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/VQ38B374/collection |
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The following quote suggests that there was religious literature present. “In the 1520s, Emperor Lebna Dengel led an expedition to Hadeya and ordered the construction of many churches and monasteries.”
[1]
[1]: (Shinn and Ofcansky 2013, 200) Shinn, David and Thomas Ofcansky. 2013. Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/29MS79PA/collection |
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Likely Islamic literature. “With a long tradition of trading connections to the Arabian Peninsula, the Somalis were converted to Islam at an early date and remain staunch Muslims (Sunnis, of the Sha’afi School of Law). This is reflected in the traditional practice of tracing descent from illustrious Arab ancestors connected with the family of the Prophet Muhamad.”
[1]
[1]: (Lewis 2008, 1-2) Lewis, Ioan, M. 2008. Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History, Society. New York: Columbia University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Understanding%20Somalia/titleCreatorYear/items/7J425GTZ/item-list |
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The following quote suggest that religious literature was likely present. “The abbots of the great monasteries, and particular Bizen, together with the Nebur-ed of Aksum (a combined ecclesiastical and civil officer), were the most important spiritual authorities in the region, and the church provided the only education available to Christians before the arrival of European missionaries.”
[1]
[1]: (Connell and Killion 2011, 410) Connell, Dan and Killion, Tom. 2011. Historical Dictionary of Eritrea. Second Edition. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/24ZMGPAA/collection |
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The following quote highlights the presence of madrasas which would have likely produced religious literature. “The Majerteen Sultan professed Sunni Islam and adherence to the Shafi’i branch of Sunni Islamic law. They sponsored madrasas, built mosques, encouraged prayer and pilgrimage, and undertook many of the other obligations of Muslim rulers.”
[1]
[1]: (Smith 2021, 43) Smith, Nicholas W.S. 2021. Colonial Chaos in the Southern Red Sea: A History of Violence from 1830 to the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/K6HVJ7X4/collection |
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The following quote suggests that religious literature was likely present. “Their schools (khalwas) taught younger boys the Quran, law, and Muslim theology.”
[1]
[1]: (Lapidus 2002, 431) Lapidus, Ira M. 2002. A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QW9XHCIW/collection |
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The following quote suggests that religious literature was likely present in the Kingdom of Gumma. “Fourth, the Muslim resistance in Wallo seems also to have led to the growth of a Jihadic movement in the Gibe region. The Muslim clerics who made Islam the religion of the masses and nurtured Islamic culture in Wallo, brought the spirit of resistance with them to the Gibe region. This spirit of resistance grew into a Jihadic movement mainly in the kingdom of Gumma, which remained a hotbed of rebellion and Muslim resistance from 1887 to 1902.”
[1]
[1]: (Hassen 1992, 96) Hassen, Mohammed. ‘Islam as a Resistance Ideology Among the Oromo of Ethiopia.’ In In The Shadow of Conquest: Islam in Colonial Northeast Africa. Trenton, New Jersey: The Red Sea Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/search/Hassen/titleCreatorYear/items/PJ3UMMX5/item-list |
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The following quote suggest that religious literature was likely present. “Harar is Ethiopia’s eleventh largest city and Islam’s fourth holiest town after Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem and, during the 17th and 18th centuries was an important center of Islamic scholarship and at one point had 99 mosques.”
[1]
[1]: (Shinn and Ofcansky 2013, 207) Shinn, David and Thomas Ofcansky. 2013. Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/29MS79PA/collection |
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The quote below suggest that religious literature was likely present. “Most, if not all, of them are now Moslems, although the neighbouring Itu are generally pagan.”
[1]
[1]: (Thesiger 1935, 2) Thesiger, Wifred. 1935. ‘The Awash River and the Aussa Sultanate.’ The Geographical Journal. Vol. 85:1. Pp 1-19 Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/APBB7BBK/library |
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The following quote suggests that religious literature was likely present. “With a long tradition of trading connections to the Arabian Peninsula, the Somalis were converted to Islam at an early date and remain staunch Muslims (Sunnis, of the Sha afi School of Law).”
[1]
[1]: (Lewis 2008, 1-2) Lewis, Ioan M. 2008. Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History, Society. New York, Columbia University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Understanding%20Somalia/titleCreatorYear/items/7J425GTZ/item-list |
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Unknown. "by Dynasty 0, writing was used by scribes and artisans of the Egyptian state."
[1]
But following polity: On the walls of King Unas’s (2375-2345 BCE) burial chamber: "The Pyramid Texts represent the earliest large religious composition known from ancient Egypt; some of their elements were created well before the reign of Unas and map out the development of Egyptian religious thought from Predynastic times."
[2]
previous code: inferred present
[1]: (Bard 2000, 74) [2]: (Malek 2000, 102) |
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Unknown. The Shang wrote on perishable materials, such as bamboo and silk.
[1]
We know "The kings communicated with their ancestors using oracle bones and made frequent sacrifices to them."
[1]
We could infer the method of interpreting the cracks in oracle bones would have been written down and even discussed.
[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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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)."
[1]
[1]: (Gronenborn 2002: 103) |
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The following quotes suggest that religious literature was likely produced. “In one of the oldest feast houses in Kafa, at Baha, Cardinal Massaja found a tabot with an inscription dedicated to ‘St. George, Our Lady Mary and God’ and signed by ‘Dengel’ (possibly referring to Sarsa Dengel of the sixteenth century).”
[1]
“During his reign Kafa allowed its first Muslim traders, the Abjedo clan, to open stations. This was also the time of the Galla expansion, and the Kafa tell many tales about the great Oromo leader, Shipenao. There is some debate as to whether Shipenao is Ahmad Ibn Ibrahim, more commonly referred to as Gran.”
[2]
This is coded as inferred present for 1531 CE – 1897 CE as various Muslim and Christian groups start moving into the kingdom under the reign of King Madi Gafo (1530 CE – 1565 CE).
[2]
[1]: (Orent 1970, 272) Orent, Amnon. 1970. ‘Refocusing on the History of Kafa Prior to 1897: A Discussion of Political Processes’. African Historical Studies. Vol. 3:2. Pp 263-293. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2A389XGK/collection [2]: (Orent 1970, 269) Orent, Amnon. 1970. ‘Refocusing on the History of Kafa Prior to 1897: A Discussion of Political Processes’. African Historical Studies. Vol. 3:2. Pp 263-293. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2A389XGK/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]
Based on the literature consulted, it remains unclear whether literacy spread from Buganda to Nkore at this time.
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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No information found in sources so far.
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