NEAL STEPHENSON
201
“Rife Bible College, which he founded, has the richest archaeology department in the world. They have been conducting a dig in Eridu, which was the cult center of a Sumerian god named EnkL”
“How are these things related to each other?”
The Librarian raises his eyebrowL “I’m sorry?”
‘Well, let’s try process of elimination. Do you know why Lagos found Sumerian writings interesting as opposed to, say, Greek or Egyptian?”
“Egypt was a civilization of stone. They made their art and architecture of stone, so it lasts forever. But you can’t write on stone. So they invented papyrus and wrote on that. But papyrus is perishable. So even though their art and architecture have survived, their written records-their data-have largely disappeared.”
“What about all those hieroglyphic inscriptions?”
“Bumper stickers, Lagos called them. Corrupt political speech. They had an unfortunate tendency to write inscriptions praising their own military victories before the battles had actually taken place?’
“And Sumer is different?”
“Sumer was a civilization of clay. They made their buildings of it and wrote on it, too. Their statues were of gypsum, which dissolves in water. So the buildings and statues have since fallen apart under the elements. But the clay tablets were either baked or else buried in jars. So all the data of the Sumerians have survived. Egypt left a legacy of art and architecture; Sumer’s legacy is its megabytes.”
“How many megabytes?”
“As many as archaeologists bother to dig up. The Sumerians wrote on everything. When they built a building, they would write in cuneiform on every brick. When the buildings fell down, these bricks would remain, scattered across the desert. In the Koran, the angels who are sent to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah say, We are sent forth to a wicked nation, so that we may bring down on them a shower of clay-stones marked by your Lord for the destruction of the sinful.’ Lagos found this interesting-this promiscuous dispersal of information, written on a medium that
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