Quote Originally Posted by V.T. Marvin View Post
@Ludens - I would agree with what you have just said, except I think that the point raised by USERMAATKA is still valid taking into accout the fact that "Academy" bbranch of the building tree in EB, like all other "buildings", is not a representation of an academy in a narrow sense - just a particular building, but rather a representation of some sort of an infrastructure. In this broader sense, I think, it could well encompass also the above-mentioned methods of some sort of "intellectual apprenticeship" to produce the "professionals" (like architects, engineers, healers, more sophisticated craftsmen, etc.) who DID exist - in some form or another, also in the acient societies.
True, but craftsmen existed without academies and weren't trained in them. They learned their trade as an apprentice to another craftsman. I imagine the same applies to healers and engineers, although as USERMAATKA points out there did exist schools for healers in Egypt.