Amanda H. Podany Quotes & Sayings

The kings had, however, begun to realize its potential for extending communication, in an almost magical way, beyond what could be accomplished with the spoken word. Writing could perpetually and eternally address an audience on a king's behalf; the words were always there, even when the king was not thinking about them. Given that the population was almost entirely illiterate, such an audience was mostly made up of gods. The statuette of the king's personal god (or sometimes of the king himself), inscribed with the same text as the tablet, could therefore pray continuously in a way that a real person could not. — Amanda H. Podany