A Sumerian clay tablet from around 3200 B.C. is inscribed in wedgelike cuneiform with a list of professions. A clay tag from around 3200 B.C. has signs that scholars call proto-cuneiform.
Posted on 10/30/2010 7:17:25 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
One of the stars of the Oriental Institute's new show, "Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond," is a clay tablet that dates from around 3200 B.C. On it, written in cuneiform, the script language of ancient Sumer in Mesopotamia, is a list of professions, described in small, repetitive impressed characters that look more like wedge-shape footprints than what we recognize as writing.
In fact "it is among the earliest examples of writings that we know of so far," according to the institute's director, Gil J. Stein, and it provides insights into the life of one of the world's oldest cultures.
The new exhibition by the institute, part of the University of Chicago, is the first in the United States in 26 years to focus on comparative writing. It relies on advances in archaeologists' knowledge to shed new light on the invention of scripted language and its subsequent evolution.
The show demonstrates that, contrary to the long-held belief that writing spread from east to west, Sumerian cuneiform and its derivatives and Egyptian hieroglyphics evolved separately from each another. And those writing systems were but two of the ancient forms of writing that evolved independently. Over a span of two millenniums, two other powerful civilizations -- the Chinese and Mayans -- also identified and met a need for written communication. Writing came to China as early as around 1200 B.C. and to the Maya in Mesoamerica long before A.D. 500.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
A Sumerian clay tablet from around 3200 B.C. is inscribed in wedgelike cuneiform with a list of professions. A clay tag from around 3200 B.C. has signs that scholars call proto-cuneiform.
Papyrus Research Provides Insights into the ‘Modern Concerns’ of the Ancient World
University of Cincinnati | October 29, 2010 | M.B. Reilly
Posted on 10/29/2010 7:14:34 AM PDT by decimon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2616989/posts
|
· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe · |
|||
Antiquity Journal & archive Archaeologica Archaeology Archaeology Channel BAR Bronze Age Forum Discover Dogpile Eurekalert LiveScience Mirabilis.ca Nat Geographic PhysOrg Science Daily Science News Texas AM Yahoo Excerpt, or Link only? |
|
||
|
· Science topic · science keyword · Books/Literature topic · pages keyword · |
|||
Begging the question:
Do we know conclusively if the first language was spoken or written? Early man probably grunted warnings and musings - but drawing numbers and icons in the sand would have been more specific and definitive. Just pondering;0
The clay tag from around 3200 B.C. clearly shows a space ship in the background with an alien on the right pointing a sharp instrument at a cow. First recorded account of cattle mutilation!!!
I predict the internet will have as great an impact on mankind as did the invention of writing and the movable type.
It represents the first time in human history that instantaneous and unhindered independent communications networking is available at any time to anyone who wants it.
That is powerful.
Must have been spoken language first. Early men didn’t live in solitude like the modern painters who avoided other people by staying in their art studio.
In her Plato Prehistorian: 10,000 to 5000 B.C. Myth, Religion, Archaeology, Mary Settegast reproduces a table which shows four runic character sets; a is Upper Paleolithic (found among the cave paintings), b is Indus Valley script, c is Greek (western branch), and d is the Scandinavian runic alphabet.
Early Man invented writing.
Early Woman invented talking.
Just experienced that having my morning coffee
I agree that the spoken word (grunts, warnings and acknowledgments) between family/tribal members would have instinctive; but between other tribes - perhaps they used hand signals and/or drew ‘numbers/signs in the soil’ to illustrate topography, hunting and other food sources.
i.e. number of paces or sunrise/sunset - rivers, predators etc.,
IMHO prehistoric cave paintings were more likely a record or practical accounting function rather than ‘artistic aesthetics’.
I have always found it fascinating that the word for ‘mother’ is similar in all of the ancient languages.
'Kilroy Was Here';-)
Was cuneiform a true alphabet, i.e., with correspondence between marks and sounds, as opposed to hieroglyphics or pictograms?
Every time somebody tries to bedazzle me with their academic credentials, I simply remind them that the alphabet was invented by some illiterate guy.
I wonder what it means?
Cuneiform was logographic, not unlike Chinese scripts, but developed before Chinese script and independently from it. For the most part, each character represents a phoneme, comprised of a very stylized pictogram of an underlying and easily recognizable item. So, for example, if we were developing it, we might wind up with Y to represent the word “bird”, because the arms look like wings, and the stem looks like the bird’s body. So “Y” would be pronounced “Bird”.
The flexibility of this system led it to be adapted for many other languages, including Semitic languages and Indo-European languages. Cuneiform was first cracked using Assyrian texts; Assyrian is an extinct Semitic language, with similarities to existing Semitic languages. The failure to find correspondences between the little pictures in each character and the Assyrian words written with the system led to the correct conclusion that the writing system had been adapted to Assyrian.
Having the ability to pronounce the writing even though it was in an unknown language, and finding bilinguals here and there led to the cracking of the Sumerian originals. Sumerian has no known relatives living or extinct, and is considered a language isolate. There are some wild claims to the contrary.
The Sumerians started to use cuneiform in a well-developed form around 5000 years ago; the origin of it is often attributed to much earlier systems of accounting, and tracking property and inventories. The Sumerians were strangers in their own land, having entered from the sea (by their own account), and using the non-Sumerian names for the major rivers, and a number of their greatest cities. The names of the great rivers aren’t taken from any known language, and apparently represent a glimpse into a vanished language and people who lived in a preliterate society.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_script
LoL
;’)
Lost Languages:
The Enigma Of The World's
Undeciphered Scripts
by Andrew Robinson
I think it reads “cow a bunga”.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
