There Are Rivers in the Sky

by Elif Shafak

They called her Nisaba, though, depending on the place and the era, she went by other names, too: Nidaba, Naga, Se-Naga…The goddess of grain and harvest, the one who holds sway over the rain, directing every drop that falls from the sky. In her pictures, she carries, in one hand, a stalk of wheat—the symbol of life, renewal and rebirth; in her other hand, she holds a gold stylus and a tablet of lapis lazuli. The roots of agriculture and the roots of literature are intertwined, and it is none other than Nisaba who braids them like a lock of her hair. Nisaba is born of the union of heavens and earth, realms that seem so different and distant that it may not be clear what they have in common, and thus her gift—the art of writing—will always represent a desire to efface dualities, dissolve hierarchies and transcend boundaries. As Mesopotamian cities burgeon and trade flourishes, the need for record-keeping increases. Each transaction must be noted with precision—goods, prices, debts…Yet human memory is fallible. Mnemonic markers—scoring impressions into the bark of trees, scratching charcoal shapes on stones, painting lines on the bones of sheep—are no longer enough. A new method is called for. Something so versatile that it can link numbers and sounds not only to the inanimate but even to abstract ideas and intangible feelings. A more advanced form of script becomes imperative. Writing as a way to remember. But how? The rivers help, as they always do. The Tigris and the Euphr...