NINEVAH: Growing numbers of the scribe class are suffering
from severe memory loss because of increasing reliance on
clay-tablet writing technology, according to new research.
Sufferers claim to be unable to recall the complete inventories of the
agricultural goods under their care, and forget specific business
transactions enacted as little as a year ago. Worse, they
sometimes fail to recall the names of their ancestors,
including those who begat them only a few dozen generations ago.
Priest-doctors are blaming the new, wildly popular system of cuneiform
writing. They maintain that the use of this powerful new sorcery angers
the gods, who punish the perpetrators for their hubris by sapping
their powers of memory. "Young people today risk the retribution of the gods
with every notch in the clay," said High Priest Assurbanipal of the
Temple of Ishtar. "Who are these punks to think that with their
filthy scratching they can come closer to the supreme
omniscience of the deities? Memory loss is a fitting punishment -- it's
an eye for an eye."
When a Babylon royal kitchen servant, age 22, could not recall the
location of King Gilgamesh's favorite delicacy among the 22000 jars
stored in the palace cellars, the ruler's guards slew him swiftly for
his failure. "It was so easy to consult the tablets," he
lamented at the execution. "I just never thought Inanna would be
so offended that she'd make me forgetful."
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Clay-Tablet-Mad Generation Offends Gods, Becomes Forgetful
NINEVAH: Growing numbers of the scribe class are suffering from severe memory loss because of increasing reliance on clay-tablet writing technology, according to new research.
Sufferers claim to be unable to recall the complete inventories of the agricultural goods under their care, and forget specific business transactions enacted as little as a year ago. Worse, they sometimes fail to recall the names of their ancestors, including those who begat them only a few dozen generations ago.
Priest-doctors are blaming the new, wildly popular system of cuneiform writing. They maintain that the use of this powerful new sorcery angers the gods, who punish the perpetrators for their hubris by sapping their powers of memory. "Young people today risk the retribution of the gods with every notch in the clay," said High Priest Assurbanipal of the Temple of Ishtar. "Who are these punks to think that with their filthy scratching they can come closer to the supreme omniscience of the deities? Memory loss is a fitting punishment -- it's an eye for an eye."
When a Babylon royal kitchen servant, age 22, could not recall the location of King Gilgamesh's favorite delicacy among the 22000 jars stored in the palace cellars, the ruler's guards slew him swiftly for his failure. "It was so easy to consult the tablets," he lamented at the execution. "I just never thought Inanna would be so offended that she'd make me forgetful."