Education
In Ancient Mesopotamia, the people had a number of expectations of you before you could learn to be a scribe. Such as, whether you were a man. Most people who were writers were men, though if you were a female doctor they would teach you how to write. Other things included how rich you were, how much power you had and whether your ancestors were scribes. It was a very prestigious profession, and only very few achieved this vocation. To be a writer, you were sent to a special school for scribes. It is a very difficult thing to learn, and many people did not make it through. But if they did, they lived a very privileged life.
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Children were sent to school at a very early age. The school for all of the aspiring scribes was known as the "tablet-house" or é-dubba. The classes - only writing plus a little math - were taught by an older student. Parents were able to persuade the teacher not to beat a certain child by bribing them. The teachers could be bribed with money, gold or small gifts.
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Only when a person has successfully completed education, they can call themselves dubsar, meaning scribe. These people know that they are very smart to have undergone this all, and tend to act as if they are better than everybody else... some may say they were.