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Thanks Palter and Jet Jaguar....cuneiform text inscribed on horse bones... They were initially dismissed as fakes because of the improbability of ancient Persian texts turning up in Beijing. But following new research, British Museum (BM) specialist Irving Finkel is now convinced of their authenticity... Dating from 539BC, the Cyrus Cylinder was ceremonially buried in the walls of Babylon. Its text celebrates the achievements of Cyrus the Great, ruler of the Persian empire. The clay cylinder was excavated by BM archaeologists in 1879 and sent to London, where it is one of the museum's most important antiquities. The texts found in China inexplicably have fewer than one in every 20 of the Cyrus text's cuneiform signs transcribed, although they are in the correct order. The two inscribed bones were donated to the Palace Museum in Beijing in 1985 by Xue Shenwei... He said that he had learned about the pair of inscriptions in 1928. He bought the first bone in 1935 and the second in 1940, and named the sellers. Xue acquired them because he thought they were written in an unknown ancient script, presumably from China.Not too sure about this. |
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I would submit that this is the world's earliest form of a written aide memoire. Folks need to remember that pre graphic society relied upon memorization of very long texts, the Iliad and Odyssey are but two notable examples, to propagate knowledge. Indeed, even Socrates decried the rise of writing as destructive of memory.
So, if the text was memorized, then the cuneiform would only serve as a reminder to the reciter that he was getting in all the pieces.
This idea may be referenced in further academic journals as AndyJackson, Aug 4, 2010 http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=2564103%2C9
Well, this is one of the stranger stories I’ve seen. (scratching head)