2025 Aug 18: Scribes and Education

Throughout the known world, great empires require educated individuals to read, write, copy and otherwise take care of documents, letters, laws, and other forms of written texts. These people are generally referred to as scribes, even though simply copying text is not their only responsibility. Their exact duties vary from empire to empire, but they usually encompass dealing with logistics and other fields that require the use of mathematics as well.

Training scribes is not easy or cheap, so usually the people who decide to become scribes come from already wealthy families. In some cultures, such as in the lands of the Reptilians, the position of a scribe is hereditary, and only the children of scribes may become scribes themselves. Scribes are usually trained in temples, and are often priests themselves or acolytes who ultimately failed to become priests. Most empires on the other hand maintain schools independent of the priesthoods as well, as demand for scribes often outpaces the ability for temples to provide learned individuals for the purpose, as larger temples too need literate people to run them.

Even at the most secular institutions, the students start by copying sacred manuscripts, then move on to mathematics, meteorology and astrology. The temples usually round out education by teaching magical and religious rituals (although since all magic ultimately comes from higher powers, there is not much difference).