Posted on 04/13/2005 1:51:24 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Archaeologists have succeeded to decipher the text of an old stone tablet found recently in Boushehr, south of Iran. The tablet belongs to Darius the Great, King of Achaemenids.
Excavation in the old palace of Bardak-e Siah in Boushehr, in the southern province of Boushehr, at the end of March led to the discovery of a stone tablet, with a written text in New Babylonian and a relief of Darius the Great.
Experts of ancient languages succeeded to read and decipher the text, which is evidently part of a larger one. It says: "... I put ... on top of the gate..."
According to head of the excavation team of Doroudgah-e Borazjan (where the palace is located), Ehsan Yaghmayi, the stone inscription is actually the base of a column. The beginning and end of the inscription is broken and a large part of the text is still uncovered, leaving experts with just one line of inscription.
Dr. Abdolmajid Rafi'i, expert of ancient languages, has proved that the language the text is written in is New Babylonian. The one sentence reads: "...I put ... on top of the gate ....".
In the Achaemenid era, each tablet was usually inscribed not only in New Babylonian, but also in New Elamite and Ancient Persian, and therefore, the archaeology team is looking to find the rest of the Darius tablet.
Last week, the team also found another tablet, which is grey and is of limestone. It measures 3x5 centimeters and only one word is inscribed on it. Experts believe it belonged to a larger text. Dr. Arfai?i has started working on deciphering the new discovery.
Talk about suspense!
< / sarcasm >
Thanks.
At a guess, and knowing a little about history, I suspect that the full text runs something like this:
"I put [(someone's) head] on top of the gate... [such is how all traitors are served.]"
In a galaxy long ago and far away, my dog died.
Welllll, maybe not.
But I would sure like to read the portions yet to be uncovered and deciphered! Meanwhile, making toast may take priority.
Thanks, though. I do appreciate such pings.
roflmao... funny. I was thinking exactly the same thing.
Upon being proven wrong, the arrogant skeptic merely redoubles his efforts and blows more self-aggrandizing gas.
The previous sentence was, "Hold my beer."
And his mother in law is what he put on top of the gate....
More likely this:
"[Dear Milkman, I put your payment in the mailbox] on top of the gate"
Could be but I have a lot of experience in this area and I'm sure it translates to "Made in China".
Many of the Bible stories that had been hypothesized as arising out of an "Hebrew oral tradition" were now seen as coming from the same tradition as the world's earliest written documents.
I didn't know anyone was still arguing for the myth thing.
If the inscription comes from the beginning of Darius' reign, then he probably did put a head on a gate. He fought a two-year civil war (522-520 B.C.) to keep his throne, defeating nine enemies in nineteen separate battles, according to the famous Behistun inscription. The predecessor he overthrew, Smerdis, was very popular because he had decreed that no taxes would be collected for three years. And today's politicians have the nerve to claim that George W. Bush's tax breaks will break the bank.
How's that for a tie-in with modern politics?
"Hold my beer."
errr... what's the veracity of the Bible got to do with this? The Old Testament starting from Abraham is historically accurate and very verifiable even to modern day archaeologists(Genesis of course deals with pre-history!)
The Hittites were a known superpower in the Middle East. These indo-European people, successors to the Hurrians and Mitanni were powerful enough to cow the earlier 2000 BC superpowers in Mesopotamia: Assyria and Babylonia and also threaten the other superpower: Egypt.
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