Posted on 10/22/2012 8:03:13 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The world's oldest undeciphered writing system, which has so far defied attempts to uncover its 5,000-year-old secrets, could be about to be decoded by Oxford University academics.
This international research project is already casting light on a lost bronze age middle eastern society where enslaved workers lived on rations close to the starvation level...
Dr Dahl's secret weapon is being able to see this writing more clearly than ever before... a big black dome is clicking away and flashing out light...
It's being used to help decode a writing system called proto-Elamite, used between around 3200BC and 2900BC in a region now in the south west of modern Iran...
The clay tablets were put inside this machine, the Reflectance Transformation Imaging System, which uses a combination of 76 separate photographic lights and computer processing to capture every groove and notch on the surface of the clay tablets.
It allows a virtual image to be turned around, as though being held up to the light at every possible angle...
But this is painstaking work. So far Dr Dahl has deciphered 1,200 separate signs, but he says that after more than 10 years study much remains unknown, even such basic words as "cow" or "cattle"...
He's discovered that the original texts seem to contain many mistakes -- and this makes it extremely tricky for anyone trying to find consistent patterns...
Even without knowing all the symbols, Dr Dahl says it's possible to work out the context of many of the messages on these tablets.
The numbering system is also understood, making it possible to see that much of this information is about accounts of the ownership and yields from land and people. They are about property and status, not poetry.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Kilroy was here?
I bet that draws a lot of blank looks from the current generation.
“Warning: Anyone who reads this will release Cthulhu”
Wonderful!
I Laughed out loud!
(Ain’t PhotoShop wonderful?” One of these days I’ll have to buy a copy!)
LOL. Classic.
new update, its still a cook book, but the scanner picked up more words now the title reads “How To Serve Man”
>Ain’t PhotoShop wonderful?” One of these days I’ll have to buy a copy!
Don’t.
It’s far too expensive. I do stuff pretty much just using IrfanView.
“A stinkin’ COMMERCIAL??”
Thanks! I’ve just downloaded IrfanView and will give it a try.
It is the long-lost To Serve Beef: The Complete Party Guide To Hosting A Beef Bash in Bashan cookbook.
I also use Paint.NET
How does seeing them from a 3 d view help decipher them, as they very most likely are meant to be read as 2 d anyway? Someone please enlighten me or at least as seen from the front by the naked eye. They didn’t run around with a special machine to view every possible their script from every possible angle. They just read it.
Because they’re worn (because of age), the 3d image helps.
Then there are the oddballs like Finish and Basque.
Finnish is related to Hungarian and Estonia, inter alia. ]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uralic_languages
Basque may not actually be a complete isolate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_language#Relation_with_other_languages
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.