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BOOK REVIEW Thomas Cayhill’s The Gift Of the Jews Chapter 1 The book begins by commenting on the written word, which was carved in Sumer of Uruk, the world’s first civilization and perhaps earliest city. It is stated that this writing “invention” came out of necessity to be able to keep and reference accounts and transactions. Thus, written symbols took the place of human memory. When reading further into this chapter and getting some insight into the Sumerian people, I can now somewhat understand their desire to improve recording methods and account summaries. Cayhill praises the Sumerians by describing their relatively “sophisticated” lifestyle. They were advanced in the areas of farming, mathematics, husbandry, and medicine, as well as possessing many other skills and talents. Overall, the Sumerians are described as practical and down-to-earth businesspeople. This chapter brings up an interesting and ironical point that although the Sumerians, “the black-headed people” invented writing, the instrument that makes history possible, they themselves had no sense of history. Partly because of this, Sumerian stories and tales miss the sense of development that has become the norm in all modern works. Cayhill relates their story-telling techniques to a young child repeating a joke they heard, yet the punch-line is of no importance to them and usually there isn’t one. Aside from their lousy literary structure, Cayhill says that we today enjoy these stories because we can associate some of our emotions with theirs, and therefore feel closer to them. A solid portion of the chapter is dedicated to summarizing a Sumerian work that has perhaps impacted our culture more than any of their other literatures. The story is called the Epic of Gilgamesh, a legend of a hero called Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk during the third millennium B.C.
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