Babylonian Ceremonial Script in Its Scholarly Context

Since the advent of Assyriology in the early nineteenth century it has been known that two distinct scripts were used in ancient Mesopotamian inscriptions and documents. One, usefully characterized as "cursive," was used for the ephemeral documents of "daily life" as well as on most library and archival texts. The other was a deliberately archaizing script reserved for ceremonial use. This ceremon...