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By H. A. Innis

Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science

Vol. 17, No. 2 (May, 1951)

The work of Professor V. Gordon Childe reflected in part in his review of Empire and Communications^[1] raises questions of such profound importance to students in the social sciences as to warrant at least a brief comment to indicate their significance. As a distinguished archaeologist he has contributed directly to an understanding of early civilizations and as a lucid writer he has presented the conclusions of the work of archaeologists to a wide public. Possibly as a result of his experience in archaeology he has seen the limitations of the library book, the book with a hard cover, and has taken full advantage of the small paper-covered work such as that put out in the Penguin series as a means of escape from the monopolies of knowledge in established media.

His activity in supporting the revolution in the field of knowledge which has followed the work of archaeologists has contributed to a steadily growing momentum which is but dimly understood. Paradoxically, the prestige and power of the written and the printed word on the one hand weakened, and on the other supported an intense interest in archaeology once its significance to a study of Holy Scriptures was understood.^[2] Discoveries of papyrus have facilitated the work of textual criticism such as has been described in F. G. Kenyon, The Text of the Greek Bible (London, 1949), and archaeology has contributed powerfully to an understanding of the Old Testament along lines described in W. F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process (Baltimore, 1940).

An increasing recognition of the role of the oral tradition has accompanied the growing influence of archaeology and a realization that literacy has been limited to Mesopotamia from about 3000 b.c. to the Middle Ages, to Greece and Rome for about 1,200 years and to the West for the latter part of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Professor Ad. Lods has argued for its study as a means of explaining the perfection of literature at the time it was committed to writing, of understanding the work of generations of reciters, and of appraising the work of scribes.^[3] The oral tradition persists with varying intensity with the development of various writing systems. Solomon Gandz has described the phases in the development of literature before writing, the introduction of writing usually marked by a great religious book such as the Old Testament, New Testament, Vedas, Koran, or an epic such as Homer’s, and the secondary phase of the oral tradition.^[4]

Writing is regarded as a revolutionary innovation requiring the powerful support of religious sanction. If Moses introduced the art of writing among the Hebrews it was an innovation, and the Bible repeats that this violation of ancient customs was done by God.^[5] Isaiah and Jeremiah were commanded by God to write down their prophecies.^[6] Written literature is followed by a period in which people stubbornly continue the oral tradition. Slowly and gradually they learn to read and write, and written literature becomes the rule. The validity and authenticity of written law is first confirmed by witnesses in the oral tradition and by a chain of tradition to the first link. Written documents were confirmed by oral witnesses in contrast with modern demands that the oral tradition be confirmed by written documents.^[7] “The words of the wise men are as goads, and as nails well fastened by the authors of the collections. But, beware, my son, of adding to them; of making many books without an end, of much recitation which wears out the body.” (Ecclesiastes 12:11-12).^[8] The bias of the present century reflected by constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press in the United States has restricted an interest in the oral tradition and makes it difficult to throw light on the problems Professor Childe has raised. It seems increasingly clear, however, that the emphasis on the word, spoken or written, is Semitic and not Hellenic.

The powerful religious sanction persisting in sacred writings has left its stamp on archaeology partly in providing a motivation to attract funds from wealthy newspapers and organizations to carry out the excavation of sites, in determining the areas excavated, and in discovering and interpreting material, as for example in the writings of the late J. H. Breasted. Professor Childe has done important work in developing archaeology along more objective lines, though with other archaeologists he cannot escape the bias of the culture studied as reflected in the survival value of materials discovered. The emphasis on metals by archaeologists has limitations and it is significant that ceramics have become an important key to chronology. Nonetheless the approach has profound implications for the social sciences in that it compels a scepticism toward an obsession with literacy. In the field of economics, for example, the student cannot afford to neglect visits to industrial plants as a means of understanding their technological implications. The economic historian must be constantly aware of the limitations of the archives and the library. Even the museum may prove misleading since its collections are apt to reflect the character of durable materials or the traits of a culture which emphasize durable materials such as those of temples, architecture, funerary customs, and military equipment.

It is at this point that the writer must express his gratitude to Professor Childe for his review. He has perhaps been kinder than necessary in allowing for my bias following dependence on limited printed resources and I must in return be kinder than necessary in allowing for his bias following dependence on archaeological materials. I would agree that “the complexity of the Egyptian and Sumero-Akkadian scripts and the vested interests of professional clerks . . . had confined literature, science, law, and theology to a closed craft-union of scribes, a privileged caste of mandarins” (p. 99)^[9] but I would hold that cuneiform script was developed in relation to the material on which it was written and the character of the instrument of writing, and that hieroglyphics were related to the use of the brush on papyrus as demotic was related to the reed pen. Monopolies of knowledge were not limited to complex Egyptian and Sumero-Akkadian scripts. Cheap paper and printing have produced a monopoly of superficiality in North America with implications perhaps more tragic than those of antiquity. It is this monopoly which makes the work of archaeologists so important.

The archaeologist may complain, perhaps justly, of the invasion of the modern view of history which has emerged in the last two centuries and in particular of the invasion of such history as has in itself been invaded by the abstract sciences and politics, sociology and economics. Human affairs, as a process of nature indissolubly woven into one world process by causal law, are the product of a vast and subtle terminology created by Aristotle, refined by the schoolmen, and enlarged by discovery.^[10] Cornford has contrasted history as it might have been written by a modern historian^[11] and as written by Thucydides dominated by the technique of the drama or by Herodotus dominated by the technique of the epic. But were events different in the Peloponnesian War because Thucydides and his contemporaries believed in the important role of Fortune? Has the idea of class become sharper because Marx emphasized the class struggle? Does a belief in rationalism make for a rational society? Does nature copy art?

Cornford has suggested that the oral tradition as crystallized in Homer reflects the society in which it was produced.^[12] Similarly the myths of Mesopotamia^[13] have been used to describe the underlying society, as though one might understand territory by studying the mirage which appears above it. Thucydides was sufficiently near the oral tradition to warrant the use of his history as such a mirage to enable one to trace the shift from an oral to a written tradition in which writing was closely adapted through a flexible alphabet to the spoken word, or from Pericles “most sufficient both for speech and action” to “Cleon, the most violent of the citizens and first in the people’s confidence” (Thucydides), to Alcibiades, “full of shifts and inconsistencies” (Plutarch). Character and the belief in character had rapidly deteriorated. “They that came after Pericles being more equal among themselves, and affecting everyone to be the chief, applied themselves to the people and let go the care of the commonwealth” (Thucydides).

The social scientist must therefore be concerned as Thucydides was with the limitations of human knowledge. The possibility of studying the social implications of the oral tradition is limited in a society in which it has shrunk to obscene and blasphemous words (and even these are being encroached on), and has been warped by the mechanization of the printing industry. Societies dominated by other media such as parchment, papyrus, and clay will vary in the character of their oral traditions. I have only ventured to suggest that light might be thrown on the nature of those societies by resort to the economist’s concept of monopoly as applied to the field of knowledge; but perhaps economics is too much a product of the English printing industry and my claims only another reflection of the infinite capacity of the West for self-congratulation.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

A cover which is placed in the public domain was created for this ebook.

[The end of Communication and Archaeology by Harold Adams Innis]