ABSTRACT
Evidence of early schooling, though scattered, introduces a host of features still familiar in the contemporary world. The French classicist Henri Marrou, in his magisterial A History of Education in Antiquity (1956), describes archeological evidence from ancient Mesopotamia (what is now northern Iraq), from at least 4,000 years ago, of a schoolroom with desks laid out in rows, and accompanied by writing utensils, tablets and teaching materials, in arrangements that could arguably still be found in schools today (though the room had neither paper nor books). A crucial issue in understanding this era was the relationship between religion and education – and in fact, one could argue that the two were inseparable in ancient and classical societies – though China may suggest a key exception. In India, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, much of what we would regard as formal schooling – including basic training in writing – was organized by religious institutions.
